Red Rabbitcan I get a “Fuck privatisation of public transport” in the crowd tonight?? 🎤
Strawberry Pigtails@harrym If my governments were willing to invest in public transit in the first place I might agree with you. In the meantime I’ll take whatever I can get!
@strawberrypigtails they built them, at least in Aus. I’m not aware of any country where public transport started as a private venture.
urbaer@harrym @strawberrypigtails I agree with your sentiment and dislike privatisation of public transport (and let's throw in a "let's buy back QANTAS)
But Melbourne's trams started off as being a private network until 1919 (I think?) when the tramways board was created
@urbaer @strawberrypigtails yeah, I didn’t realise they started off private, interesting! Def think they should have always been public haha. i’m glad I posted this, i’m learning a lot of history.
@harrym @strawberrypigtails it's surprisingly interesting, some of them were bought by the councils before they got taken over by the state and there was some finagling that had to be done to do that, details here: https://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/papers/ecohist/ecohist2.htm