Gas guzzling drivers versus bus users – protecting the few, not the many
It’s not just nationally where the question of whose interests the Conservatives would govern in is posed. In London we are already seeing the impact on ordinary Londoners of an administration committed to defending the interests of the gas guzzling few against the needs of the public transport-using many.
Sir Simon Milton – Boris Johnson’s chief of staff – told viewers of the London segment of the Politics Show today that one of the principal reasons for scrapping the planned £25 CO2 charge on gas guzzlers driving into the congestion zone was that it would have hit families in the pocket.
Yet this is plainly not a consideration for public transport users, who were hit by Boris Johnson with a six per cent fare increase at the start of this year (including an eleven per cent increase in the cost of a single journey using Oyster), and who are to be hit with another punitive rise in January. The cost of a single bus journey will go up by twenty per cent. The FT has shown that it is the biggest real-terms increase in TfL’s history.
Clearly Boris Johnson’s need to protect the pockets of families in London extends only as far as those with the most polluting cars in the capital. Everyone else, it seems, can get stuffed.
Why do bus and train passengers always expect someone else to pick up the bill?
Buses and trains are hugely subsidised by the taxpayer and it is about time the passenger started paying for the service they are getting. At least 50% of train fares are taxpayer handouts and probably more for the bus.
Stop whinging on about penalising people who already pay many times over in taxation for your bus fare and try to understand that if you want fares reduced, then get shot of all those highly paid limpets in TfL who do nothing but cost a fortune.
Jason – two points:
1. Why do drivers of gas guzzling 4×4s and the like think they should be allowed to drive around London creating the pollution that condemns hundreds of thousands of Londoners to asthma and breathing difficulties and yet pay nothing for the damage they have caused?
2. 90% of people travelling into central London during the working week, when the CO2 charge would have applied, travel by public transport. It’s a nonsense to complain that “the taxpayer” is being penalised and that it’s “about time the passenger started paying for the service they are getting” because in this context there is very little difference between the ‘farepayer’ and the ‘taxpayer’. The real difference is this: when Boris puts up public transport fares he hits just about everyone except the small minority who can already afford to drive (largely expensive and/or company cars) in central London. When Boris scraps the CO2 charge it benefits hardly anyone except, guess who? The small minority who can already afford to drive (largely expensive and/or company cars) in central London. The majority of Londoners lose out on both counts.
Also, the congestion caused by private vehicles is itself a significant drag on the economy and the subsidies to public transport are in part a recognition of its role in mitigating this congestion. If as Jason seems to suggest we stop subsidising PT then the entire transport system would swiftly collapse, with obvious impacts for the wider economy.