Ben Colson: Issue 362 15 May 2009
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Bus, Car, Costs, Fares/ticketing, Rail, DfT/SRA, Office of Fair Trading, Other, All of UK
Looking at the past is a chance for us to learn
Recent weeks have seen a plethora of anniversaries that have significance for the industry. Ben Colson argues that there is nothing wrong with looking back as long as we examine past mistakes and learn from them
The launch of the Mini in 1959 led to an explosion in private motoring that many feel exacerbated the decline of many of Britain’s bus services but there were other factors at work tooBen Colson
Nostalgia, they say, ain’t what it used to be. I was going to write a heavyweight piece on the oppressive weight of regulation on the industry but I was struck by a
coincidence of anniversaries the other weekend, and so have changed my plan.
You probably picked up on three anniversaries over the recent holiday weekend. Without doubt the most important was the 30th anniversary of the last episode of Fawlty Towers, that monument of British television comedy. Probably better...
Your Comments:
22 Jun 2009
In the 1930's General Motors was behind the purchase of streetcar (LRT) systems and their replacement with bus services, which then withered to create a market for private cars.
Their involvement was exposed but the deed was done. However the wheel now seems to have come full circle and the economic bias which propped up the transport system making such inefficient use of resources has crumbled. Dow we see similar signs in the UK?