| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Richmond Park closed to cars | |
| Posted by: | Michael Robinson | |
| Date/Time: | 26/03/20 18:29:00 |
| Loraine, Mark is quite correct. No private company would be interested in a public transport system like London because they can't make money. The first tube lines were all built by private companies because the investors thought they could make money from this new invention but they all went out of business so needed to be taken into public ownership. To illustrate, Crossrail is costing about £18Bn. If Crossrail ran 4 trains per hour, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year and every train was full with 1500 people paying £10 each, it would take 35 years to pay back the £18Bn. This doesn't even take into account the operating costs to run the railway. No private company is interested in this type of business. The point is the transport system is run as a public good because it enables other social and economic activities and that means it is subsidised. More bad news is that big complex engineering projects usually go over time and budget. It is in their very nature that if they are big and complex there are lots of unknowns and the unknowns can often add delay and additional money. For some examples nothing to do with TfL, just search for the Berlin Aiport, Seattle tunnel project, Boston big dig, Royal Navy submarines, Edinburgh tram... and those are just civil engineering projects, I haven't even mentioned the huge number of major IT projects going over time and budget either... |