I see your point to an extent, but commuter trains largely service affluent areas (buses for poorer ones). How distributive we tax people is another matter, I agree the rich should pay more (they already pay more as a %).PTAO? wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 3:12 pmExcept, like VAT, higher prices hit the poorest the hardest. A proportional income/wealth tax would result in the rich subsidising the poor.
Increasing prices because capacity is too high is no excuse. We should be encouraging people to use public transport, and investing in infrastructure, not pricing out the poor.
We should invest yes, but as we see with hs2 when we try and increase capacity the public complain because its expensive and because we are a nimby country. For more capacity we need new lines going through places where people live.
So in the meantime, you charge the ppl/businesses who have more income to travel on their expensive medium or long distance peak trains, and have cheap advances at other times.
If we want to help transport for the less well off, make buses better and cheaper. Tfl underground and buses are massively subsisided, doing the same for buses (and other undergrounds) throughout the country would help the poor more.