"[Not Responding]" <
[email protected]> writes:
> Indeed. But equally if you choose to live in the country please don't expect massively subsidised
> transport be it public bus or private car[1].
No need to expect 'em, we won't get 'em. A huge proportion of the costs of motoring in Britain is
the cost of congetsion in urban areas, but I've been into a town of over 5,000 people for something
like 8 hours of the past six months, so my taxes are supsidising your urban transport, not the other
way around. Road pricing as an alternative to fuel taxes would benefit remote rural areas hugely,
but we won't get it because most voters live in the cities and wouldn't want to pay it.
> Don't complain about non-availability of high bandwidth connectivity. Expect to pay true economic
> costs of utilities and rubbish collection.
Fair enough, our bandwidth does cost (a lot) more, and we can't have piped gas. For the rest, it's
not significantly different. Water to the village is now piped from Lochinvar, because that suits
Scottish Water - but the old village water supply is 100 yards away, and never fails. Rural Galloway
is a net exporter of electricity, and has been since the 1920s (when the hydro power scheme was
developed by a consortium of local landowners); cut us off from the grid and the cost of our
electricity (which is all green) would drop. For that matter when our new local windfarm is
completed, the power from it will be connected to the grid the other side of the Solway, because
Scotland already exports so much electricity to England that the cross border grid lines are
overloaded.
> I see so much whinging from so-called 'rural communities' about issues such as the impact of fuel
> tax and so on. Yet when you probe a little it soon becomes obvious that the complaints are coming
> from people who want to live in rural idyll and commute cheaply into the nearest, or sometimes far
> from the nearest, town.
We used to go into a town once a week to shop. These days, we go in very rarely, and increasingly
often by bike. When we do, it's usually to make use of services (such as hospital) which have been
centralised in the past twenty years, and which in your childhood or mine were provided locally.
> But there is a real point. If we are to tax environmentally destructive transport - and we should
> - then the consequence is that this late 20th Century mode of life will have to end.
Would that be a bad thing, and if so, for whom?
> [1] Next time someone moans about a cycle route used by 'only 5 cyclists in a whole rush hour';
> remind them of the miles upon miles of rural roads that are maintained at public expense to
> serve single houses.
Yup, we spend too much on our rural roads. Could not agree more. The standards to which we maintain
them are ludicrously high and just encourage people to drive faster. We also spend too much money on
subsidising farming.
--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke)
http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/ Das Internet is nicht fuer
gefingerclicken und giffengrabben... Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das mausklicken
sichtseeren keepen das bandwit-spewin hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das
cursorblinken. -- quoted from the jargon file
