To think our public transport system needs a complete overhaul?

[creatorofthecoastguard]

I’m currently on holiday in southern Europe, and on an intercity train.

So far I’ve encountered trams that are a flat rate of €1.70 a journey, buses that are €1.50 a journey, trains that are actually affordable (£9 for a 45 minute journey across the border!), it’s all been amazing. Every train has been clean, spacious, yes busy in places but only when it’s to be expected (going to popular destinations). The intercity train I’m on now isn’t oversold, isn’t rammed full of people, there’s enough luggage space.

It’s really eye opening to how poor our public transport actually is. Expensive, poorly maintained, and poor conditions.

AIBU to think it needs an overhaul, and soon? I know it wouldn’t be cheap, and that a lot of our issues stem from post-WW2 when we didn’t upgrade our risks compared to most of Europe, but it needs doing!

Won't happen in the UK, for the public transport to work you need an integrated system, look at HS2 - so many years, so much money and so little of it being built. Its the environmentalists that are the problem. Start building a decent rail system and then get feeder busses into that.

Too many poor people, how very thoughtless of them 😱

@crackofdoomWell they don’t spend money to they? Where is there a bouyant turn city centre in a run form area? Of course it’s a money issue! Vapes and charity shops abound because they can survive. No one else can. No spending money, no decent shops! Surely everyone knows this?

Because of high charges, our city centre car park are usually pretty empty. Long gone are the days when you'd be driving around a couple of times trying to find a space. As a result, the main shopping area is also pretty empty both people and shops (probably half are boarded up/derelict). There needs to be a better balance.

Vape shops and turkish barbers and the like don't survive as genuine shops, most "survive" because they're money laundering. Charity shops survive because they're exempt from some taxes/rates and usually get very cheap rents from the landlord.

One of the issues is poor financial planning of big public sector projects. I used to work with a guy who was doing the same job as me but in HS2 and he was earning 5 times what I was earning. We would meet regularly and he was doing very little. There was no one to check what he was doing, I think the organisation wanted to tick a box to say that they had someone to do this job. He would attend meetings and speak a lot of nonsense about how great he was but would achieve very little. He could be quite aggressive with colleagues and so I am guessing that was a way to deflect. I think any public sector projects need proper accountability or suppliers etc.. take advantage.

Ironically, part of the ethos of the Beeching cuts to the rail network was to have local buses connecting the stations that were closed to the nearest station that was to stay open, i.e. covering branch lines etc to get people to the main line station. Unfortunately, it simply didn't happen.

@LadyChilli

The radial system means having to go into the city and back out for almost every journey.

Yes, far too many places like that, where all the bus routes take you into the centre and then you have to change and get a different bus out the other side. My son had that problem in York. Wanting to travel a few miles around the ring road from where he lived to the big shopping area. Literally a 5 minute drive by car, but more like 90 minutes each way as the bus from his flat took him into the city, where he needed to change to a different bus out to the shopping area, both very slow tortuous routes stopping every few minutes. Heaven knows why they don't have a bus route that goes around the ring road to link the shopping areas to the Unis and other areas of high population.

It needs a complete overhaul. How train drivers can be paid more than nurses, police and army is crazy. It’s too expensive and too inefficient. Unions are killing the system.

Strong unions are killing everything they get involved with. They first destroyed the UK manufacturing industry. Now they're killing public services, including the trains, NHS, local authorities, etc. We've got to the crazy stage where public services are for the benefit of the staff, not the public. It has to change.

Good point. We should probably euthanise the poor due to their failure to prop the economy up.

(In actual fact, people on low incomes keep money flowing in a better way than the rich do, due to their tendency to spend it all, rather than shove it in offshore accounts and sit on it)

How nurses, police officers and the army aren't paid as much as train drivers is indeed, crazy. Their wages should be raised to that level, rather than having a race to the bottom though.

I came back from 5 days in Switzerland last night, we did have a Swiss Travel Pass that did seen expensive, probably could of saved some money here and therebut the almost stress free travel in spotless on time trains was amazing. It covered all transport and some museums

We did have a little bit of delay on one journey due to a train being stuck and oh my the consternation from locals. We overheard someone phoning ahead to say he was stuck and laughed they wouldn't be believed

We use the trains about once a month and one particular route (Manchester to Southampton visiting Birmingham and Oxford is hell on earth we started to go another way. One journey from Oxford to Middlesbrough cost me £175, so my Swiss pass was a bargain

Last year I was in Luxembourg and transport is free

@Oldraver It’s nowhere near that off peak!

But who pays? We're already trillions in debt and paying more in interest than we spend on education. We can't tax workers any more. Rising wages of millions of people to the level of train drivers would drive us into bankruptcy. The answer is more self driving trains (which of course the unions are bitterly opposed to!!).

Luxembourg manages to have free transport because it has a population about the size of Bradford and is a very wealthy tax haven.

Somehow other countries manage it? Did they all practice strict austerity after the 2008 recession?

Live down a rural branch line? In the UK, you probably have a few trains per day. In France there might be a morning commuter train to town and one back in the evening, no more

Just noticed that..must depend where in France you are because our local rural line (City at one end, just a small ski resort and mainly cows at the other) has hourly trains to/from the big city, just an inevitable gap at lunch time.

Sub €10 for a single roughly one hour journey (much less on some saver and season tickets), much used by students and commuters.

Disappointing hear that it's not the same in some parts of the Hexagon

It wouldn't be great to raise income tax any more. Taxing the assets of the wealthy, perhaps in the form of a land value tax, would be good. And, given that BP recently posted quarterly profits of $5.73bn, a further windfall tax on oil company profits would serve to keep nurses from having to use food banks and subsidise a few train fares, wouldn't it.

Sack every transport worker and start again. There’s enough unemployed who can push a button. People would be happy with disruption for a period if a better future was certain.

I live in a town in the south west only 100 miles from London, with a population of around 20k people. Nearest stations are half an hours drive in opposite directions, or a £25 taxi ride. The train in to London (off peak) is £40/£50 return for a 60 minute journey. Over £100 if you want to travel peak hours, Trains from my nearest station are regularly cancelled (I’m looking at you GWR) often with only 15 minutes notice when you are on the way to the station. How can they be that inefficient?

@crackofdoom In London that’s the same as income tax! It’s not going to
work. Who’s doing all these valuations? It’s going to have ability to
pay issues too. If you seriously think punitive taxes will fund railways, you are truly not much good at economics. HS2 is £100 billion plus from London to Birmingham! Can we just get real please. The better off already pay for the minority of what others get!

Well Kemble to Paddington, just over an hour, is £13.50 off peak. Great value - I have just checked it. I simply think people don’t travel at times to suit their budgets. Or they simply are not truthful. Many people don’t live near stations! You have to drive to one in many rural areas.

I can get a weeks travel card in Europe for £20-30!

No it doesn't touch the sides when the country is trillions in debt and paying 100 billion each year in interest. Taxing BP at 100% would only bring in 5.73bn and wouldn't last long as they'd simply stop operating in UK waters if they didn't get a big enough return. The numbers are too big to heavily tax a proportionally tiny number of people/firms.