Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’s Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Fears about increased car usage are growing. Last month all traffic into the Italian capital, Rome, was halted for several hours as pollution, coupled with unusually warm weather, led to serious health threats for the old, young and those with breathing difficulties.
In London this year asthmatics were warned to stay inside as hot weather increased pollution mainly from car engines. Even an official government study, the Royal Commission on environmental pollution, is extremely critical of government policy on road building and has recommended some fairly radical reforms.
Unfortunately the reforms are unlikely to work, even if they are eventually implemented. Certainly this government is unlikely to implement much other than cosmetic changes. Transport minister Brian Mawhinney wanted to be much more critical of the commission’s report than he was eventually allowed to be. It is clear that this government is not serious in its opposition to further road building or in its commitment to more use of public transport.
Its whole record since 1979 has indeed revealed the opposite – it has given massive public subsidy to company cars and road building while turning the public transport system into the most expensive and unreliable in Europe.
The increase in car use and traffic problems, which is now so dangerous, is a direct result of government policy. Rail services have been cut back, with whole lines closed down. Lack of investment has meant slower, less reliable tube and train services. Deregulation and privatisation of buses has led to a slump in the number of passengers travelling by bus, while the number of bus miles travelled has increased.
The cost of public transport has risen far faster than that of private motoring. Between 1981 and 1993 rail, bus and coach fares increased by 130 percent while motoring costs in the same period increased by 80 percent. Rail freight accounted for around 40 percent of freight journeys in 1952 – now it is only 7 percent.
The cuts in jobs on public transport means that the use of buses and trains becomes more difficult for many people. For example, old people or those with young children find it much more difficult to use buses and trains when there are no conductors, guards or station staff on many routes.
The pressure of cost and convenience means more and more people have turned towards cars in recent years. As more people do so, everything becomes more geared to cars, public transport becomes worse – a vicious circle.
Yet the increased use of cars makes little sense. This is true not only on grounds of pollution. The cost of running a car is twice in real terms what it was in 1971. Along with food and housing, transport now accounts for one of the major items of household expenditure. And although car ownership has risen, nearly a third of all households have no access to regular use of a car. In Greater London this figure rises to 38 percent. And for most households where there is use of a car, different members of the family may not have any or much access to it.
Throughout the 1980s Margaret Thatcher encouraged what she called the ‘great car economy’. The consequences now are all too obvious and harmful – congested roads and environmental damage. This has led to a backlash against further road building and a growing consensus that car use needs to be restricted.
However, many of the ‘green’ solutions put forward do nothing to alter patterns of transport but simply try to penalise car drivers financially. ‘Road pricing’ is one such example, where motorists would be charged for entering city centres. Another is the virtual doubling of fuel prices over the next decade to discourage motoring.
Both these would penalise the poor, who already pay heavily in taxation on petrol and road tax. The rich would still manage to pay their way into city centres. In any case, although 64 percent of commuters in general travel to work by car, of those travelling into central London only 18 percent do so. The majority of these have subsidised parking and company cars, and would probably also get subsidised to compensate for road pricing. Similarly the large number of commercial vehicles which account for much of city traffic would also be subsidised by their companies.
Much could be done to change the way people travelled if there were decent cheap public transport. At present it is nearly always cheaper to travel by private car if more than one person is travelling. London Underground journey figures fell to a modern low point in 1982 when fares were nearly doubled by the House of Lords. A cut in fares of 27 percent the following year led to a sharp rise in journeys. If people could travel more cheaply by public transport then they would switch to it in much larger numbers. But the move towards the ‘car economy’ has done long term damage. The spread of suburbia into the countryside, the increase in shift working and the growth of out of town shopping have all made it more difficult – and sometimes nearly impossible – for people to live an active working life without a car.
There can be few greater indictments of the capitalist system than the encouragement of completely unnecessary travelling in order to work or even to shop. People today travel on average around 200 kilometres a week – 75 percent more than 30 years ago. The vast bulk of this increase takes place in cars.
Building a public transport system which could cope with the needs of this amount of travel would take investment of billions of pounds – something which British capitalism needs but has neither the reserves nor the strategic ability to deliver.
It is becoming more and more obvious that capitalism can only destroy the environment. The market and the profit system are incapable of planning a world where millions can move around safely without threatening their and their children’s future.
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 12 November 2017