Letter: A Wholesale Rethink Is Necessary to Solve Our Traffic Problem

Published on: 22 Oct, 2017
Updated on: 22 Oct, 2017

From Bibhas Neogi

Calum Shaw in his comment on my previous letter: Never Mind the Ding-Dong, What About the Traffic? acknowledges that not all journeys are possible by public transport. We do not all live near railway stations and bus routes, so a car or a bike ride to connect with the public transport is necessary for many. If the journeys originate and terminate in areas not served by either railways or bus routes, then cars and bikes are the only options.

I’m afraid building more railway capacity is not the answer unless fares are subsidised by the government. Unfortunately, trains have become unaffordable even when they carry passengers crammed in like sardines. Semi-privatisation is not benefiting the passengers; it is the train operators that are profiting from subsidised railway tracks maintained by government’s Network Rail Company. Subsidy could come out of huge revenues collected from the motorists.

A wholesale rethinking is necessary to solve the problems of travel by public transport and congestion on road network. The central government needs to raise revenue from somewhere else instead of raiding the revenues raised from the motorists to the extent they do now.