4 ms·

Since we go to cherry-picking, yes, it could be that 4x price difference reflects rather well the cost structure differences between London's commuter region an

Since we go to cherry-picking, yes, it could be that 4x price difference reflects rather well the cost structure differences between London's commuter region and that of Bucharest or Ljubljana. What would help this discussion would be to see stats of how fares, delays/cancellations and customer service satisfaction have developed since 1990. Not everyone agrees that privatisation was so bad. Wikipedia: Former Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen general secretary Lew Adams moved to work for Virgin Trains, and said on a 2004 radio phone-in program: "All the time it was in the public sector, all we got were cuts, cuts, cuts. And today there are more members in the trade union, more train drivers, and more trains running. The reality is that it worked, we’ve protected jobs, and we got more jobs." At least the popularity of train travel has increased: the number of passenger kilometres has nearly doubled in Britain between 2000 and 2014 (from 38.2 billion km to 62.4 billion km). https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/482736/rai0103.xls https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

crdoconnor 10y ago
>Since we go to cherry-picking, yes, it could be that 4x price difference reflects rather well the cost structure differences between London's commuter region and that of Bucharest or Ljubljana. It might, yes, which is why the ~12x (not sure of the exact difference but it's an order of magnitude for sure) difference in average price between London and Bucharest train prices is so outrageous. >Not everyone agrees that privatisation was so bad. No, the people who profited from it don't. >Former Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen general secretary Lew Adams moved to work for Virgin Trains, and said on a 2004 radio phone-in program: "All the time it was in the public sector, all we got were cuts, cuts, cuts. And today there are more members in the trade union, more train drivers, and more trains running. The reality is that it worked, we’ve protected jobs, and we got more jobs." This is all part of the privatization playbook - #1 defund public services, #2 say "aren't things shit? privatization will fix this!" #3 privatize. It's happening right now with the USPS. It happened to the UK post office a few years ago. Once privatized you've got a licence to price gouge. >At least the popularity of train travel has increased: the number of passenger kilometres has nearly doubled in Britain between 2000 and 2014 People commute longer and from further away due to rising house prices. It's not like people are suddenly bigger fans of getting on a train these days and getting up at 5 in the morning to go to work.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Your always going to get issues with cuts, financial issues in the public sector. It's very political, and will always be at the whim of the political parties. It's quite hard to argue for more spending. It's an advantage of being in the private sector.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    It's not an advantage of being in the private sector at all. If the TOCs weren't being regulated they'd cut as much if not more than the public sector while jacking up prices at the same time. This is pretty much what happened during the Californian electricity crisis (brownouts!). It's not hard to argue for more spending to the public. The public want that. It's hard because the political system is rigged against politicians who do so (for an example see all of the dirty tricks campaigns levied against Corbyn).
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Rising house prices are not really a reason for longer commutes, except on individual level. They both are symptoms of the same thing: population growth exceeds rate at which new housing is being built. And the reason for housing not being built at the pace of population growth is zoning: there's no land where you can legally build. It's a politically created problem. But having 69 % growth of train travel during a 15-year period where population growth was 10 % seems to indicate that the service has scaled well. Sure, train commute may not be fun but at least it makes it possible to have a job.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >Rising house prices are not really a reason for longer commutes, except on individual level. Individuals acting en masse are no longer just individuals. There's no rational reason why people wouldn't respond to prices. >They both are symptoms of the same thing: population growth They are symptoms of four things: * Population growth * A political decision to drive up the price of housing (described as "the wealth effect" by central bankers). * Wealth inequality - when Roman Abramovich occupies a house in central London he takes up 30-60x as much space as the average person. * A political decision to give favorable tax treatment to land ownership leading it to be treated as an asset of a similar class to gold. Meaning it is hoarded. Meaning row upon row of empty new build housing in central London. * Defunding local councils (Happened under Thatcher) meaning they couldn't afford to and eventually stopped building council housing. The forces that created these conditions were neither impersonal or inevitable. They were the result of a succession of more and more right wing governments (both Labour and the Tories) implementing deliberate policy. Zoning is only part of the problem. It's the most promoted problem because it gets in the way of land developers turning a profit. They don't give a shit about wealth inequality or the "wealth effect" and they'd prefer land kept it's favored tax treatment so they can effectively keep selling bars of gold to foreign investors.

crdoconnor 10y ago

>Since we go to cherry-picking, yes, it could be that 4x price difference reflects rather well the cost structure differences between London's commuter region and that of Bucharest or Ljubljana. It might, yes, which is why the ~12x (not sure of the exact difference but it's an order of magnitude for sure) difference in average price between London and Bucharest train prices is so outrageous. >Not everyone agrees that privatisation was so bad. No, the people who profited from it don't. >Former Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen general secretary Lew Adams moved to work for Virgin Trains, and said on a 2004 radio phone-in program: "All the time it was in the public sector, all we got were cuts, cuts, cuts. And today there are more members in the trade union, more train drivers, and more trains running. The reality is that it worked, we’ve protected jobs, and we got more jobs." This is all part of the privatization playbook - #1 defund public services, #2 say "aren't things shit? privatization will fix this!" #3 privatize. It's happening right now with the USPS. It happened to the UK post office a few years ago. Once privatized you've got a licence to price gouge. >At least the popularity of train travel has increased: the number of passenger kilometres has nearly doubled in Britain between 2000 and 2014 People commute longer and from further away due to rising house prices. It's not like people are suddenly bigger fans of getting on a train these days and getting up at 5 in the morning to go to work.

UK-AL 10y ago
Your always going to get issues with cuts, financial issues in the public sector. It's very political, and will always be at the whim of the political parties. It's quite hard to argue for more spending. It's an advantage of being in the private sector.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  It's not an advantage of being in the private sector at all. If the TOCs weren't being regulated they'd cut as much if not more than the public sector while jacking up prices at the same time. This is pretty much what happened during the Californian electricity crisis (brownouts!). It's not hard to argue for more spending to the public. The public want that. It's hard because the political system is rigged against politicians who do so (for an example see all of the dirty tricks campaigns levied against Corbyn).
ptaipale 10y ago
Rising house prices are not really a reason for longer commutes, except on individual level. They both are symptoms of the same thing: population growth exceeds rate at which new housing is being built. And the reason for housing not being built at the pace of population growth is zoning: there's no land where you can legally build. It's a politically created problem. But having 69 % growth of train travel during a 15-year period where population growth was 10 % seems to indicate that the service has scaled well. Sure, train commute may not be fun but at least it makes it possible to have a job.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >Rising house prices are not really a reason for longer commutes, except on individual level. Individuals acting en masse are no longer just individuals. There's no rational reason why people wouldn't respond to prices. >They both are symptoms of the same thing: population growth They are symptoms of four things: * Population growth * A political decision to drive up the price of housing (described as "the wealth effect" by central bankers). * Wealth inequality - when Roman Abramovich occupies a house in central London he takes up 30-60x as much space as the average person. * A political decision to give favorable tax treatment to land ownership leading it to be treated as an asset of a similar class to gold. Meaning it is hoarded. Meaning row upon row of empty new build housing in central London. * Defunding local councils (Happened under Thatcher) meaning they couldn't afford to and eventually stopped building council housing. The forces that created these conditions were neither impersonal or inevitable. They were the result of a succession of more and more right wing governments (both Labour and the Tories) implementing deliberate policy. Zoning is only part of the problem. It's the most promoted problem because it gets in the way of land developers turning a profit. They don't give a shit about wealth inequality or the "wealth effect" and they'd prefer land kept it's favored tax treatment so they can effectively keep selling bars of gold to foreign investors.