Free Public Transport for All

'Free' in the sense that all pay into the community pot according to their means and equally share the benefits. It is called taxation, but really ity is about sharing.

In a modern society everyone needs to move around. To get to work. To see friend. To get to entertainment. At one time the physical capabilities of an individual limited the amount of movement they could accomplish in a day. Transport has eliminated that constraint. Consequently, rightly or wrongly we now travel further for many of our essential needs. such travel is a cost to the individual and a cost on the environment. The cost on the individual can only be eliminated by eliminating transport.

Genrally transport systems work on the basis of the individual paying for that transport on a mixture of fixed costs and usage costs. It is the same for personal and public transport. Road and vehicle taxes are fixed cost, fuel and wear are variable costs. For public transport fixed cost, such as roads, come out of the community fund, taxes while the cost of travelling is judged on the basis of distance travelled.

Land based ublic transport is much easier to make carbon free. Electricty produced from carbon free systems can power most land based public transport. Guided systems such as railways, tramways, monorails etc. are the easiest. Un guided road systems less so, although Trolley buses are used in built up areas for passenger transport with storage systems beyond the trolley supplies.

Non contact inductive supply systems are being developed which eliminate the need for overhead supplies for road systems. On most routes public and private transport could take energy from such systems, using onboard storage systems, susch as batteries and fuel cells as power away from the supplied routes.

Beyond the range of current storage systems can be catered for by increasing the penetration of guided transort systems and developing higher energy storage systems. Hydrogen is awkward to store, but can power the current design of internal combustion engines with little modification. The increase in bulk due to storage demands is acceptable for non urban environments. Eventually hydrogen storage will be compressed more, fuel cells will become more effcient and transportation will become electricty/hydrogen based. When all the electricity is produced from carbon free sources then all transport can become carbon free. Shipping can be nuclear or hydrogen powered while aircraft can be fuelled with hydrogen.

By forcing an increase in public transport, by increasing capacity at the same time as reducing the need for extensive personal transport, a carbon free future can be created for our future generations.

FREE THE ROADS

Roads are for traveling along. So why do we allow vehicles to park on them?

By parking I mean leaving the vehicle unattended for long periods of time.

Two lane highways are reduced to single lane because there are cars parked along the side of the road. Why, because the house they are parked in front of has no where to put the car off road, and even when they have a lot of people are just to lazy to use it.

The solution:

No parking on any A or B road, anywhere.

No parking on any public transport route.

What do the people do who have no where else to park their car/s? Well I would expect local entrepreneurs would soon make land available for off road parking, at a price. It would certainly make a lot of people appreciate the true costs of car ownership and as public transport would now be able to move easier usage would increase with benefit to all.

Really the problem is only cars and vans. Roads are not clogged with transport vehicles parked along the side of the road. In fact they are generally the victims of on road parking.

Of course some vehicles need to be stationary on a road to perform certain tasks. Not a problem. They are licensed and whenever stopped on the highway display a suitable sign and/or flashing light.

Roads are for travelling along, not parking on.