In the early 1980s, the Greater London Council under Ken Livingston slashed fares and began to move towards free public transport. The policy was backed by 71 per cent of Londoners, but was destroyed by the Thatcher government and the Law Lords, backed by the car, haulage and oil industries.
Within a year, ticket prices in London had doubled, car journeys had rocketed
and there was an extra 6000 accidents on the city’s roads. A similar
policy in South Yorkshire under David Blunkett was similarly torpedoed.
That was before scientists had discovered global warming and the dangers
of greenhouse gases. Twenty years on, our towns and cities are heading towards
permanent gridlock and scientists are pressing the panic buttons. And the
idea of free public transport is starting to make a comeback.
In the Belgian
city of Hasselt, which covers an area double the size of Dundee, congestion
was eliminated in the late 1980s after the introduction
of a totally free public transport system. Within a year, bus passenger journeys
rose by 870 per cent and have now increased by over 1000 per cent. In dismal
contrast, the Scottish Executive has set a target for an annual increase
of one per cent in bus journeys and two per cent in rail journeys. (See attached
document supplied by the Mayor of Hasselt City Council)
The
Danish government has commissioned a research group to examine the feasibility
of a free public transport system (Copenhagen
Post November 22, 2006 ).
The Melbourne Age newspaper, edited by Andrew Jaspan
(a former editor of the Sunday Herald, The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday)
has called for
state-wide free bus travel in Victoria (A radical idea, The Age, May 5
2006)
Matthew Parrish, a Tory MP under Margaret Thatcher, who played a key
role in destroying South Yorkshire’s cheap fares policy, now admits he was
wrong and has called for London-wide free bus travel: “I was wrong.
I have changed my mind…Never mind the ideology, it just makes sense.” (It’s
big, it’s red, and it’s free – and it will save London;
The Times. May 8 2003)
Visit Scotland (formerly the Scottish Tourist Board)
recently published a report which set out the policy implications of global
warming by 2015: “In
order to reduce dependency upon the car, we will see a number of measures
to move people onto public transport. These will include free public transport
for all in Scotland, whether this is buses or trains”. (Visit Scotland
report: Tomorrow’s World, May 2006)
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