Public transport is always being hit by the government when they need to save money and now is no exception, but if we think of the true costs of this over the past century, all those alleged savings from not keeping railways or bus services going would surely be cancelled out if we calculated the what the alternatives have cost the country.
Let’s just think of a few things that are attributable to increased car use over walking, cycling or using public transport:
Congestion
It is hard to argue that our roads would be congested without lots of people each driving their own private vehicle. According to CBT, “the total cost of congestion is usually estimated at £20 billion a year”.
Road accidents
Whilst some proportion of the accidents on our roads may involved buses, the vast majority are caused by cars. Again from CBT’s 2008 report, “Last year there were 260,000 casualties on our roads, including 3,172 fatalities [1]. Using Government figures, the cost to the economy of these accidents was £12 billion.”
Road-building
According to the Transport Select Committee, “Government spending on roads has almost doubled in real terms since 1999
