On Tue, 23 May 2006 11:24:24 +0100, Clive
wrote:

In message , Paul Corfield
writes
I sometimes stay with friends in the North West of the Paris region
(on the RER network and well within the zonal area) and they have an
hourly daytime RATP service and nothing else.
Several years ago I stayed in Maisons-Laffitte (zone 4 NW Paris) and
found the service to be about every ten minutes during the day.

Hourly bus service. The RER thankfully is every 15 mins or so.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

I found Milan's system quite useful when I was there (I think a few places
do it). You get a 24-hour pass (similar to a One Day Travelcard) which
works on trains, trams, buses, etc.

As soon as you put it through the barrier it activates it for 24 hours
(well, it puts a time stamp on it). So if you use it at 1pm it works until
12:55 pm the following day. It's very useful for visiting tourist like
myself, who may only be there for one night for a football game (in my
case). A good way of doing something nice and cheap for the tourists.

Unlike here, where the tourists now actively get ripped off with far bigger
fares than Oyster-users.

Dave Arquati wrote:
It's very difficult to argue with less-than-anecdotal evidence and
figures plucked out of thin air.

Given that my fiances family live and work in Kiev I'm not entirely
sure which bit you think is less than anecdotal.

beyond comparison. Apples and oranges. £2.80 lets me travel round
Brighton all day by bus; £3 lets me travel round London all day by bus.
Does that mean Brighton is better value for money?

So if LU only had the central line for example , you'd be quite happy for
people to have monthly cards from epping that cost them a few quid? Since
obviously the only criteria for you is how many lines there are.

Incidentaly , the Moscow metro as I've said before is the busiest in the
world. I remember a monthly card being about 450 roubles. Thats 9 quid
at current exchange rates. I'm not quite sure where that leaves your
argument but holed below the water line would be my thoughts. Unless you're
going to insist thats a teensy ickle system compared to london too.

B2003

Dave Arquati wrote:
There's also the fact that since Underground users have high average
wages compared to the rest of the country, spending extra tax money to
subsidise their fares is a poor social decision.

You've conveniently forgotten that london is the engine of the british
economy. Any money spent on getting more people to work here on time and
unstressed will ultimately be repaid more than hansomely in GDP. Something
successive governments seem to forget when the idiots in the treasury get aroundto their yearly book balancing.

And if you want to debate subsidies, perhaps you might want to investigate
the amount we subsidise the scots so they can have their pointless toytown
parliament.

B2003

wrote:
Incidentaly , the Moscow metro as I've said before is the busiest in the
world. I remember a monthly card being about 450 roubles. Thats 9 quid
at current exchange rates. I'm not quite sure where that leaves your
argument but holed below the water line would be my thoughts. Unless you're
going to insist thats a teensy ickle system compared to london too.


a) compare Moscow workers' wages to London workers' wages (NB mean wage
doesn't cut it - Moscow's plutocrats drive around in Mercedes so don't
use the metro)

b) compare historical and cultural traditions in the ex-USSR to those
in the UK

c) compare yourself to someone with a clue.

Feel free to reflect on these comparisons and answer. Or preferably
not.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Oh look , Mr Budget Media Talking Head has parachuted into the
discussion to devastate us with his insight. Ok , johny , lets play...

"John B" wrote:
a) compare Moscow workers' wages to London workers' wages (NB mean wage
doesn't cut it - Moscow's plutocrats drive around in Mercedes so don't
use the metro)

Ok , not the mean , how about the median then? Being , as you so modestly
put on your website "a highly capable analyst, a lucid and coherent writer,"
you could avail us all with your knowledge...

b) compare historical and cultural traditions in the ex-USSR to those
in the UK

You mean decent state subsidies for essential public services? I'm pretty sure
I remember us having something like that here.

c) compare yourself to someone with a clue.

Well what can I say , I'm not been "interviewed as an expert by the Economist,
the BBC, the Financial Times and the Telegraph". Was Andi Peters unavailable
at the time just out of interest?

Feel free to reflect on these comparisons and answer. Or preferably
not.

Feel free to reflect on your website. If you're expecting to get business
from it you might want to consider an update.

B2003

When I took the metro in Sao Paulo I was expecting a disaster. In fact,
it was clean, cheap, efficient, and fast. Brazil is a country where
famously nothing works, but even they manage to run a metro system that
is classes ahead of the Underground.