NationStates Jolt Archive

This is nothing official, but I would like to trigger the discussion so that someone who can make decent proposals may take it over and form it into something we can vote on.

The roads on this planet are clogged. Everywhere. Public transport is a solution and many a nation tries to stimulate this public transport. However, public transport is still much more expensive than traveling by car, it's much less comfortable, and it still takes more time.

My proposal is to have all public transport be regulated by governments. The public transport becomes free for everyone. All lines will be equipped with more trains/busses/whatever to allow more stops.

This should mean a substancial increase in the usage of public transport and a major decrease in the usage of one's own vehicle. Possibly, it might even decrease the number of vehicles owned in a nation. On top of this, the environment will benefit a lot from the reduction in CO2 emmission.

The public transport will be financed by the government through taxes. This way, the whole nation pays an equal share for the benefits like less/no more traffic jams, less/no more smogg, and ultimately a humongous benefit for the economy since their employees are no longer stuck in traffic jams.

The government will also benefit from this as continuous construction of new roads will no longer be necessary on such a big scale as it is now, reduction in cost for maintenance of the roads, and the slightly improved health and living conditions.

As an addition to the above:

It has been tried in parts of Belgium and it worked.

I'm afraid I cannot agree to this idea, for one thing, there are multiple national issues which deal with the idea of public transport, free and other-wise, and I think this plan is sitting on the same shelf as "free health-care", "free this", and "free that" ... nothing much else in effect then redundant law and promotion of socialism.

Not that I can't blame you for trying, nice, well made, proposals are as pirate treasure these days ... ;)

For Large States, like America, it would not work. Currently the US already Subsidies the Bus comanies like Gray Hound. If they were to take over completely and make them all non-profit the costs would skyrise instantly. It would go from millions, to billions per year over night.

Unless you want 100% taxes, it would not be viable in some areas.
Others, like, I guess Belgium, and maybe others, it can and will work as they are in a much smaller area. 2 million people in 1 square mile is alot easyer to bus then 1 person in 2 million square miles.

(Forgive my exagurations and misspellings ^^ No spellcheck, getto FireFox..)

Perhaps there should be a limit to people per acre or, a common used statistic here, adress density (the number of adresses in a 1 kilometer radius)?