20 buses burn

Turtle said:
Perhaps, if the memorandum was enthusiastically delivered with a strategically situated panga or bullet :D ... THAT might wake up some sleeping bureaucrat gravy-trainers :)

I was initially going to trash your comment until it occurred to me that you may actually be onto a deeper issue here .. how CAN (or should) citizens hold a failing government to account, when formal accountability structures are also failing? When is insurrection justified? Ideally you just want to send a pointed message to government officials: 'Do your job, or else' - but taking it out on buses is pointless, because the officials don't care about them. Their own hides have to be on the line.
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Thank you.
 
IanC said:
No I don't want them to do nothing, I would like them to be able to vote with their feet. My proposal is competition, I would like to see 2 or 3 bus companies competing for the business. If one screws up there's 1 or 2 others to take up the slack (and the cash). The possibility of all of them screwing up at the same time is remote ... this is the point (kingmonty take note) that I would have a problem with violence i.e. when people have a REAL choice, not some hypothetical version that we've cooked up online.
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Hence my comments on regulation and subsidisation. You need to encourage and organise new players. I don't understand how you intend to implement your programme without the proper structures?

EDIT: in Britain TfL manages London's buses, the Tube, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), London Trams, a 580km network of main roads, all of London's 4,600 traffic lights and regulates taxi's and the private hire minicab trade. Transport for London (TfL) is a local government body; hence regulation.
 
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IanC said:
I would like them to be able to vote with their feet. My proposal is competition, I would like to see 2 or 3 bus companies competing for the business.
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I'd like to ditto that, but you're still left with the same initial problem, the same useless bureaucrats responsible for public transport today would also be responsible for opening the market. Ain't gonna happen. The honorable Jeff Radebe has come out time and again guns ablaze against any whisper of the notion of competition, blocking no-brainer progress e.g. Soweto Monorail, and has gone out of his way to grant route monopolies even in an industry that should be competitive, taxis (edit under the flimsy pretense of protecting the industry from violence, I know ... but that lawlessness itself is also a symptom of failing government).
 
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timgaul said:
Er... what? I'm talking about where I was.
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I'm sure you were and I was talking about where I lived, never mind and lets agree on the following on UK transport:
  • It's perpetually late.
  • You don't always get a seat.
  • On the UG at rush hour, you generally end up with your nose in someones armpit:sick:.
  • In the UK you have alternatives.
 
This sounds like a similar story a few years ago where there were mass demonstrations against unemployment. The first thing that happened on the day of the strike was - burn the trains... wtf? The next thing was mass teacher strike shortly after. What did they do? Burn the schools... I will agree that I find it very hard to understand the necessity to burn things but to me it is the behaviour of barbarians. After you burn the school down, what do you do the next day. IQ or no IQ, you sit there the next day with no school and nowhere for the children to go. It makes no sense. The reason that burning things is so acceptable these days is because there is little or no consequence. You never read in the same article depicting the burnt out buses that suspects were arrested on charges of arson... THAT is what really needs to change...
 
IanC said:
I'm sure you were and I was talking about where I lived, never mind and lets agree on the following on UK transport:
  • It's perpetually late.
  • You don't always get a seat.
  • On the UG at rush hour, you generally end up with your nose in someones armpit:sick:.
    [*]In the UK you have alternatives.
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And what I said was, you don't always have an alternative depending on where you stay in the UK. And when a problem arises you don't go burn the train.
 
timgaul said:
in Britain fL manages London's buses, the Tube, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), London Trams, a 580km network of main roads, all of London's 4,600 traffic lights and regulates taxi's and the private hire minicab trade. Transport for London (TfL) is a local government body; hence regulation.
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London has been around (in one form or another) for roughly 1500 years ... are you seriously suggesting that we try to compete with that??
 
IanC said:
London has been around (in one form or another) for roughly 1500 years ... are you seriously suggesting that we try to compete with that??
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So because regulation works in Britain its no good anywhere else?

EDIT: and actually its more like 2000 years, but that is besides the point.
 
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timgaul said:
And what I said was, you don't always have an alternative depending on where you stay in the UK. And when a problem arises you don't go burn the train.
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No because you have other laws (that are enforced) protecting you ... although I'm quite sure most UG travellers would happily burn it on occassion :D:D.
 
IanC said:
No because you have other laws (that are enforced) protecting you ... although I'm quite sure most UG travellers would happily burn it on occassion :D:D.
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Thats something else entirely. That place during rush hour! :eek:

Even if laws protect me, I am not walking for 2 hours in the snow to the next station. There really is sometimes no choice.
 
timgaul said:
So because regulation works in Britain its no good anywhere else?

EDIT: and actually its more like 2000 years, but that is besides the point.
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Actually I nearly typed 2000 but I thought someone might bring me up on that ... so I chose the inner limit. There isn't much of Roman London left you know.
 
IanC said:
No I'm saying we're trying to run before we can walk.
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I still don't understand how having a regional transport agency is running before we can walk. It is an essential tool to organising public transport. What services help what areas, where services are needed where, where new companies would be most effective, ensuring adequate signage is available, issuing tickets encompassing all bus companies and dispersing the proceeds amicably, ensuring prompt service by all players, etc, etc.
 
IanC said:
Jeezuz, where were you ... the Hebrides???
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A even smaller town, connected to another small town by a single train. Not in the middle of nowhere, but still a good two hours walk to the next town. Unfortunately the train went one direction and the buses the other.

Incidently, if I were in the Hebrides a small row boat service might have been required! :D
 
timgaul said:
A even smaller town, connected to another small town by a single train. Not in the middle of nowhere, but still a good two hours walk to the next town. Unfortunately the train went one direction and the buses the other.

Incidently, if I were in the Hebrides a small row boat service might have been required! :D
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You're talking to a bloke who visits his relatives in the Shetlands:D
 
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