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Kickstart
The Oracle



Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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PostPosted: 21:02 - 24 Jan 2009    Post subject: Bus subsidies Reply with quote
Hi

This is a (now closed) consultation on bus subsidies. But has a few interesting bits on how much we are paying for buses even if we don't use them.

https://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/closed/bussubsidy/condoc.pdf

All the best

Keith
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Skudd
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PostPosted: 21:37 - 24 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Buses are run by private companies ( except London) so why should I have to subsidies private companies that actually inconvenience me in my travels? Buses are not for normal people who need to be able to get around 24/7 quickly.
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plugger147
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PostPosted: 23:03 - 24 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Couldn't be arsed to read it all but I'm sure I just read we waste £2.5b on bus subsidies ??? I wonder which politicians have shares in bus companies Laughing
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owdamer
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PostPosted: 23:55 - 24 Jan 2009    Post subject: Re: Bus subsidies Reply with quote
Kickstart wrote:
Hi

This is a (now closed) consultation on bus subsidies. But has a few interesting bits on how much we are paying for buses even if we don't use them.

Keith


Hmm. According to page 6, Kickstart & Challenge get £11m.
Anything you would like to share with us Keith?
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carvell
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PostPosted: 00:07 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well it's either we all chip in, or OAPs have to pay £5,000 a year or whatever for a pass.

Hmmmm!
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carvell
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PostPosted: 00:08 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Skudd wrote:
Buses are run by private companies ( except London) so why should I have to subsidies private companies that actually inconvenience me in my travels? Buses are not for normal people who need to be able to get around 24/7 quickly.

sigh...
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Kickstart
The Oracle



Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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PostPosted: 01:08 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Re: Bus subsidies Reply with quote
Owdamer wrote:
Hmm. According to page 6, Kickstart & Challenge get £11m.


It is my evil clone.

All the best

Keith
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Robby
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PostPosted: 05:00 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
carvell wrote:
Well it's either we all chip in, or OAPs have to pay £5,000 a year or whatever for a pass.

Hmmmm!


So you're saying the solution is to matrix up the old people, and use the electricity generated by their bodies to charge electric buses. Driven by robots.

Everybody wins, until cyberdine bid for the contract. They always provide a terrible service, and destroy humanity to boot.
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Skudd
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PostPosted: 10:09 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
carvell wrote:

sigh...


I sigh alot too. I need to get to work 8 miles away. I need to be in work for 6.30 am. I would need to catch two buses, have to walk a mile takes about an hour and a half. I would need to leave for work at 4.45am to catch the bus, if it ran at that time.
In a car or bike I would leave for work at 6.10am. Door to door and in the bad weather I would be warm and dry.

sigh...
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carvell
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PostPosted: 10:34 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Skudd wrote:
I sigh alot too. I need to get to work 8 miles away. I need to be in work for 6.30 am. I would need to catch two buses, have to walk a mile takes about an hour and a half. I would need to leave for work at 4.45am to catch the bus, if it ran at that time.
In a car or bike I would leave for work at 6.10am. Door to door and in the bad weather I would be warm and dry.

sigh...

You still don't understand why you should "have to subsidise private companies that actually inconvenience me in my travels"?

So the answer is to remove all buses from the roads because you don't want to pay for them. Might as well remove trains while we're at it too then, I imagine it's the same story there.
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Skudd
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PostPosted: 10:42 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
carvell wrote:

You still don't understand why you should "have to subsidise private companies that actually inconvenience me in my travels"?

So the answer is to remove all buses from the roads because you don't want to pay for them. Might as well remove trains while we're at it too then, I imagine it's the same story there.


Trains, same thing, for the price of a ticket from say my sisters in London to back home just outside Liverpool and the time it would take plus the change of trains and the walk, it would be cheaper and quicker to use bike/car and I get to go when I like.

In Blackpool they have taken some train tracks up and put roads in, the traffic flows much better now.
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Hetzer
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PostPosted: 10:57 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Skudd wrote:
carvell wrote:

You still don't understand why you should "have to subsidise private companies that actually inconvenience me in my travels"?

So the answer is to remove all buses from the roads because you don't want to pay for them. Might as well remove trains while we're at it too then, I imagine it's the same story there.


Trains, same thing, for the price of a ticket from say my sisters in London to back home just outside Liverpool and the time it would take plus the change of trains and the walk, it would be cheaper and quicker to use bike/car and I get to go when I like.

In Blackpool they have taken some train tracks up and put roads in, the traffic flows much better now.


And what about all the people who can't ride/drive or afford the means to ride/drive?
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Kickstart
The Oracle



Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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PostPosted: 11:10 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hetzer wrote:
And what about all the people who can't ride/drive or afford the means to ride/drive?


Take into account the cost of the subsidies and the amount the passengers are paying and it would probably be cheaper to just tell people to get taxis.

All the best

Keith
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carvell
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PostPosted: 11:58 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Skudd wrote:
Trains, same thing, for the price of a ticket from say my sisters in London to back home just outside Liverpool and the time it would take plus the change of trains and the walk, it would be cheaper and quicker to use bike/car and I get to go when I like.

In Blackpool they have taken some train tracks up and put roads in, the traffic flows much better now.

I'll say it again, you still haven't got it!

Not everyone has a car or a motorbike. OAPs for example, most of them rely on the buses and trains. In Skudd's Britain all OAPs and people who couldn't drive for whatever reason would be sitting at home wasting away, able only to either pay a load for a taxi or just sit at home and waste away.

How are students going to get around too? The vast majority don't have cars, and I know first hand that there aren't even close to being enough parking spaces on any uni campus for *every single student* to park a car there.

I can use the city of Bath as an example, hoardes of buses transporting students to and from campus. There's absolutly no chance that the roads would be even close to handling a taxi for every 4 students (assuming every taxi was full, also where are the taxi drivers coming from?).

We need buses and we need trains. They have to be paid for by someone.

The system works as it is.
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Hetzer
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PostPosted: 12:02 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Kickstart wrote:
Hetzer wrote:
And what about all the people who can't ride/drive or afford the means to ride/drive?


Take into account the cost of the subsidies and the amount the passengers are paying and it would probably be cheaper to just tell people to get taxis.

All the best

Keith


Not for my wife and kids it wouldn't. They make extensive use of the buses and the Rover ticket is a very good deal. Thumbs Up
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Kickstart
The Oracle



Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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PostPosted: 12:33 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hetzer wrote:
Not for my wife and kids it wouldn't. They make extensive use of the buses and the Rover ticket is a very good deal. Thumbs Up


On the basis that around £2.5b is spent on people doing about 50 billion passenger km, each passenger km is subsidised by everyone else by 5p. So on top of the fares your wife and kids are paying for a trip for the 3 of them there is an additional 24p a mile. Probably pretty close to the costs of running an extra car when you add the fares.

carvell wrote:
In Skudd's Britain all OAPs and people who couldn't drive for whatever reason would be sitting at home wasting away, able only to either pay a load for a taxi or just sit at home and waste away.


If taxis were subsidised to the level of buses they would be a hell of a lot cheaper, and being smaller and quicker to move off they would disrupt the traffic far less for much of the day.

carvell wrote:
We need buses and we need trains. They have to be paid for by someone.

The system works as it is.


Perhaps we do, but maybe those using them could pay for them.

All the best

Keith
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Skudd
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PostPosted: 21:06 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
carvell wrote:

I'll say it again, you still haven't got it!

Not everyone has a car or a motorbike. OAPs for example, most of them rely on the buses and trains. In Skudd's Britain all OAPs and people who couldn't drive for whatever reason would be sitting at home wasting away, able only to either pay a load for a taxi or just sit at home and waste away.

How are students going to get around too? The vast majority don't have cars, and I know first hand that there aren't even close to being enough parking spaces on any uni campus for *every single student* to park a car there.

I can use the city of Bath as an example, hoardes of buses transporting students to and from campus. There's absolutly no chance that the roads would be even close to handling a taxi for every 4 students (assuming every taxi was full, also where are the taxi drivers coming from?).

We need buses and we need trains. They have to be paid for by someone.

The system works as it is.


You don't get it!
Where are poor people, OAPs and students going that is more important than where I want to be?
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carvell
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PostPosted: 21:56 - 25 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
Kickstart wrote:

Perhaps we do, but maybe those using them could pay for them.

Rich people have cars, poorer people such as students and OAPs use buses. I wouldn't want to stand up in parliment and announce a further tax for OAPs, before mentioning that business men who drive about the place would have a reduction in tax.

With regards to replacing buses with taxis, it'd never happen. Huge bendy buses take students up to campus in Bath (one of the smallest unis in the country) in the morning. Hundreds and hundreds of people packed into buses one after the other. You will never find enoguh taxi drivers to cart them about, and there's no chance replacing them all with taxis would be quicker.

I think we can agree that buses and trains have to stay, and I for one think that it's a better system if every tax payer chips in rather than us massively ramping the bus prices up, to presumably an unaffordable level for most who use them (who don't happen to be very wealthy most of the time).

Using the same logic as presented in this thread, bikers should pay thousands and thousands of pounds when they fall off and end up in in NHS care. Of course they odn't, they don't pay any more than me. I don't mind paying, because I like to think we live in the kind of society where it's not every man for himself!
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Kickstart
The Oracle



Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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PostPosted: 00:09 - 26 Jan 2009    Post subject: Reply with quote
carvell wrote:
Rich people have cars, poorer people such as students and OAPs use buses. I wouldn't want to stand up in parliment and announce a further tax for OAPs, before mentioning that business men who drive about the place would have a reduction in tax.


Removing a subsidy isn't a further tax.

carvell wrote:
Hundreds and hundreds of people packed into buses one after the other. You will never find enoguh taxi drivers to cart them about, and there's no chance replacing them all with taxis would be quicker.


Average bus in the UK has 9 passengers. Sure a fair number in rush hour, but that shows you how few there are for the rest of the day for the average to be that low.

carvell wrote:
I think we can agree that buses and trains have to stay, and I for one think that it's a better system if every tax payer chips in rather than us massively ramping the bus prices up, to presumably an unaffordable level for most who use them (who don't happen to be very wealthy most of the time).


Not so sure. I object to being hammered with tax for having a car or bike, and pilloried for it with all sorts of unpleasantness (eg, closing roads for bus lanes, speed humps, closed car parks, proposed congestion charges and workplace parking charges, etc), while those who choose to use a bus (something no better on fuel consumption per passenger mile) gets their bills partly paid. Personally, scrap pretty much all indirect taxes and stick it all on income tax.

carvell wrote:
Using the same logic as presented in this thread, bikers should pay thousands and thousands of pounds when they fall off and end up in in NHS care.


The NHS can claim. They can claim back treatment costs from the insurance companies where a personal injury compensation claim has been made. So we will be paying for that through increased insurance premiums.

All the best

Keith
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