On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 20:35:10 +0100, John Ray
wrote:

Are you sure about this? I have used one on NS journeys within Amsterdam
some years ago; maybe the system has changed since then?

Quite possibly. NS don't even sell them now.

That said, there may be a "Verbundtarif" going on in the greater
Amsterdam area. They certainly don't only have Strippenkaarts, but
also their own area day tickets and similar.

Annoyingly, said Verbundtarif ends just before Schiphol.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 20:46:34 +0100, Paul Terry
wrote:

This is getting off-topic, but every one of the dozen or so companies I
deal with totally shut down for some two weeks between about December
22nd and January 5th.

Most of my colleagues in teaching had a longer break, especially those
in the university sector.

It probably makes sense for those who exclusively or principally
supply education (given the reference to academia and teaching above),
but that doesn't apply to most of the rest of the world.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 20:57:07 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

I wouldn't expect non-residents to be EXCUDED from local 'buses etc.

And they're not - but my reference was the lack of timetables, route
maps and comprehensible ticketing (other than singles purchased on
board).

But there's no Holy Writ that locals (or any other group) shouldn't
get a cheaper deal. Last time I was in the U.S. I saw a lot of this
sot of thing. Local facilities such as swimming pools had a
resident's price and an outsider's price. The residents had paid
for it through local taxation - they got a reduction.

This goes along with the whole idea of local taxation, doesn't it?

It does, but I prefer the more "socialist" idea of "you scratch my
back, I'll scratch yours" - for example that I can pay the same rate
as Londoners on their transport, and they can pay the same as me if
they ever visit Milton Keynes (should they want to).

As others have posted, local taxation in this country is regulated to
the point of being a complete sham, anyhow.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:12:08 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

Public transport is for the public, not just
for local people, though the actions of some provincial bus companies
(or more the inactions) may make you think otherwise.

I wouldn't expect non-residents to be EXCUDED from local 'buses etc.
But there's no Holy Writ that locals (or any other group) shouldn't
get a cheaper deal. Last time I was in the U.S. I saw a lot of this
sot of thing. Local facilities such as swimming pools had a
resident's price and an outsider's price. The residents had paid
for it through local taxation - they got a reduction.

This goes along with the whole idea of local taxation, doesn't it?

You might think this. The Burghers of Brussels do not.

tim

In message , at 18:27:58 on Sat, 8 Oct
2005, "tim (moved to sweden)" remarked:
And as I have posted before,
IME it is common for non first language English speakers not to
be able to tell the difference between the various English language
countries' accents (strange as it may seem to you and I).

It's worse than that. Many Americans can't tell the difference (in
accent) between English and Australian.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
(Richard J.) wrote:

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article ,
(Richard J.) wrote:

My parents in Putney in a much larger home pay a lot less council
Tax than I do in Cambridge. So I reckon I pay more to support TfL
through my general taxes than they do.

That's because they're in the London Borough of Wandsworth, famous
for setting a zero poll tax, and which still has a very low
council tax rate. I assume that by some quirk of government
funding, LBW have managed to get an extremely favourable deal. If
your parents were across the river in Fulham, their council tax
would be 83% higher (or 90% higher if they're not subject to the
Commons rate).

Yet total local government spending in Wandsworth is some 50% higher
than in Cambridge. It's corrupt.

I thought the Commons rate was banded by distance from the commons,
BTW? My parents have always paid but I thought not in the highest
band.

I wasn't aware of it until I looked up the rates on the Wandsworth site
tonight. There seems to be one Commons rate (per council tax band)
that applies IIRC within 0.75 miles of the Putney/Wimbledon common and
within the old parish of Putney.

Since I haven't lived in Putney since the days of the old rating system
I expect there were changes made when Poll tax and Council Tax were
introduced. It is a unique local tax that at one time straddled the LCC
boundary. It is also levied in Merton.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Sunil Sood) wrote:

"Richard J." wrote in message
. uk...
That's because they're in the London Borough of Wandsworth, famous
for setting a zero poll tax, and which still has a very low council
tax rate. I assume that by some quirk of government funding, LBW have
managed to get an extremely favourable deal.

I don't think that Wandsworth gets a particularily good deal on its
government funding but it is much more efficient than most councils..

I don't believe that con for one minute.

Local Government spending per head in Wandsworth, mostly funded by
central government of course, was half as much again as in Cambridge
last time I saw the figures. No doubt David Boothroyd knows where to
find the current spending levels.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 19:17:33 +0100, "TKD" wrote:

An outside London ODTC is based on the travelcard price
plus whatever the rail company charges to the boundary
of Zone 6. The ODTC1-6 has gone up by 30p. The Zone 1
tube single doesn't even come in to the equation.

There are still singles to ZONE U1 LONDN, which presumably will be
based on that. There are also returns, but those (last time I
checked) were the same price as the Peak Travelcard.

The difference, incidentally, is that YP Railcard discount is
available on singles/returns to ZONE U1 LONDN but not at all on Peak
Travelcards (not even on the rail part), so last time I did a peak
journey it was on one of those.

Not so, off-peak at least. On Friday, for example, I bought a Saver
Return from Cambridge to Underground Zones 1 & 2 with Network Card
discount for £17.65 to travel to Putney yesterday and back today.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 13:36:06 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

How would YOU encourage people onto Oyster?

Make Oyster suitable for them, as I've detailed in other posts.

Then, once that's all been done, abolish paper ticketing completely.

Are you saying the whole national transport system, buses, trains and
trams, should switch to Oyster then?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 18:40:26 +0200, "tim \(moved to sweden\)"
wrote:


"Nick Cooper" wrote in
message ...
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 20:02:39 +0200, "tim \(moved to sweden\)"
wrote:

IME most people have 2 weeks off at Xmas because their
employer gives them no choice.

Absolutely no people I know - and that cover a wide variety of jobs -
gets that. Just about the closest would be employers who shutdown
from XmD to NYD, which is only 8-10 days depending on when the
weekends fall, although of course 5-7 of those days are weekends or
bank holidays.

This is exactly right. I did not say they had to use 10 days
leave, but that they had a period of 2 weeks when the did
not go to work.

Even the maximum of 10 is not "2 weeks." Most years it's only 8 days -
i.e. one week and one day - as it is this year. However, hardly anyone
I know gets that.

No-one is sensibly going to buy a monthly season on the 4th
of December as they will not be using it from 25th to the 1st

You mean "... _if_ they will not be using it from 25th to the 1st."
Those days which fall on a weekend excepted, Dec 27-31 have always
been working days for me, and for most people that I know, some of
whom would be working the weekends, anyway. Just about the only
exceptions are those in teaching.

(and in many cases longer).

You keep claiming this; I - and a number of other posters, it seems -
dispute it.

And most people take 2 (or more) weeks holiday in the
summer/easter when the kids are off school.

It may have escaped your notice, but there are more households in the
country _without_ children than those with.

They still take holidays in 'chunks'.

Think again. "Most people" do not have school-age children, so why
would they be taking their holidays "when the kids are off school."
You're claiming a majority where no such majority actually exists in
the population.

Also, not everyone takes
two-week holidays, kids or not.

Most do IME.

Well, in mine, most _don't_.

I guess if you work in retail (or hospitality) it's different, but
I would be suprised if almost every one else didn't fit the above.

I would suggest that if you work in just about every sector it's
different., and that you're just wrong.

I work in an 'office' environment and have done so for
20 years. Almost everone in the office takes a consecutive
holiday break.

Purely subjective. My subjective view is that the vast majority of
people I know take one or two separate weeks off, and/or a combination
of that and lost weekends dotted around the year. Personally, in 19
years of working I've only ever taken one two-week holiday.
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War, and in Films & TV:
http://www.nickcooper.org.uk/