start a new series about the socialist alternative on basic PAUL CLARKE argues that there is no more suitable case for socialist treatment than transport. IF you think that the economic laws of the market lead to efficiency. you obviously haven't travelled on London Underground during the rush hour, or fried getting into London on Net work South East.
And if you think that state investment and control leadsto inefficiency. try travelling on the Paris or Moscow metro systems, wheretrains cometwo or three times more often than on the London Underground.
Millions of hours are wasted each year in Britain though inefficient transport, generally the hours of hard pressed workers. Travelling time and hassle means a reduction in leisure time and significantly higher stress levels for millions.
Public transport costs too much; in Britain it is up to 100 per cent more costly than other advanced countries. Ten Paris metro tickets cost 63.40; 34p for any journey compared with the 80p minimum on London Underground While millions of people pay a fortune in road tax to sit in traffic jams, travel is becoming a luxury Travelling by train between Scotland and London is not significantly cheaper than going by air.
While buses are disappearing from the countryside altogether through privatisation and de-regulation, visitng relatives or getting to hospital for poorer people can be an expensive nightmare.
'great car economy
based upon the fact that for many On the continent they go faster people in rural areas there is just no alternative. Urban commuters crowding Meatinie the daily toll of carbon monoxide emissions go unchecked. There is probably no area in which the case for socialist planning is so clear-cut, and no area in which the insanity of capitalism is so obvious. How would a socialist government seck to solve the problem! The first interim task would be to cut the number of cars on the road, but that could only happen by rapidly improv ing public transport. is in par buses would immediately deliver a banned from city centres, unimpeded Red faces at BR WHILE the crumbling transport system cries out for investment and socialist planning, Tory policies are set in the opposite direction - towards privatisation of British Rail. But Transport Secretary Rifkind suffered a setback in these plans with the news that BR lost*€145m last year, 14 times the previous year's deficit.
more efficient service. transport.
back would diminish. journeys because they can go c discovering Moreand faster trains are needed; the rail network would need a huge investment programme. But banning the ›rivate car is not an immediate option. the rich. Reorganising the transport system would take vears and vast investment. Any attempt to ban cars would lead to Once public transport became effi ient and comfortable the pressure to use cars for simple journeys to work and Car owners use cars for long distance directly to their destination, and again because it is often more comfortable and cheaper.
Bas diving ta motoray they hours driving on a motorway could go on a comfortable and cheap train? And if they could be certain of getting to their final destination without that the local station had been closed down, or that there were no buses at the end of their journey?
Part of the car economy is the drastic reduction in the amount of freight carred on railways, to be replaced by thousands of trucks clogging the motor ways, and in the process wrecking them works on motorways are perIf cars will not immediately disappear, drastic environmen tal restrictions have to be imposed. Development of electric cars has been restricted by mantacturers and the pressure of the oil companies. Compulsory catalytic converters should be fitted to all cars still running on petrol.
Within big city centres there is no reason why communally-owned bikes and electric cars or carts could not be freely available. People should be able to go from one big city to another by train, and pick up a community-owned car for the final part of their journey, if no direct bus if available to their final destination.
Operating a primarily public transport system requires a greatly expanded ran nervork, new invest ment in buses and an end to deregulation, and the building of substantial new networks, like expanding the condon tube south of he river and to places like Hackney.
All this means many more obs and much more money. To attract new stalt to the transport my and conditions would have to be radically improved. Where is the cash to come from? For a start there could be a huge cutback in the billions spent on building new motor ways and repairing the existing ones.
But most of the money would come from the reorganisation of state spending away from defense and from taxing Britain's transport system is way be hind international technology advances. We should be looking at trains at least as fast as the French TV, and new systems like monorails, at the increased use of modern trams and electric cars. Why don't we?
In fact many British capitalists recognise that transport in hopelessly organised and grossly inefficient, damag ing their profits. But the scale of the and the public spending programme which would be needed to solve it, is way beyond what British capitalism can currently 'afford - given the Tories' spending priorities.
Efficient and comfortable transport is a basic index of the level of civilisation eneria Britain is a backward dump. And you just have to look at the tens of thousands of cars queuing to get into Los Angeles and New Yorkat 5 miles an hour to realise that it will get worse.
Transport won't be transformed without state spending, state planning and social ownership. And that means we need socialism.
Terminator politics a way of ite for Organiser BEN WOLFE looks at some Features Wist Organiser's left candidate: John Prescott adopted by Max schachtman in the 1940s, is a major sign of this rightward
chaos on a still-inadequate public sys- Diminishing demand