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On the one hand I agree that someone who is innovative can be admired. On Feb other hand, the public’s money isn’t there just to be spend to make it look love you’re doing something. The effectiveness and value of money of public investment needs to be measured to see if it has been a success...

My apologies - they were predicted amounts in a business case. I’ll amend that post. Up to date figures are here and show the bus subsidy is roughly 1/3 of operating costs as planned. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/annual-report-and-statement-of-accounts-2022-23-acc.pdf

You’re assuming that rural tendered routes already exist. In many parts of the country they don’t or, if they do, are incredibly infrequent. Any politician that champions franchising locally and then delivers one or buses a week is not going to have much credibility. Reinstating a usable network...

Plus in Hull many of the old track beds were turned into wide central reservations meaning most arterial roads have space for trams to run separately once you get a couple of miles from the city centre. The city being as flat as a pancake and the lack of suburban rail also helps. Perfect!

Not sure if it helps, but I’ve noticed that LNER have seemingly stopped making advances available on their one a day Hull services (0700 from Hull, 1718 from KGX) Mon-Thurs. for example, looking at next week, a single on either of these trains Mon-Fri is coming up at £149.70 which is the any...

The London comparison really is a spurious one as a highly subsidised operating model in a major global city can’t just be lifted and transplanted to Cumbria or North Yorkshire. The central point still remains who pays for it, and Labour have been clear that there isn’t any extra cash! I can’t...

Is there any evidence that these routes are actually increasing ridership overall rather than just shifting passengers from existing routes? I note that Khan always quotes the increase in passengers on the X26/SL7 while not pointing out the there was also a doubling of frequency which will...

You may get a government that makes positive noises about public transport if Labour win the election, but there still won’t be the required funding. Starnes & Reeves are being very careful not to make any significant spending commitments and want to avoid the ‘tax and spend’ label. As such, how...

Oh dear - more fantasy economics in the run up to an election. Why not bring the existing system up to scratch before getting the credit card out and making it bigger?

Given that Labour have committed to fiscal restraint if they get into power, where is the money coming from? Another politician making another pie-in-the-sky pledge in election season.

So, I see there have been some good discussions in this thread along with the usual ‘state run = ideal’ and ‘Tories are evil’ type tropes thrown in for good measure. However, I’ve yet to see how this would be paid for or understand how Labour would tackle the practical implications...

Yes, our phone boxes are cream and can be found both in and beyond the city boundary across the 01482 phone code area. Not sure why that makes them “funny-coloured”.

In the last couple of years of Arriva Northern pacers made scarily regular appearances on Bridlington - Sheffield runs. I once did it on a Merseyrail example - 2.5 hours of sheer hell.

I did it in 7 hours 42 mins on Easter Sunday starting at Heathrow and going anti clockwise, via the ferry. To be fair, the only hint of traffic was at Ilford and Barking. I had to wait 12 mins at East Croydon and 20 mins for the ferry but the rest was plain sailing and very short connections.

Hull doesn’t have any lifts but does have a Subway…and a Greggs

Oh dear, a Swiss cheese plan with plenty of holes. Of particular interest is the line saying “it will require no additional central government spending”. Essentially, giving local authorities the power but not the means to deliver it, allowing central government to blame local councils if it...

The Dawlish sea wall collapsed when the Lib Dem’s were in government - is Tim accepting responsibility for that? I can’t abide politicians of all stripes when they are making cheap points and spreading fear to grab a few votes.

I’ve never seen a Northern guard refuse to sell tickets after people have boarded without them, or point out the error of doing so where alternatives exist. No wonder the ‘buy when challenged’ approach is rife. Of course, it’s also difficult to get into convoluted and possibly confrontational...

Of course the reality is that the answer to your question will be incredibly nuanced and virtually impossible to reach a conclusion - that sort of complexity is of little interest to such programme makers. In my opinion, there’s no way you can simply say privatisation has or hasn’t worked as...

To be fair, the bulk of Yorkshire’s population live in West/South Yorks, and they have Manchester, Leeds/Bradford, East Midlands, Humberside and (at a push) Liverpool within a 90 minute drive. Plus, there is Teeside and Newcastle for our North Riding friends. If anything, that’s too much...