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Tom Commis · 08-10-2005, 12:58 AM

I haven't read a lot from UKIP on transport and I was wondering what peoples thoughts were. I think it's an important issue economically and possibly a fertile area for UKIP, firstly because our rail and road network are so badly managed at present and secondly because few people have idealogical fixations. The priority should be to make the movement of goods and people across the country cheap, rapid stressless and enviromentally friendly, to which end I offer these suggestions.

1. To scrap all subsidies on passenger railways and removing the obligation on operators to continue unprofitable services. I suggest this for enviromental reasons chiefly - the much vaunted enviromental efficiency of rail (that is fuel per passenger mile) disappears when you have a lot of services with few and sometimes no passengers. You could introduce more subsidised minibus services in rural areas to compensate.

2. To use the money saved not subsidising passenger services to subsidise rail freight at least temporarily. The purpose of this is to reduce road freight which is responsibile for most of the wear and tear on roads. This benefits the remaining road users.

3. The best thing both economically and enviromentally is for journeys to be as swift as possible and this would be helped by minimising roadworks. This could be achieved by using the most durable road surfaces (not done at present) and by getting utilities to synchronise their works. I also believe much of work done by phone and gas companies should not neccesitate digging up roads; you could access pipes and wires from the pavement.

4. To raise the speed limit on motorways to 90mph which I think reasonably safe. I would balance this by introducing other measures to make roads safer such as limits on the cars new drivers can own (like the ones they have for motorbikes) as most serious accidents seem to be caused by young drivers and also a certain number of random test retakes for which drivers would be eligible five years after passing their test.

These ideas seem pretty sensible to me but I'd appreciate some feedback, most attention on transport seems focussed on the issue of speed cameras (which I'd cut back on massively by the way).

08-10-2005, 12:58 AM	#1 (permalink)
Tom Commis Junior Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 74	Transport policy? I haven't read a lot from UKIP on transport and I was wondering what peoples thoughts were. I think it's an important issue economically and possibly a fertile area for UKIP, firstly because our rail and road network are so badly managed at present and secondly because few people have idealogical fixations. The priority should be to make the movement of goods and people across the country cheap, rapid stressless and enviromentally friendly, to which end I offer these suggestions. 1. To scrap all subsidies on passenger railways and removing the obligation on operators to continue unprofitable services. I suggest this for enviromental reasons chiefly - the much vaunted enviromental efficiency of rail (that is fuel per passenger mile) disappears when you have a lot of services with few and sometimes no passengers. You could introduce more subsidised minibus services in rural areas to compensate. 2. To use the money saved not subsidising passenger services to subsidise rail freight at least temporarily. The purpose of this is to reduce road freight which is responsibile for most of the wear and tear on roads. This benefits the remaining road users. 3. The best thing both economically and enviromentally is for journeys to be as swift as possible and this would be helped by minimising roadworks. This could be achieved by using the most durable road surfaces (not done at present) and by getting utilities to synchronise their works. I also believe much of work done by phone and gas companies should not neccesitate digging up roads; you could access pipes and wires from the pavement. 4. To raise the speed limit on motorways to 90mph which I think reasonably safe. I would balance this by introducing other measures to make roads safer such as limits on the cars new drivers can own (like the ones they have for motorbikes) as most serious accidents seem to be caused by young drivers and also a certain number of random test retakes for which drivers would be eligible five years after passing their test. These ideas seem pretty sensible to me but I'd appreciate some feedback, most attention on transport seems focussed on the issue of speed cameras (which I'd cut back on massively by the way).