Armchair experts want transport to get them around

Everyone has a view on how transport should be run. There’s never a shortage of armchair experts who pontificate on how they can make everything so much better.

They’re the people who reckon they would speed up traffic by doing away with unnecessary traffic lights. That’s except the ones needed for when they cross the road.

They would do away with bus lanes outside of peak times – the very time their abandonment wouldn’t make a scrap of difference because all traffic levels are less in the off-peak.

They would make sure all public transport is integrated but want to introduce competition with different ticket prices so no company has a monopoly.

They would speed up the trains but want them to stop at their station.

They would restrict airport expansion to ‘act on climate change’ but wouldn’t want delays at the airport for their holiday flight.

They even get more specific. Instead of building the missing A27 by-passes around Worthing and Arundel they reckon the answer is more and faster trains on the already heavily used West Coastway line, ignoring that it’s two track all the way and fast trains haven’t yet learnt to leapfrog stopping ones.

Level crossings along the route are already down for the best part of each hour too.

The Brighton main line is always good for grand schemes with even suggestions for double deck trains despite the restrictive tunnels or building new chords and links in various places to provide a complete alternative.

For the cost of reopening the Lewes to Uckfield line you could run express buses every five minutes along the A26 and into Brighton, providing a fantastic frequent alternative.

Commuters complain at ‘sky-high’ season ticket prices but fail to understand they are bargains compared to fares paid by occasional train users like myself.

A Thameslink-only Brighton to London all-signing all-dancing zones one to six Travelcard costs £101.40 for a week.

If I make a day trip it will cost me £46.50, nearly half what I would pay for seven days. It almost makes me want to become a commuter.

If I shelled out on an annual ticket at £4,056 and took five weeks off that’s just £17.26 a day.

Ironically that’s cheaper than the Super Off Peak Return, designed for when fewer are travelling.

There are calls for our railways to be taken back into public ownership without appreciating the Department for Transport already exerts more influence today than government ever did in the ‘good old days’ of British Rail.

New trains are promised for the Thameslink line, but don’t get too excited.

The specification has been drawn up by civil servants and the seats won’t be so comfortable.

There will be no plug sockets for charging phone batteries (as have just appeared on the ‘388’ new trains we’ve got temporarily but which will soon move across to Berkshire commuter routes).

There will certainly be no tables and not even a flap down on the seat in front to place a coffee cup.

You see, civil servants know how to run a railway… on the cheap.

The interminable disruptions train passengers face are most frequently down to infrastructure failings (points, signals etc) which all fall under the auspices of Network Rail. And guess what? That’s Government owned.

Government now controls all the revenue on the train franchise for Thameslink (also now being joined by Southern).

So all those stingy repay claims we can only make after enduring half-an-hour’s delay are down to how the Government wants the franchisee to look after its revenue.

So public ownership is not the panacea.

Since retiring two years ago I’ve travelled extensively all over the country by train and bus.

I have been on every piece of rail track and enjoyed bus rides through all the many wonderful tourist areas in the UK as well as every major town and city and many smaller ones too.

You simply can’t beat the view from a train or bus window and being chauffeured around.

Our transport system may not be perfect but it’s better now than it’s ever been, run by professionals who know a thing or two about how to make it work. Sussex’s transport has its challenges but it’s a great place to move around.

Roger French is a former managing director of Brighton and Hove Bus Company