London Banter - View Single Post - Oyster: still an unreliable rip-off

Robin9 · 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Recliner[_2_]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 01:14:58 +0100
Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:35:10 GMT, d wrote:

On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:15:39 +0100
Paul Corfield wrote:
I am amazed that ordinary punters manage to miss those headlines. I
agree it would not be usual fare for tourists to see that info but
then again I've no idea what rip offs there are with the Navigo
smartcard in Paris or Miki in Melbourne.

Most cities don't have to worry about all this nonsense in the first place.
They charge flat fares - problem solved.

And yes it *could* be done in London - its done in new york and moscow, both
of which are larger systems than the underground.

I deliberately ruled out a flat fare as I knew you'd be along to
propose it. :-)

Naturally Because it makes sense.

The government and Mayor are forcing TfL to make their rail services
all run at an operating profit and make surpluses to fund some of
their investment funding. New York's transit funding is notoriously
bad and unpredictable and looking at their current budget there is a
massive operating loss of nearly $6bn just on the Subway and Staten

You see there you , the usual railway operating at a loss statistic. No one
ever accuses roads of running at a loss - how much money has the M1 made for
itself since it was built? Not a penny. Its the profits made by companies
using the infrastructure that matters, not profits made by the infrastructure
itself. That $6bn pales into insignificance compared to the money that Wall
Street makes every week thanks to employees getting their by subway. And its
the same story in london.

Presumably you're ignoring the taxes and duties made on road vehicle sales,
fuel and ownership, all of which rise with more roads and their usage?
They greatly exceed the cost of building and maintaining roads. Roads make
a clear direct profit for the Treasury and the economy, while railway
investment has to rely on more intangible questions of overall societal
business benefits, which may well be huge, but are hard to measure, let
alone predict. Hence the HS2 debate.

Is VAT still charged on motor insurance policies? A very nice earner for The Treasury.