The price of public transport

has risen again in the state's budget.

It always concerns me that governments don't seem to learn the obvious when it comes to things like this.  Public transport runs at a loss. It will almost certainly always run at a loss but we still need public transport. 

We need public transport because we need to move people. This is particularly so in this country and in this city. This country had a great deal of space when the first "white" settlers arrived. People spread themselves out. They eventually started to build homes on quarter acre blocks. People still want homes on quarter acre blocks so they move further and further away from where the original settlements were. Others are starting to realise it is not going to be possible to do this forever so they are knocking down older homes and putting two much smaller homes on the same blocks. They are clogging the streets with the cars they own but cannot fit onto their smaller parcels of land. All these people need transporting to other places for school, for work, for recreation, and for other purposes.

So why do we raise the cost of public transport - and even reduce the services at the same time? Why won't people use public transport? When I was a very young kitten I lived in a country community some distance from the city. It was not commuter country then and it still isn't commuter country - yet. There is every possibility it will one day be commuter country. 

What might stop it is the lack of a rail service. There was a rail service when I was a kitten. The local railway station was actually quite busy. It had a station master and other workers. There were railway cottages across from the house we lived in. The line went on further north too. People used the train to go to and from the city. Now families tend to own more than one car and they simply "hop in the car" and go to the city that way because "it's convenient". Yes of course they can go from one destination to another in the city that way. They don't need to walk or work out which bus or train to catch. It "saves time". 

These are the same people who worry about "climate change", "pollution", "the state of the roads", "the speed limits", "the price of petrol" and much more. And of course, right now, using public transport is genuinely something of concern because of the Covid19 pandemic. 

But when we grow into a new "normal" - as we will - there will still be people for whom the car is the preferred mode of transport. It's easy. There is no real effort involved. There  is a certain amount of maintenance involved. There is the irritation of having to book the car in for a service but, these days, many places provide transport while your vehicle is in for a service. As I understand it electric vehicles are going to require even less servicing.

So where does all this leave people who are too young, too old, too infirm, or too poor to drive a car? Are these people simply going to be left with less and less public transport at an ever increasing cost? 

I don't mind paying for public transport but I want it to be there. If other people are not using it then raising the cost for those who do is not the answer.  We need to find ways of ensuring those people who could use public transport do use it.