Should the government sort out public transport (buses/trains) before taxing us on cars and flights?

Question

This is in response to the new tory proposals that want to impose heavy taxes on larger cars, more car park fees, taxes on internal flights, etc.

Yet they are leaving us with no alternative but to use these!! If I want to go to Newcastle, London or Scotland (which I do relatively frequently) then the train ticket prices are astronomical, sometimes as much as a flight, and I often have to stand in a crowded and packed carraige. (It's actually not much better than the train network in India, where I've just spent the last couple of months, and believe me for a so called 'rich' country as ours that is a dire insult.)

Also getting around anywhere by train or bus is often difficult and really expensive, the bus networks outside of major cities are a joke.

So what are we expected to do here? I'm all for saving the envioronment, but squeezing more money out of us is not the way to do it.

Should we all just stay home and not go anywhere? That seems to be what they want.

Robert, thanks for your answer.

Yes you caqn vote for other parties, but once one party puts a tax in, the others will all jump on the same bandwagon. There is no real difference between them.

And yes repairing/improving the rail/bus/road infrastructure would cost a lot of money, but there should be no need to raise taxes to pay for it. We are already one of the highest taxed countries in the world, what do they do with all that money? Wate it, that's what. Instead of giving all our money out to Europe and foreign countries, they could use that on the infrastructure here, what about the money they waste on benefits? That could buy some new trains. You get my point.

Answer 1

I totally agree. If you want to go to Scotland from London you would fly these days. It's cheaper and quicker even though it's more hassle than the train.

They are just using the environmental panic-mongering as a way to cash in on more taxes that people will not object to on moral rather than political grounds.

Answer 2

Our present government (including all the opposition), are a total buch of useless morons who are so protected by the salaries and expenses that we pay them, that they are completely out of touch with reallity.

Their only answer to almost every problem is to tax people more.

You have only to look at Calamity Cameron's latest wheeze to tax people to use supermarket car parks to see how crass he (and the rest of them), can be.

For example, how on earth does he think that anyone could take their kids on the bus to a large supermarket (it doesn't really matter how near or far the supermarket might be to their home), and then return ON THE BUS with a weekly shop costing £60 to £100 or more, and probably amounting to 20 or more shopping bags full of heavy shopping.

It doesn't matter how good he makes public transport (and I doubt that he would actually be able to make any appreciable difference to it anyway), it simply isn't practical for people to do what he is suggesting. And that doesn't even take into account the cost of travelling on public transport which has now become overpriced and quite expensive, particularly in relation to short journies.

So what should we do?

I think we need to halve the size of government, which would save billions of pounds for the country. Some of the money saved could be put to saving the universe if that makes some people happy, and the rest could help to pay to get the public transport system working again without constant interference from politcians who really know nothing about it.

Answer 3

Cars are now VITAL. There is no going back. The little towns and villages which kept people in jobs and food without the need to travel far are long gone. You need a car now just to go to the post office. Buses will never suit everyone, nor are they a civilised way to travel. Cars are now essential in most aspects of life and are very very heavily taxed.

If any government was serious the would re phase the traffic lights immediately to make traffic flow. They are now designed to hold you up. I cant think of anywhere where traffic lights are a must. (I was a cab driver in London, so not ignorant to the situation).

More roads need to be built urgently, if there were enough roads you wouldn't have congestion. Look at northern France's motorways compared to our embarrassing efforts.
Politicans are to blame for congestion due to bad management.
The solutions are there, the money is taken quick enough in taxes. Now start spending it on roads and stop finding excuses for your failures.

Answer 4

The government likes quick fix solutions that wont cos it money. taxing fuel, cars, flights and many other energy using pastimes is its way in trying to get people to change their energy use habits.. What you have to remember is that people vote and by using that vote you can either elect of leave unelected parties that have the more radical views on how to tackle climate Change.

To rebuild the damage to the rail road and bus infrastructure caused by previous blundering quick fix funding solutions is going to take a huge amount of money that will have to be found from taxation.. No political party will pledge to spend billions of pounds when they know that it will be easier to tax people rather than build new infrastructure to cope with the obvious demand.

Answer 5

Public transport should be sorted out properly to give a viable, efficient, cost effective choice to the consumer. This will never happen though.

Public transport gives you 5 tonnes on your carbon footprint as well, whether you use it or not.

Private companies will not spend share-holders money if they don't have to.

People in Government are very clever as they don't want the public transport systems improved. They are only interested in raising taxes. By not improving public transport, people still have to use their cars ( more taxes ) as there is no realistic efficient way for them to travel unless heavy financial investment is made.

Either way they have got us all by the short and curlies, and they know this.