How long until we can vote the Greens OUT?

[Deano's Invisible Pants]

The Greens will almost certainly be voted out at the next opportunity, but to be fair, the war on the motorist in Brighton has been running for years - not just under the idiot Kitkat and his loony-left cronies. Look at the track record of the people on the council and you will see that very few have ever run a business, so most are clueless (and largely indifferent) to what is needed to attract people. We are lucky that we live in a town that has enough appeal to counterbalance these policy deficiencies, but the sooner these braid-headed numpties are kicked out, the better.

 

[Diego Napier]

I assume this is their evil doing:
£6 million travel scheme unveiled for central Brighton From The Argus)

At a time when bus prices are going through the roof, they're trying to make people turn away from driving and to using buses! How about providing a subsidy to the ridiculous prices or provide alternative bus services so it's not a monopoly. Absolute joke, when can we vote them out?

When you say "we" who do you mean?

Do you mean you and the small number of rabid anti-greens that work yourselves up into a frenzy every time public transport raises it's head on NSC?

Some of the mindless opinions that are touted here are so one dimensionally selfish they're laughable.

Although vociferous, luckily it is only a small number of you that are helping prove the old adage "Empty vessels make the most noise".

 

[Ninja Elephant]

How many people does that benefit? Edging towards decent value for those that travel more than two journeys, but how many people do that?

As an aside, how often does the number 7 George Street want to run? Frequently there are two stopped outside Brighton station most evenings.

I don't disagree single fare prices are too high. But there is a lot of value in the Key saver aand especially in the Mobile saver. I use it a lot when I have one though to be fair, so that is largely why it feels like cracking value to me.

Up to every 30 seconds now I believe. There were 4 (four) heading to George Street on Davigdor Road earlier. 4. All in a line and trundling along. They were like soldiers marching into war.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Without reading your thread, the answer is, you need to pick another candidate say the Bob Hope party and then get a job in their election campaign and canvas like mad, knock on doors until you have more people voting for your candidate than the Green party sitting MP Caroline Lucas. I think you will find that the Green Party will also have the same tactic though and a winning majority to build on. When ever they call an election, think the current mob set 5 years.

The advantage you may have is that the Argus is always wiling to publish any old crap against the sitting Greens so many Argus readers may prefer the Bob Hope party or even the Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality who polled quite well in the last election and may appeal to a lot of their readership.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail.

 

[BensGrandad]

I worked in Ipswich a few year back and even to go to the bank I was advise by the landlord of the pub that I was running during his holiday to go by P & R. They ran the service from 6.00am until 8.00pm 7 days a week and went to 4 different sites in the N S E & W. This was in 2003 and then the car parking in Ipswich centre was about £6 per hour and no long term reductions ie an 8 hour working day worked out at £48. As a result of this everybody used P & R and didnt attempt to take a car into the centre. Workmen had to apply for an exemption to take their vans in with the tools of their trade in and the got a reduced rate of parking but the issue of this was very strictly controlled. To get into town to go to the bank was about 50p return and all the buses which ran about every 5 mins were full. This was a very successful scheme.

 

[halbpro]

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail.

God, if only we had a monorail. That'd be brilliant.

 

[Baron Pepperpot]

Most of the decisions the Greens are blamed for are actually made at the bureaucratic level.

Much of the other decisions are made at committee level-which they share with other parties, not holding a majority.

But then I would know this-I don't read the Argus...

 

[BadFish]

Is that the same Big Lemon that is currently running subsidised bus services in Brighton, funded by the City Council?

This one?

http://www.thebiglemon.com/

 

[BadFish]

I am glad The Greens are anti car, they are supposed to be anti car, I wouldn't vote for them if they weren't anti car (yes I do have a car, it spends most of it's time sitting out the front of my house and if Geelong had a decent bus system it would hardly get used ever!).

The fact is that we have to become less reliant on cars and oil, we have to find alternative ways of travel because of global warming (obviously we need a binfest about whether it is caused by Co2 or not) and because of the fact that the world oil is running out.

I personally applaud the green party for trying to address some of these issues and cause people to make some changes to their lives.

How long till we can vote them out?

When you get more people to vote for another candidate.

 

[The Large One]

The Greens will almost certainly be voted out at the next opportunity, but to be fair, the war on the motorist in Brighton has been running for years - not just under the idiot Kitkat and his loony-left cronies. Look at the track record of the people on the council and you will see that very few have ever run a business, so most are clueless (and largely indifferent) to what is needed to attract people. We are lucky that we live in a town that has enough appeal to counterbalance these policy deficiencies, but the sooner these braid-headed numpties are kicked out, the better.

Blimey, you come across as a bit of an Argus reader.

 

[yxee]

If B&H Buses didn't make a profit they wouldn't invest around £4M a year in brand new buses to replace older vehicles in the fleet.

Doesn't investment get factored into it when calculating an annual profit?

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Go Ahead group announced pre-tax profits of £39m, in spite of rail difficulties. I would love to know if their bus operation here was propping up their other interests.

 

[Gwylan]

I am glad The Greens are anti car, they are supposed to be anti car, I wouldn't vote for them if they weren't anti car (yes I do have a car, it spends most of it's time sitting out the front of my house and if Geelong had a decent bus system it would hardly get used ever!).

The fact is that we have to become less reliant on cars and oil, we have to find alternative ways of travel because of global warming (obviously we need a binfest about whether it is caused by Co2 or not) and because of the fact that the world oil is running out.

I personally applaud the green party for trying to address some of these issues and cause people to make some changes to their lives.

Ah, a sensible comment: some of the comments on this thread make me despair about the lack of political awareness.

All political parties are looking to reduce car use in cities. As someone mentioned earlier, there was an all-party report just yesterday making recommendations about how to boost the number of cyclists. There was a call to spend a billion pounds a year to do so - this will be spent on creating new space for cyclists ie more cycle lanes.
Of course, there's no guarantee that this will happen but it's a move supported by the transport minister - one Norman Baker. It's certainly something supported by Tory poster boy, Boris Johnson, and it's supported by the well-known looney-left journal The Times.

As for Brighton, as someone pointed out earlier, if councillors wanted to kick out any Green proposal they could do so with ease - Greens have a majority of one I believe (it's certainly narrow). They don't do so because all Brighton parties have a belief that there are too many cars in Brighton and something should be done to improve transport for the majority,

Personally, I'm rather proud that Brighton is a trend-setter here. We have low car ownership (just 55%, well under the national average), pushed through 20mph speed limits (another all-party recommendation) and looking to establish a network of cycle lanes. Other cities will be looking at Brighton as the way to do it.

One other point about Brighton; the population is expected to grow by some 50,000 people over the next couple of decades. If car ownership was at national levels, that volume of people in Brighton's narrow streets would choke the city - that's why Greens, Labour, Conservatives and Liberals know the issue needs to be tackled now.

 

[Gary Leeds]

They were privatised by the Thatcher government and sold off to their management and staff, who subsequently cashed in, by selling off the company to Brighton & Hove Buses.

Lord B, I heard something a week or so ago that might be total rubbish but does make a lot of sense with hindsight (I seem to recall a relative who worked on the Blue Buses at the time saying something similar). Do you know if First were in advance talks with the Brighton Buses management and staff with a view to buying them out until they found out that Brighton and Hove Buses actually had a 25% share already and refused to sell (they bought in to help the management afford the price from the council) and it would have meant that First would have had to share any profits with Go Ahead. The story I seem to recall at the time was there was another party interested but stagecoach rings a bell

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Lord B, I heard something a week or so ago that might be total rubbish but does make a lot of sense with hindsight (I seem to recall a relative who worked on the Blue Buses at the time saying something similar). Do you know if First were in advance talks with the Brighton Buses management and staff with a view to buying them out until they found out that Brighton and Hove Buses actually had a 25% share already and refused to sell (they bought in to help the management afford the price from the council) and it would have meant that First would have had to share any profits with Go Ahead. The story I seem to recall at the time was there was another party interested but stagecoach rings a bell

I don't know all of the ins and outs of the Brighton Buses sale, I'm afraid. Cards were being played very close to the chest. What I do know is that the Go Ahead Group were immensely keen to achieve the monopoly that they achieved, because they saw that as the opportunity to achieve growth in the volume of business that had been stagnant for some years.

What we have in Brighton now is probably the closest thing to an integrated public transport network that it's possible to have in the UK (outside London) - and that has delivered close to a doubling of bus patronage over the past 15 years or so, which is unheard of in this country (outside London). That growth in passenger numbers has been hugely assisted by a bus-friendly local authority, investment in infrastructure (bus lanes, information systems, new buses, etc), and the ability to market network tickets, such as Savers, without the threat of a price war on individual routes, initiated by small-scale competitors. And don't underestimate the local knowledge that Roger French brought to the development of the network, by virtue of the fact that he led the company for a couple of decades. His successor, Martin Harris, has the capability of doing as good a job as Roger French, if he can stick around (and build on the local knowledge that he built up during his earlier spell in Brighton a few years back).

 

[mistahclarke]

The greenies have to realise that not everyone who works in Brighton is an office worker. I am unable to get a van load of tools on the bloody bus! They are making it so hard to drive and park a van in the city! I may move to Brighton just so I can vote them out!!!

Sorry buddy, a couple of days ago the police were doing a massive stop and search on motorists at Preston park. I guess to ensure they were worthy.

It looked like they were stopping every third car, but at lunch time all I could see were white vans and other open bed trucks. They are after you!

 

[Plake]

Ah, a sensible comment: some of the comments on this thread make me despair about the lack of political awareness.

All political parties are looking to reduce car use in cities. As someone mentioned earlier, there was an all-party report just yesterday making recommendations about how to boost the number of cyclists. There was a call to spend a billion pounds a year to do so - this will be spent on creating new space for cyclists ie more cycle lanes.
Of course, there's no guarantee that this will happen but it's a move supported by the transport minister - one Norman Baker. It's certainly something supported by Tory poster boy, Boris Johnson, and it's supported by the well-known looney-left journal The Times.

As for Brighton, as someone pointed out earlier, if councillors wanted to kick out any Green proposal they could do so with ease - Greens have a majority of one I believe (it's certainly narrow). They don't do so because all Brighton parties have a belief that there are too many cars in Brighton and something should be done to improve transport for the majority,

Personally, I'm rather proud that Brighton is a trend-setter here. We have low car ownership (just 55%, well under the national average), pushed through 20mph speed limits (another all-party recommendation) and looking to establish a network of cycle lanes. Other cities will be looking at Brighton as the way to do it.

One other point about Brighton; the population is expected to grow by some 50,000 people over the next couple of decades. If car ownership was at national levels, that volume of people in Brighton's narrow streets would choke the city - that's why Greens, Labour, Conservatives and Liberals know the issue needs to be tackled now.

What are your thoughts on a congestion charge for Brighton? Say, £20 per day to drive within the City.

I bet you'd love it.

 

[The Large One]

What are your thoughts on a congestion charge for Brighton? Say, £20 per day to drive within the City.

I bet you'd love it.

A stupid idea, and unworkable.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

One other point about Brighton; the population is expected to grow by some 50,000 people over the next couple of decades.

Do we have any plans about how to house them?