On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:49:12 -0000, "Colin"
wrote:

It would be impossible to exert co-ordinated political control over a
Greater South East rail body in the same way as is possible in the GLA.
You would have continual political fighting between the labour suburbs and
Tory shires. And the Tory Shires wouldn't want their Council Taxes raised to
pay a share equal to that paid by GLA residents (when so many people out
there are quite happy with their private vehicles).

It's not so much the "Tory Shires" wanting their cars, rather that the
railway in the South East is largely geared up towards getting people
to London, and therefore is irrelevant to most other journeys, which
will either be by bus or more likely by car.

Public transport in Bucks, for example, is appalling outside the
towns, and middling to mediocre within them. If a South East PTE was
to be set up, for want of a better term, it would almost certainly be
London-centric. There would therefore be, from what I can see, an
increase in local tax for little local benefit.

Mind you, bringing back Network SouthEast, so long as it wasn't
accompanied by massive increases in council tax, wouldn't be
particularly unwelcome, and I don't see why it would be incompatible
with TfL taking on revenue risk for local services around London in
the same way as Merseytravel taking on revenue risk[1] for their
sponsored PTE services didn't affect adversely the fact that many of
their services run outside their boundaries.

[1] Which they've now relinquished to SercoNed, as I recall.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.