Transport in London is shit

-- Vintage Latin (doglati...), February 14th, 2006.

yeah, we entrust this kind of thing to JOHN PRESCOTT so, well, there's your joined-up govt for ya.

It's the difference between the state being obliged to provide people with a reasonable wuality of life, and the state being obliged to provide people with the perfect ideal-world life they want.

the 'burbs and the commuter towns were *designed* for commuters!

I don't know if that's quite true - they became necessary due to inner-city overcrowding I guess, yeah. But being built through necessity, and being "designed" aren't really the same thing. Still, I guess that yeah, it's a bit naive to say "everyone who works in london should live here", so there wouldn't be room. In that sense, you're maybe right that the state has responsibility to make commuting viable.

But then London salaries are still weighted up. So I guess that extra money people make here either goes on rent/mortgage, if you're central, or else travel, if you're not. Swings and roundabouts though, it all sort of balances out in the end.

And yeh, it is a bit silly to say "if you want to work in London, you should live here too" because otherwise everyone would end up living in London in the end.

Thes things aren't a right! They're a luxury! 50-60 years ago, my grandparents lived outside oldham, and went to wakefield every year for their holidays. Blackpool if they were feeling flush. And that was that! They didn't feel they were being fucked over by the government cos they couldn't ever afford the fare to Brighton or Bath instead. Yeah, sure, some people can afford to travel round lots more nowadays, and they're lucky. If you can't, tough shit, that's not the government's fault. And all these people who *are* travelling round more are creating a lot more greenhouse gasses while they're doing it. The world would be better off if they'd stay put a bit more. A good way to encourage people to do this is to have it cost a realistic (rather than a subsidised, cheap) amount.

Oh get outta here, nobody ever went to Wakefield for their holidays! Where's the friggin' sea for a start?!??!?!

i think:

a) expectations of public transport are at the least hopeful, if unrealistic
b) public transport wholly in the hands of the public sector historically has not been overly successful in this country
c) private sector involvement in public transport by no means guarantees improved service and the objectives of private companies (ie $$$$) frequently and unacceptably conflicts with the aims of public transport provision (ahaha which are ______ ?)
d) comparisons to public transport in other countries frequently forget concrete factors eg population density, density of building, exisintg infrastructure, and more unprovable ones; political willpower, general incompetence in administration. and crucially "willingness to pay". this thread has established that there is a low willingness to pay for transport in the form of fares, but what about our willingness to fund transport through tax revenue? e) the british suspicion of public spending and the ability of the public sector to spend public money in an effective way, cf the intense scrutiny that public bodies are under when a tenner is mispent, completes a vicious circle with the inability of the public sector to "deliver" good services and not spend money well.

as with health, there is a certain extent (which in health is mostly very small) to which we can influence our own demand for that service. that makes up participants, not total victims, in the service that we get.

everyday i have to straighten out problems that are engendered by a deregulated environment in which transport finds itself. nevertheless, i cant see the current ethos being changed across government, and wholesale renationalisation coming in. nor am i convinced that it would solve the problem. as a result, i have to try and work within this to get the best out of the situation. control over fares, service quality, dirty buses etc is only going to happen with a degree of regulation. the effects of the market are warped when it comes to transport because there is a captive market for starters. thus first will continue to make profits even as patrongae declines as they squeeze higher fares out of those who have to use their services and can least afford it. the situation in london as regards the buses is pretty much the optimum i think, in terms of what we can aspire to. other countries are taking an interest in the situation in the UK and the situation where large amounts of public money are spent on public transport in Europe, and high levels of service are achieved, may well change over time.

in my own time spent living in london i found the service excellent and affordable. i lived next to a bus route, changed twice to get to work, it took me 40 minutes and cost me 2% of my weekly earnings to travel. This was in my estimation, a good service. i never got the tube as i got to wherever i wanted to on the bus, and if i couldnt get there by bus, most of the time i didnt go - i tailored my lifestyle to bus routes by and large. i got a pre pay oystercard for one off tube journeys but hardly ever used it.

i feel that we dont value transport enough as a nation. we are unwilling to accept how dominant it is in our lives, laugh at those who pursue an active interest in it, expect it to be much cheaper than maybe it can be, and dont accept that increasingly it needs to influence our choices in life in a much more dominant way. our demand for travel has skyrocketed as transport has become more available, faster and easier. but transport is a derived demand. it exists only because we create a scenario in which we need it. i welcome bad or good press about transport, eg recent far increases in sheffield, becasue it stimulates people to think about what they want from transport, and how they view it. should we able to journey from one end of a large metropolis to another to visit a friend, in under and hour and at a certain price? what costs are we imposing as a result of this desire? if we want cheap, high qwuality public transport, how will it be paid for? by the farebox, or through public spending from taxes? are we competent enough to spend money well enough to deliver that service? how do our desires for freedom, individualism and even eccentricity conflict with the ability to provide an efficient transport system?

These things aren't a right! They're a luxury! 150-160 years ago, my great-great-grandparents worked in factories at the age of nine. They certainly didn't expect a hand-out or "health-care". And that was that! They didn't feel they were being fucked over by the government because it refused to tax the factory-owners in order to give them a life over the age of 35. The world would be better off if people died younger. A good way to encourage people to do this is to have healthcare cost a realistic (rather than a subsidised, cheap) amount.

Jobs that require this type of relatively-underpaid (or even unpaid) initial experience invariably make up for it later with significantly higher salaries...the only reason they can get away with that system is that they're high-demand jobs, and they're high demand because they're ultimately lucrative. Yes, it's sucky in many ways, but you can get a loan and pay it off later. or you can choose to work in a diffeerent industry. What you can't do is expect taxpayers in general (many of whom DO work in other industries) to help you out by subsidising your travel.

move to holland LOL

This is a myth, or a hangover from the seventies or something. My central London salary is not weighted, and a quick look at job offers would suggest that not many are, at least not in the private sector.

Disagree. On a local level it works (and worked) well. Admittedly there were problems on a national level - but mountain/molehill time

Except that obviously they're not the same thing, the right to healthcare is NOT the same as the right to go somewhere nice for your holidays. It just isn't.

-- JimD (ji...), February 14th, 2006.

tbh i think dog latin was talking about jobs in the media/publishing, most of which are not all that lucrative. it's a small point, but the london bias of the media/publishing nexus which favours those yougnsters whose parents live in london, does tend to skew the media in a white, u-mid class fashion (ok maybe it'd be that way whatever...).

Can you imagine what BRB would have done with the amount of money poured into franchises?

Seriously, you don't need to tell me that.

im not sure what you are referring to in terms of public sector running public transport. where is this done at a local level? maybe the rail franchise that runs down in Sotuh London?

admittedly i barely remember BR in a way, but i remember it being the butt of jokes about service quality etc. i wonder if it isnt tempting to becoming dangerously nostalgic though. let me change that to:

"b) public transport wholly in the hands of the public sector historically has not been as completely successful as is often imagined in this country"

btw, this would be all a lot easier if we called it mass transit rather than public transport, like the americans. then we might stop expecting it to be a public service.

Tsk, they'll want the vote next!

I suspected that most of the people involved in this thread would barely remember BR. Ed's got it right, I think with the amount of money and subsidies lavished on the private companies, BR would have produced a far better service. And if you really want to talk about "dangerous nostalgia", how about dickheads who have barely started shaving are still going on about the Winter of Discontent a hundred years after it happened?

Yes there were failing, Cross country Intercity services and the WCML were in need of a refresh and managed decline out side of the London Inter-City and London Commuter was in the mindset (but has that really changed).

Scotland is the only place where privatisation has really improved matters but that is only because devolution gave the scottish executive control over funding and deliverables and there is a single operator for all bar cross border services. So it can be argued that devolution had more of an effect on Scottish Railways than privatisations did.

two possibilities spring to mind:
a) a belief that private sector involvement would bring about improved service

b) to reduce the burden on the public purse

maybe a) was misguided, and b) time will tell whether public spending on railways overall has increased or decreased overall since privatisation. but presumably there must have been sonme truth in the above, to bring about the desire change. were the tories going against the wishes of the electorate as a whole in 1994? these are questions not smart alec rhetoric, i think i might come over a bit know it all when writing on here, but the opposite is true, i know very little, but am interested in the sort of assumptions that transport debates throw up.

i dont love, "i'm colin, im your customer service manager for your journey today"

i hate britains replacement of 'the' with 'your', its an americanization i cant stand.

why should we lower our expectations?

indeed! i dont know, really. how do we exercise our demand for higher and higher quality in eg clothes shopping? generally by going to a different shop if one doesnt meet our expectations. as this sort of competition a) i dont think can really exist b) hasnt materialised (it seems to be easier to buy up small bus operators and create monopolies rather than trying to meet customers expectations) we are in a strange position when it comes to what we can expect from transport. the captive nature of the market skews things a great deal. i think high expectations are positive in a way but i think that unrealistic expectations can lead to a sort of detached hectoring (im thinking of groups other than ILX btw) that divorced from many of the facts or realities of the situation means that a solution isnt going to be reached.

the distinction between "passengers" and "customers" is quite interesting. what is a "passenger"? why is someone getting on a First bus., buying a ticket to the city centre on an unsubsidised route anything less than someone buying a pint of milk in Tescos?

You forgot by far the most important factor:

c) IDEOLOGY

Also, Thatcherite Liberal Ideaology.

-- Ed (dal...), February 14th, 2006 2:07 PM. (later) (link)

So privatisation of the railways has been on a par with other privatisations, really.

I don't remember if it was part of the 1992 manifesto, probably yes, it was deeply unpopular though, however everything the Tories did was deeply unpopular by about 1993, the tories could have given every voter solid gold bricks in 1997 and still not got re-elected.