I know I'm lucky... it's one of the perks of living in an industrial city rather than a tourist-infested one. The fundamental trade in Leeds is money, not people, so most of the traffic is residents-going-to-work-based rather than visitor-based. Most public transport is unfortunately part of a vicious circle - it's not there so people don't use it so it doesn't get provided, ad infinitum.
i hate it when... catch 22s occur in things that could really be improvesd if our wonderful government had a bit of backbone and started spending on the things that really need it.
Sadly, Bath is by no means as heavily tourist-infested as it ought to be; the city authorities have spent so much time, effort and local taxpayers' money in creating discouragements both to tourists and people who might otherwise come to work here that the public transport "system" here is not affected by overcrowding in the city itself (although you will doubtless have heard about recent customer protests at Bath train station about overcrowding and overcharging on the trian "system"). The streets of Bath are, for the most part, simply not geared to heavy traffic of any kind or to easy accommodation of public transport to the extent that it would be required if, as some wish, private traffic were to be banned from the city centre - the entire place would have to be acrawl with minibuses and larger vehicles and it would have to designate far larger out-of-centre car parks than exist now, in order to try to accommodate everyone who would then need to gain access to that public transport.
The only way the transport problems in Bath could be solved would be to take away most of the traffic restrictions and somehow force most employers in the city to function on a 24/7 basis; that way, there would be at least the quantity of traffic on its streets as there is now but, as it would be far more evenly spread across the entire day, almost all the jams would disappear instantly and there would be no need to build more car parking facilities as the present ones would be used 24/7. Given that Bath is supposed to be a tourist magnet, the operation of such a policy would be even more appropriate here than in some other cities and it might help to attract back some of the lost tourist revenue to the new "city that never sleeps". This idea would still not make a comprehensive puboic transport system a viable option, as it would simply remain far too expensive to operate; the entire notion is, however, is far too simple for the local authority here.
Public transport has to be paid for and has to make a profit if it is to be maintained - and even more if it is to improve. Whilst there are all kinds of back-handed subsidies given to public transport companies (and heaven knows what nature and extent of fininciall irregularities and corruntions occur to enable that to continue), even these have to be funded somehow; in the end, however, it will have to be the fare-paying cutomers that fund the system, othewise it will go bust and cease operation, just like any other business. Having buses running around every city street 24/7 would cost a fortune and it would almost certainly be more expensive for people to use it than it would for them to use their own cars.
Best,
Alistair
Topic: I really hate it when...