Alistair Darling probably never expected to be Transport Minister, and undoubtedly needs all the help he can get. So why not use the combined thinking power of Backroomers to put together a coherent transport policy, and then send it to him? Here's my contribution for starters:
Cars:
1. Abolish road tax for cars under 1100cc, and motorcycles under 500cc. Increase motorcycle parking provision, and consider providing dedicated ?small car? parking bays in cities.
2. No stopping zones within 400 yards either side of school gates ? improves safety and discourages parents from driving their children half a mile to school instead of making them walk. Police to patrol the area when children coming in or out of school ? both to enforce the no stopping zones and to persuade parents that their children are safe to walk on the streets.
3. Set up a clear and well publicised system for the public to suggest changes to road layout, traffic light timing, speed limits etc. (The Internet is an ideal medium for this.) No-one knows more about the roads than the people who use them every day, and people are more likely to accept some restrictions if they are given a genuine means to suggest improvements.
Buses:
1. Forget about trying to persuade people en masse to use buses instead of cars ? it won?t work, and there?s no point trying to build a transport strategy around the assumption that it will.
2. Dedicated bus lanes are pointless ? they just create a tailback which stretches beyond the point where the bus lane starts, and the buses get trapped with the rest of the traffic. Buses are mainly used by children, students, pensioners and the unemployed, all of whom have plenty of time on their hands. They don't need speeding up, especially as they spend half their time stationary at bus stops anyway.
3. Use tax incentives to persuade bus operators to switch to LPG or biodiesel.
Other public transport:
1. Encourage tram and light rail initiatives where they make commercial sense. Make it as easy as possible for private operators to build and operate these systems. Don?t leave all the decision making to local councils or nothing will ever happen ? like the proposed St Ives ? Cambridge route, where various bits of local government have spent 15 years arguing over whether it should be rail, light rail, tram, guided bus or conventional bus, and who will pay for it. A private operator could have had the system installed, paid for and making money by now.
2. Railways ? dig out some old history books, and reorganise the railways on the same lines as in 1923. Four or five geographically distinct operators, each with responsibility for trains and track in its area. Ensure that specialist independent operators (like Freightliner) can run their trains on the new companies? tracks.
3. Explain to the railway companies that people need to get to their stations before they can use the trains, and they will probably drive there. This means car parks. Explain to them that it is possible to build a car park on more than one level (it?s called a multi-storey car park), and that if they only charge a small parking fee for people who buy a rail ticket, they?ll get more passengers.
General
1. Recognise that you do not get unbiased, sensible views by talking to self interested lobbying groups, that consultants will always propose the solution which generates the greatest amount of consultancy fees, and that government employees will always propose the solution which creates jobs for the greatest number of government employees.
2. If people say that they want to drive everywhere, don?t insult them by telling them that they are wrong. If you want to change their behaviour, by all means bribe them with their own money (that?s what the tax system is for), but don?t penalise them personally and individually for choosing the private car over less practical alternatives. Make the alternatives equally practical and no more costly, and some (but not all) people will use them.
3. Ignore the wilder predictions about increased car ownership / use. A man may own ten cars (or three Jags), but he still can?t drive more than one at a time. If you want to control car ownership, you can only do it by making the poor poorer, so that they can?t afford to buy cars. Pretty much everyone above poverty level who wants a car, already has one.
Richard Hall
bangernomics.tripod.com
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Well, did anything happen about the suggestions?
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No, but Alistair Darling dyed his eyebrows black and pressed on with the war on motoring.
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Fifty percent reduction immediately: Even numbered Regs on even dates, odd numbers odd dates.
Owners to have a garage.
Utilise spare road capacity at night by allowing HGV's free Excise Duty 1Opm - 6am. Have a Road Traffic Control Centre like the aviation industry and allocate slots for road use.
Age limit for a Driving Licence to be raised to 25 yrs of age.
Bring back the gibbet for speeders.
DvD (in a trench - hard hat on)
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if the train stations has a station master, instead of being deserted, there would be a lot less vandalism, and the cars in the car park wouldnt get nicked so often - meaning people mught actually park up and get the train
im sure the economics of a station master on what 20 or 30 k per annum must be cheaper than cctv and fixing so much vandalism ?
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"Fifty percent reduction immediately: Even numbered Regs on even dates, odd numbers odd dates"
DVD, they tried it in France, the French (bless em!) ended up buying another car to use on the alternate dates. Some of them didn't even bother doing that, they just used different number plates.
Some hauliers at a seminar I was at a couple of months ago suggested abolishing public transport by train, leaving the train system to take cargo thereby reducing traffic and the need to repair roads as much. It was slightly tongue in cheek but they made the point.
It was also pointed out that on many bus routes, it would be cheaper and more eco-friendly to have a Rolls-Royce picking people up because so few people use them out in the country!!
More seriously, how about re-negotiating the franchise of train operators so that they don't have to run x number of trains per hour regardless of whether or not anyone is using them?? Would reduce costs for 95% of the other train users.
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abolish all passenger trains.
(that saves about £30 Billion over the next 10 years)
Increase size of all airports. Shuttles from major cities doubled. Public subsidy = nil.
Increas most motorways' capacity by adding extra lanes.. and add toll booths. Close 50% of all M25 access raods to prevent local use.
Ban all use of cars in inner London.
madf
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madf..........you are, aren't you?
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