Read this in the Telegraph this morning (behind a paywall, but a Google search might return better results)
Anyway, because of the Pandemic and the lockdowns and that a lot of office workers are WfH, passenger numbers on London’s Tube, buses and trains have fallen dramatically over the last 12 months, and that even when we return to “normal”, there will still be at least a 20% drop in passenger footfall, and thus revenue.
To alleviate this, old Suckdick is asking Boris for a £16bn bailout courtesy of the Taxpayer. He has also threatened to penalise car drivers with a £5.50 charge for entering central London, hoping it might convince them to use public transport.
He is also considering cutting services, but that would mean going toe2toe with the Unions, and he hasn’t got the balls to do that. Plus, a cut in public transport would be at odds with the government’s wish to “go green” and get everyone out of their cars and onto buses and trains.
Exactly why taxpayers outside of London should have to subsidize London’s transport network is taking the piss; especially since other big cities will have also witnessed a massive drop in footfall/revenue with their own public transport services. A simpler solution would be to raise council tax in London: it’s your network, you pay for it!
This also brings into question the need for the other elephant in the room – HS2. Current budget is around £110bn and rising. Exactly what purpose it will achieve is moot, but given what we have learnt about this pandemic and the need to return to the office, or go on business trips up and down the country by train, is no longer of paramount importance when we can simply Zoom from home!
But its good to know that Taxpayers – including myself living in the remotest part of the Lake District some 300 miles away from the Smoke – could end up paying to prop up Suckdick’s shite public transport system because its too big to fail!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/03/29/london-faces-tax-raid-commuters-shun-tube/
Nominated by: Technocunt



