Eleanor SaittaWhy is this not happening in every European country, as an absolute minimum?
https://www.thelocal.fr/20230407/france-plans-70-supertax-on-fuel-for-private-jets
Jason
Jen@JasonEccles @dymaxion @janl but driving to a minimum wage job because there is no bus shouldn't be punished. We need alternatives and infrastructure first. Carrot before stick.
@JetlagJen I agree with you. We should have had the carrot by now. But politicians are lazy and greedy. Where I live, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the public owns the bus service, the tram service and the railways. But none of them are free. None of them are even close to free. It’s disgusting.
Politicians are fiddling while Rome burns again. It’s time for radical action. All transport in (every) city centre should be electric or public.
@JetlagJen let’s go crazy. If you could swap your car for an electric car today, for no charge, you would right?
The government could do that. Pay car companies for 33 million electric cars. All those jobs that would be created. And what would the cost actually be? We spent £400 billion fighting Covid. That would be £12,000 per car if the government handed out 33 million free cars to the public.
Think how many jobs would be created by that project? The social transformation 🙌
@JasonEccles I'd rather swap it for decent public transport. Either way, the challenge is the infrastructure. The only way I could charge an ecar at home would be a cable across the public footpath. The nearest train station is single track without space to widen it.
Fundamentally, it all boils down to persuading politicians to do their damned job.
There's some sign of that happening here (Stoke-on-Trent). Council recently changed blue to red. Two most visible changes so far:
1. Massive crack down on fly tipping
2. Sponsoring bus tickets to make them cheaper
Tiny steps perhaps, but good direction of travel. We need more of this. A *lot* more.