The idea that public transport should be free is one that sections of the left have woken up to in the past few years, although it is a reality in many places on the European mainland.
The most notable advocates for free public transport in the British Isles have been the Scottish Socialist Party, though their idea looks unachievable unless Scotland could raise all of its own resources.
In Wales, it would also be impossible to deliver free public transport within a fixed Assembly budget. However, it is good to see that Plaid Cymru is now delivering free buses in the centre of Cardiff, as part of Plaid's policy to make Cardiff a sustainable city. It is notable that it has taken Plaid coming into government both nationally and locally for this to happen.
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I've not seen a single person on any of the free buses in Cardiff.
Free public transport is affordable if you think of it in economic terms and not accounting terms. Accounting assumes that the economics are currently level and the market is working. They are not and it is not. The auto system is heavily subsidized. A large part of the costs of climate change and oil wars should be charged to the auto and fossil-fuel profits; but are not.
AutoSprawl Externalities
Plaid is in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Or is that something you have forgotten. And yes it is Cllr Delme Bowen who is in charge of transport, however this achievement is as a result of the very fruitful coalition between Plaid and Liberalism.
I've seen someone on one of the free buses in Cardiff! In fact, I think there were two of them!
But it's really not surprising. It's a case of awful network design: virtually no-one's going to get to the edge of the city centre and then wait around for up to ten minutes for a bus that will take them via a circuitous route to the part of the city centre they wanted to get to.
What Cardiff needs is eight metro bus routes running at high frequencies (8bph daytime), providing both the central area service (without the different stop for each route issue that makes the buses unrideable for short distances and ruins the streetscape) and the major radials. There are various ways of achieving this, but I would suggest:
M1: Llandaf station - Whitchurch - Gabalfa Interchange - Park Place - St Mary Street - Lloyd George Avenue (or Bute Street) - Cardiff Bay - Ferry Road - IKEA - Sports Village
M2: Thornhill - Heol Hir - Templeton Avenue - Caerffili Road - Gabalfa Interchange - Park Place - St Mary Street - Lloyd George Avenue (or Bute Street) - Cardiff Bay
M3: Gabalfa Estate - Gabalfa Interchange - UHW - Allensbank Road - Cathays Terrace - Salisbury Road - St Mary Street - Wood Street - Ninian Park Station - Heol Trelai - Culverhouse Cross (or Drope)
M4: UHW - Gabalfa Interchange - Whitchurch Road - Crwys Road - City Road - Queen Street Station - Bute Terrace - Wood Street - Clare Road - Corporation Road - Cardiff Bay
M5: Pontprennau - Pentwyn - Llanedeyrn Estate - Penylan Road - Albany Road - City Road - Queen Street Station - Bute Terrace - Wood Street - Clare Road - Clive Street - IKEA - Sports Village
M6: Llanrhymni - Newport Road (and Broadway) - Queen Street Station - Bute Terrace - Wood Street - Neville Road - Cowbridge Road - Grand Avenue - Drope
M7: St Mellon's Estate - Tredelerch - Newport Road - Queen Street Station - Bute Terrace - Wood Street - Cathedral Road - Llandaf - Pwllmelin Road - Pentrebane
M8: Pengam Green - Tremorfa - Splott - Adamsdown - Dumfries Place - Castle Street - Cowbridge Road - Culverhouse Cross
(Ultimately, a look at LRT should be taken on some or all of these corridors. M1 and M2 above would be particularly good candidates.)
It would then be reasonable to do what one of the objectives of the free circular bus is: exiling miscellaneous less frequent routes to stops that interchange with the major routes before they get into the city centre where the million-stop phenomenon is a pain.
One finally oddity of the Cardiff shake-up is that they have taken the retrograde step of breaking up some cross-city routes. The alleged panacea here is the 1/2 City (formerly Bay) Circle. This route is not very useful to say the least. It runs just 2bph, stops early, and wanders all over the place, deviating so much from a true circle that it is a very slow way of getting anywhere, whilst making certain interchanges with radials involve much backtracking. Whilst I don't think it's possible to create a much more effective circular route in Cardiff (the streets don't run that way and the parks and industrial areas get in the way), this one shares all the problems of the free city centre bus.
I think this is very clever and worthwhile idea that will have a myriad of benefits.
At this stage of the environmental revolution we need to undertake, incentivising the use of public transport is an essential first step. What better way than to make it free or mostly free to concessions.
The free cardiff buses - which only operate in a fixed loop around the centre, only came in last week, and most peopel will not even be aware of them yet,
Look at them again in say 3 months time
Free public transport for pensioners has been a massive success, not just in terms of saving OAPs money but also in terms of increasing mobility and freedom for the elderly, especially those who can't afford a car.
How can you measure that in financial terms?
See David Taylor is spending his time at the House of Commons on the elect Carwyn role. Someone should look into if he is getting paid by the Assembly for the time he is spending out and about working on internal Labour elections?
http://davidcornock.blogspot.com/2009/10/labour-latest-owen-refuses-to-hang.html
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