We face catastrophic climate crises, rampant poverty, and growing inequality. We need Free Public Transport to fight poverty and pollution together.
Road traffic accounts for 73% of air pollution – cars alone for 45% of it. Many working-class people have no access to a car.
Bus routes are being cut. Crazy competition between rival privatised bus companies creates traffic chaos. Train timetables are being flashed; ticket offices shut. Fares are rising beyond people’s reach, leaving the poorest in terrible social isolation. Ferry services face chaos due to ageing ferries.
We can’t expect people to cut car usage without a decent, reliable, vastly expanded, free public transport alternative.
Public transport should be a public service, not a money-making machine for a handful of millionaire capitalist owners who make a packet out of the privatisation racket.
Delegates to the COP26 conference were given free travel of new electric buses, the Glasgow Subway, and trains to and from Edinburgh. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for the people of Scotland – of all ages.
For over 20 years, the SSP has pioneered the fight for a vastly expanded, integrated, free public transport system – when every other political party opposed the idea.
The SSP – including our Council candidates in May 2022 – are demanding immediate ownership of all bus services by local councils, with investment in expanded fleets of electric or gree hydrogen buses, with expanded routes and timetables to meet public need – all run fare free.
We demand full, democratic public ownership of our railways – including the building and maintenance of trains – as part of a free public transport service embracing trains, buses, trams, subways, and foot-passenger ferries.
A free public transport service, powered by green renewable energy, would boost working-class families’ incomes, reduce the human suffering and NHS costs of asthma, respiratory diseases, and road accidents – and help combat global warming. It could create at least 60,000 new, secure jobs
Join the SSP in fighting for immediate action to build a free public transport network, as part of a Socialist Green New Deal to combat pollution and poverty – and create over 350,000 new, green jobs in Scotland.