From The Evening Standard:
More than 50 leading City figures today urged the Government to protect the Tube from devastating cuts...
David Campbell, president of AEG Europe, which owns the O2 arena, and George Iacobescu, chief executive of Canary Wharf Group, were among the signatories to the letter. Both firms rely on the Jubilee line, which has faced some of the most severe delays.
The high-powered list includes representatives from banking, property, tourism, airports, financial services and the retail sector. Square Mile chief executive Stuart Fraser has thrown his weight behind the campaign.
The letter said: “We understand the need to review spending and aggressively prioritise programmes, but also the need to invest in capacity for growth, especially in our transport system. Investment in physical infrastructure increases long-term economic output more than any other kind of investment.
How about asking people who benefit most from the existence of London's transport network to cough up? Superficially, that means fare increases, of course - if fares were (say) doubled then the system would probably break even (and not be so crowded). But people who run businesses accessible mainly by public transport benefit just as much again, don't they? As to people who own houses with good transport links (which would otherwise be nigh worthless)...
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Probably correct - but who should pay for it?
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6 comments:
I wonder would Ricardo consider the subsidy of nearby transport links to end up in the house price/rent?
How about running it as a business, and actually thinking about the customers and their benefit and requirements, rather than those of the employees?
London Transport already gets a pretty hefty subsidy (and the Jubilee Line Extension cost around £3bn of taxpayers money).
AC!, yes of course he did.
Ch, a good start, of course.
JT, the Jubilee Line thing is a sore point with land value taxers, because the Reichmans offered to pay for the entire Jubilee Line out of their own pockets, knowing full well the increase in rental values at Canary Wharf would rise by a multiple of this one-off cost. The Thatcher government turned them down.
For a while I used to catch the Jubilee Line most days starting at Stratford. Some better off Wharf bound people - but mostly not. Most people are not well off by any means, mixture of Eastern Europeans, Asian and African immigrants and working to middle class whites.
If you say doubled the fare you would simply price these people out! Most of these people would try and find alternative routes (bus?) for necessary travel and simply pass on discretionary travel.
On the other hand I would expect that the demographic originating out West (St Johns Wood, Bond St crowd) would be fine.
I've always liked the efficiency of the Jubilee line in terms of moving the masses at peak times (c.f. Canary Wharf vis-a-vis Tottenham Ct Rd.) but the colour scheme is positively morbid. Moving from a grey overcast drizzly london day above ground to a totally grey/black tube line underground doesn't do much for the spirit. Designers love silver because it seems all metallic and sleek and modern. It's not.
I'm not sure that increasing the fares would do much, as passengers would just opt for other forms of transport. Anyway, as you point out, it's the passengers' employers that benefit most, not the passengers. Note that all the people urging the Gov't not to cut the subsidy are the people who are benefiting from this subsidy, so of course they are going to say that. OTOH, if the Gov't ignores them, as it should and probably won't, then they may follow the example of the Reichmann brothers and put their hands in own their pocket for a change, instead of the taxpayers'.
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