The people who use public transport should pay the market price for their seat. There is no justification for taxing poor people to subsidise the travel of others.
The people who use public transport should pay the market price for their seat. There is no justification for taxing poor people to subsidise the travel of others.
August 13, 2008 at 08:15 |
Hi Malcolm,
I agree to some extent, however poor people are more likely to benefit from public transport than the rich (who can afford cars and don’t want to associate with the poor!) and if people are commuting to work then surely it’s their national insurance that is paying for the benefits of the poor, so some kind of kick back that encourages them to take the bus rather than yet another car on the road is a good thing?
And of course in some rural areas, routes would dissapear leaving the poor effectively trapped in their local area?
August 14, 2008 at 09:57 |
Hi and thanks for your comment.
Let us be clear what public transport is. As Barbara Amiel said, she and Lord Black did not travel on Concorde because they did not use public transport. Personal transport is not only cars. Very low cost commuting is carried out by bicycle, moped, etc.
Because of our age, my wife and I can travel free on some public transport despite being able to afford to pay for our own travel needs. If we want a pleasant resort day in Southport or to shop and research our Roman history in the beautiful historic city of Chester we can do so at no cost at all. What should a low paid person working their guts out to pay their exorbitant Council Tax think about subsidising my genteel entertainments. Poetry is my hobby. I can travel all over Merseyside for nothing and have an alcoholic drink at my poetry evenings safe in the knowledge that I have a free journey home and not needing to worry about driving. If I use the train for this purpose the carriages are usually almost empty. Few of the passengers that are on the train have to pay any fare. The truth is that a huge proportion of the journeys carried out on subsidised public transport are unnecessary, and thus environmentally damaging. Is it really right that hard pressed taxpayers should subsidise my hobby?
Commuting in London and big cities is facilitated by buses and trains, but the commuting routes and times are busy and could be sustained without subsidy. Before I retired I sometimes needed to travel from Liverpool to London. At short notice. It was actually cheaper, more comfortable and convenient to take a shuttle flight than to use the train. The air travel industry is completely unsubsidised and very competitive and the railways consume billions in subsidy. What does that tell you?
Yes, many bus and train routes in rural areas would go in the absence of subsidies. It is the existence of these costly and wasteful provisions that is suppressing the market in truly flexible transport which would properly meet individual needs. Buses and trains are extremely ineffective rural provision because they are not flexible enough. A person with limited mobility (whether it is because of age, infirmity, small children or heavy shopping), needs transport from home to destination and back. From station to station or bus stop to bus stop is often useless. It is impossible for taxi companies to provide point to point minibus or PCV transport while subsidised competition exists. These sorts of privately owned services run very well in other countries and often provide efficient, cheap transport for quite poor people.
Whether cars or buses and trains are better for the environment is very complex. Modern cars produce very little pollution and of course they vary in fuel efficiency, but some are very economic indeed. Buses are kept for a very long working life, typically more than thirty years. The result is that many buses pour out masses of filthy exhaust fumes full of large particulates that blacken buildings, turn mist to smog and fill our lungs with stinking filth. When the bus is not full, as is always the case outside peak times, the financial cost to the taxpayer and the environmental overhead per passenger will often be far greater than if the passengers had used personal transport. Running trains with few passengers is even worse. Did you know that Merseytravel gets only about ten perecent of its income from fares. All the rest comes from tax funded subsidies. This is an obscenity. Ninety percent of this bureaucratic monster is paid for by people who may never use any of its ’services’.
By the way national insurance is just tax with another name. It was originally meant to cover the costs of health and unemployment provision, but it is not hypothecated so it just goes into the government pot. Because I am retired I don’t pay NI and that is another unfairness for the working poor.
The reason that subsidies are paid is because whatever is being subsidised could not survive from the amount of demand for that service at the price it can be efficiently provided. It necessarily follows that a subsidised service is something that is not sufficiently wanted that it should survive. Much more importantly, the market distortions caused by subsidy prevent the development of goods and services that evolve with changing need and accurately meet the requirements of users.
We do not have subsidies because people would genuinely suffer if they did not exist. They are there because we have developed governments that seek to interfere wherever they can in order to justify their own existence in ever increasing empire building. This is increased by popularity seeking politicians who respond to minority demands to continue services that have outlived their justification in a changing society.
The taxes necessary to maintain our massive network of subsidy is undoubtedly a bigger burden on the poor than it is on the rest of us. The greater efficiency of a properly functioning free market would be much more likely to be able to provide everybody with transport options that meet their needs and they could afford.
The public transport lobby is full of irrational prejudices. Aircraft and taxis are just as much public transport as buses and trains. Cars and planes are often more fuel efficient and less polluting per passenger than trains and buses. Integrated transport plans are a complete fantasy. I have seen countless numbers of them throughout my adult life. Not a single one has ever succeeded. Humans are no more capable of planning transport than Stalin was of planning the Soviet economy. Only the market can make efficient provision. Subsidies by themselves do not bring about the gulag and mass exterminations of objectors, but the planning mentality is the same coercive tyranny as the Stalinist dictatorship. We need to resist our lives being run by those who believe that they know what is good for us.
Here is my feeling about it:
Integrated Transport Plan
Have you seen
the bus that’s empty?
Driving by the cycle track.
The cycle track
with no-one on it.
Going nowhere,
no-one going.
Just a waste
of thick, white paint.
See the station,
costing millions.
Many miles
of metal track.
Rocking gently
in the carriage,
free pass riders
nod grey heads.
They have no reason
for their journey,
but why stay home
and spend on fuel.
Look upon
the tramlines winding
through the
city centre roads.
See, here comes
the sleek tram snaking
through the milling
shop bound crowds.
A few smug souls
are disembarking.
Clutching transport
plans in hand.
They’ve jobs for life
and first class pensions.
Planning travel
for us all.
They are green,
and clean of conscience.
Hair shirts
underneath their suits.
These bureaucrats
will integrate us
in a non-
polluting way.
Have you seen them
save the planet?
With empty buses
belching smoke.
See the costly
train now tracking,
full of free ride
passengers.
A multi-million
tramway triumph.
Jams the city
to a halt.
Integration is
complete now.
None can move
and no-one pays.
That car polluter
sold his vehicle.
Taxed until
he couldn’t cope.
He left his job
in deep depression.
All business died,
devoid of hope.