Just a thought I had today. I was wondering about traffic, and whether if the taxpayer just paid for public transport, would that help with the traffic problems? Everything would be included; bus, train and tram. How expensive would that be?
It could work though, if you wanted to go to Dublin in the morning the bus would be a very good alternative money wise, and naturally because there would be so many buses running frequently and not affected by nasty traffic it would be attractive time wise too?!?
Of course it would be expensive for taxpayers living in Ballybackofbeyond who would effectively be subsidising commuters and those other people who live near the public transport system (i.e. within 50miles of the east coast). Maybe my hare-brained scheme needs some refinement.
But if public transport subsidy increased rather than decreased, would we use it more often? The bus from Naas to Dublin costs about €7 return. Outside of peak rush hour, it sometimes turns up (twice I've wanted to go to Dublin at about 8 o'clock and the blimmin bus never turned up!). If 2 people are travelling, it costs €14 and a loss of independence. You'd get approximately 4 hours car parking for that money.
I know, I know, driving costs money too in terms of petrol and tax and insurance and tyres and bearings and shocks and brake pads and all those other things, but those costs don't figure on the average morning you're deciding whether to take car or bus. So, faced with €14 return on a bus that ties you to a timetable or take the car up and have as much flexibility or freedom as you might like, I know what I choose.
If however we decided to subsidise the bus, it might only cost €2 or something. It might come at a time that suits me, say every 15 or 20 minutes. It might only take 40minutes to get to Dublin, because other people will have decided to also get the nice clean frequent cheap bus to dublin rather than take the car.....Does this make sense or am I talking out of my blog? Comments please.........
It could work though, if you wanted to go to Dublin in the morning the bus would be a very good alternative money wise, and naturally because there would be so many buses running frequently and not affected by nasty traffic it would be attractive time wise too?!?
Of course it would be expensive for taxpayers living in Ballybackofbeyond who would effectively be subsidising commuters and those other people who live near the public transport system (i.e. within 50miles of the east coast). Maybe my hare-brained scheme needs some refinement.
But if public transport subsidy increased rather than decreased, would we use it more often? The bus from Naas to Dublin costs about €7 return. Outside of peak rush hour, it sometimes turns up (twice I've wanted to go to Dublin at about 8 o'clock and the blimmin bus never turned up!). If 2 people are travelling, it costs €14 and a loss of independence. You'd get approximately 4 hours car parking for that money.
I know, I know, driving costs money too in terms of petrol and tax and insurance and tyres and bearings and shocks and brake pads and all those other things, but those costs don't figure on the average morning you're deciding whether to take car or bus. So, faced with €14 return on a bus that ties you to a timetable or take the car up and have as much flexibility or freedom as you might like, I know what I choose.
If however we decided to subsidise the bus, it might only cost €2 or something. It might come at a time that suits me, say every 15 or 20 minutes. It might only take 40minutes to get to Dublin, because other people will have decided to also get the nice clean frequent cheap bus to dublin rather than take the car.....Does this make sense or am I talking out of my blog? Comments please.........
Thanks Darin, what you say in the 2nd para. is important to my point of view obviously. I wonder if doing this would encourage people to use PT for routine trips - shopping, work etc.- saving cars and whatnot for leisure use?
ReplyDeleteA thought that is sort of related to tax money spent on public transport: This applies primarily to Dublin rather than outside the capital but one of the strategies of the councils appears to be to make travelling in/on your own mode of transport such an inconvienience that you would change over to public transport. Take for example bus lanes. Quite a good idea I suppose but does Dublin bus pay 1/3 of all road tax as they get special use of 1/3 of all the roads? Furthermore a recent development in bus lane policy is to put traffic lights at the end of them that only stop the private vehicles travelling in the same direction. This is to allow the buses to pass these vehicles and make better time. Contra-flow bus lanes allow buses to use roads in certain directions that the private user is banned from using. All these items are already paid for by the general tax payer. To summarise, we already heavily subsidise the public transport system and I think that the quality of the service is the limiting factor in public usage rather than the price.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, but think of the fuel we could save by using public transport. It would leave a lot of cheaper fuel available for longer for things like motorcycling at the weekends, delivering apples to Tesco in Naas from South Africa and making plastic for clothes that wee Malaysian children can earn lots of cents on every week sewing together for us rich Westies.
ReplyDeleteI think that the quality of the bus is limited by the competition, i.e. cars. If the bus was made much more attractive, more people would use the bus, less cars, better quality bus transport - it's a self-perpetuating cycle that ends up making the mundane commuting travel more cost- and energy-efficient leaving everybody with more time, money and oil overall! Obviously if, say you're an engineer and you have a site visit to make - take your car! Or if you're a paramedic, take the ambulance to work! But Bob who works in accounts from 9 to 5 and only leaves the office at 1305 to buy a baguette with ham, cheese and coleslaw (on a Friday) doesn't need to bring his personal car in (as long as the Public Transport exists).
Great to see people leaving comments and opening the discussion!
Some good points well made...
ReplyDeleteYou touched upon something I was only thinking about the other day, that is the cost in terms of fuel and the environment in transporting goods from far flung places. While buying some groceries in my local Superquinn I noticed at the check-out a 'special' offer of a bunch of roses for €5. Where were these roses from I hear you ask (actually that was the voices in my head but enough on that). Kenya. I must admit my initial reaction was one of outrage, how much fuel and materials were consumed to fly flowers thousands of miles from Africa (presumably stopping off at an intermediate airport aswell) so that I could purchase them here? I recalled my experience to a n other leaving out my opinion on the matter and their initial response was positive; supporting fair trade and providing a market for Kenyans to trade their way out of poverty. Interesting. Assuming mr farmer from kenya is getting more than 1/2 cent per thousand roses this is indeed a good thing. I still stand by my initial thoughts but it isn't as clear cut as originally assumed. Interesting indeed.