A fare-free travel system for the UK

"The following calculations, for this much grander scheme ? a totally fare-free rail service for the entire UK ? are based on figures provided by Paul Withrington of Transport-Watch"

He's the nutter who'd like to achieve a fare-free rail network by getting rid of trains and converting all the railways into roads.

Or alternatively

That is hilarious! Have you considered a career as a comedian?

It's the funniest thing I have read this year, apart from "Dumb" Bell's daft N-S high speed railway proposals. Thanks for posting!

What utter drivel.

A bit long and rambling, but an interesting idea. Trouble is that there are too many vested interests to stop it happening.

You would probably get the Murdoch press, the Torygraph, Brucie, etc., whingeing about the 5p in the £ extra income tax to pay for it.

The railway unions would oppose it because of all the staff who would lose their jobs.

The car & oil industries would moan because it might reduce the sales of cars & petrol.

The bus company shareholders would whinge about loss of dividends from their TOC's

The EU would probably say it is unfair competition for the car industry.

etc., etc.

Bevan

Many people would choose to give up running a car,,,,, they would be better off, even with a 5p increase in the tax rate?

More people using more trains, more routes being opened (or re-opened) would result in more staff being employed?

And??? (Personally I would put the oil companys in the same heap as bankers and politicians..... a heap ready to be loaded on the next tumbrill.... :o).... )

See above.

Let them say what they like. If the EU doesn't like it, let them expel us.

I suspect it suspect it wouldn't be just those that would complain about a 5% income tax raise to pay solely for free train travel!

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:08:56 +0000, Ian wrote

Most people don't live within walking distance of a railway station. Many don't live within a bus ride of a railway station. A considerable number don't live within a £20 taxi ride of a railway station.

The idiot lives in London. He must think public transport is available in the wilds of Cumbria and Northumberland just as it is in London.

Free train travel to cut down the cost of living in the capital, piad for by me,l whilst I'll get bugger all but increasing petrol costs. I know lets all have free petro or diesel, and free cars while we are it.

And just think of the demand for free train travel. It would have to be limited, just as BR was forced to limit it by pricing, so I guess some form of permit to travel would have to be issued for a train trip. That means someone to issue them, that means wages to be paid, that means that the permit would be subject to a small charge, then a larger charge, then a charge by the distance travelled, lets call it a ticket!

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 10:45:04 +0000, brightside S9 wrote

Here's an idea, Londoners gets free train travel and we in the sticks are allowed to use our red Diesel in road vehicles. That's a fair swap.

Make taxis free too :)

Once demand increases, there would possibly be more stations, on even more lines, surely? So: whilst it is indeed true that many people would still not live near a station, many more than at present, would do so.

On the other hand, a large number of communities, even whole towns, have been created around railway stations.

Quite.

...one would imagine that with greatly increased ridership many new lines would become viable, but there would still be great swathes that would require public transport to get the to the stations. The easiest of which would be a decent provision of free feeder bus services tied into the free rail provisions being proposed. Similar in concept to plusbus I would imagine, just with a free ticket.

It's the train operators who are laughing; even if you don't use the trains you are paying them out of your taxes.

Tell us something we don't already know.

In uk.railway Stimpy twisted the electrons to say:

What constitutes "walking distance" when you say this? Obviously different people will have different ideas as to what would be reasonable (one person's walk to the shops might be a major expedition requiring a support vehicle to somebody else!), but just wondering what sort of ballpark figure you had in mind?