On Thu, 1 Apr 2010, Neil Williams wrote:

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:54:29 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

You can say the UK's internal borders are arbitrarily-delimited if you
wish, but there's a whole lot of history to it all. And if there are
lines then they have to get drawn somewhere.

My view is that no line needed drawing in the context of public
transport concessionary fares, i.e. that it would have made more sense
remaining a whole-UK matter.

Wow - you're proposing that *local* transport issues should not be
devolved to *regional* bodies?

Indeed, where it applies to rail, as it creates a broken and insular
network. I'd give the bodies the right to fund service increases, but
not to fully control what is there.

Rail transport across the Hudson river in America is a good example of
this. You've got the state of New Jersey on one side, and the state of New
York (in the shape of Manhattan) on the other. Huge numbers of people
commute from New Jersey into New York.

You have a dense subway network on the New York side, with no projection
into New Jersey. You have a decent regional rail network on the New Jersey
side, with just one projection into New York, where it gets to a terminal
at Pennsylvania Station and stops dead. The only network with multiple
stops on both sides is the Port Authority Trans-Hudson network, which only
exists precisely because there is a cross-regional authority here, the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has a sphere of interest
on both banks of the Hudson. But because it is thus limited, that network
doesn't extend far inland from either bank!

tom

--
Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with
comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself. -- Francis Jeffery