View Single Post
Old 10-11-2011, 04:15 PM   #12
DanaC
We have to go back, Kate!
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
I think in a vast nation like the USA, a national transit system might be unmanageable. In the UK, we're so damn small, that parcelling up the rail network to different companies just creates a complex jigsaw. When they privatised the national rail, they made a mess of it. You'd have stretches of tracks oned by one company, the stations by another, the catering by another and several competing providers running trains. All in the same basic space.

Repairs and maintenance lost out i the restructuring. Surprise, surprise, privately run companies are more interested in maximising profit and less interested in nailing down the satey element than publicly accountable organisations. Several major train crashes and a damning report into the condition of the nation's railways and rail stock later, and it became clear that major repairs and upgrades were needed.

Guess who subsidises that stuff? Yep, the taxpayer. We pay more for our tickets and get a shittier service than we did when it was publicly owned; on top of sky-high ticket prices we also still pay subsidies through our taxes, and the profit all goes into the shareholders' pockets.
__________________
Quote:
There's only so much punishment a man can take in pursuit of punani. - Sundae
http://sites.google.com/site/danispoetry/
DanaC is offline   Reply With Quote