{"id":10914,"date":"2024-10-28T16:20:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T16:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=10914"},"modified":"2024-10-28T16:20:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T16:20:32","slug":"bus-fares-budgets-and-a-balancing-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/bus-fares-budgets-and-a-balancing-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus fares, budgets and a balancing act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Dr Susan Kenyon<\/strong> <strong>argues<\/strong> <strong>that a rise in England\u2019s bus fare cap from \u00a32 to \u00a33 hurts the environment and increases exclusion \u2013 both concerns for \u2018working people\u2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bus fare cap in England will rise from \u00a32 to \u00a33, Keir Starmer has announced.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His justification?\u00a0That this is necessary, to fix the public finances \u2013 and that working people welcome this.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But working people need buses to get to work.\u00a0Without an affordable bus service, many working people won\u2019t be able to work.\u00a0Because of this price rise, many working people will be \u2013 well \u2013 just \u2018people\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem, put simply, is that we need to travel to take part in activities. If we can\u2019t travel, we can\u2019t take part in activities and the activities that we can\u2019t take part in are important: education, employment, healthcare, leisure, seeing friends and family, going food shopping\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before he raids the transport budget, Keir Starmer must recognise that investing in Britain\u2019s \u2018crumbling public services\u2019 is worthless if people can\u2019t access those services.\u00a0The New Labour government in 1997 prioritised investment in transport, because it recognised that investment in social policies, education, employment, health, housing and poverty reduction.  They cannot succeed unless we also invest in their accessibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have known for a long time that lack of affordable public transport leads directly to poverty and social exclusion.\u00a0We have also known, for a long time, that making public transport more expensive reduces its use, with devastating impacts for the environment, including climate change, air pollution, noise, resource use, land take\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This short-term quick-win will have long-term costs for the environment, reinforcing our car dependence and making the transition to greener transport modes much more difficult in the future.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rise from \u00a32 to \u00a33 per single journey may deliver immediate savings.\u00a0But it will also increase exclusion and increase environmental harm, costing far more in the longer term than is saved today.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Dr Susan Kenyon is a Principal Lecturer in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/about-us\/faculties-schools-and-departments\/faculty-of-science-engineering-and-social-sciences\/school-of-law-policing-and-social-sciences\" title=\"\">Politics<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Susan Kenyon argues that a rise in England\u2019s bus fare cap from \u00a32 to \u00a33 hurts the environment and increases exclusion \u2013 both concerns for \u2018working people\u2019. The bus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":10918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1357],"tags":[3569,1997],"class_list":["post-10914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-society","tag-public-transport","tag-travel"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Jeanette Earl","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2024\/10\/Bus-fares.jpg","postExcerpt":"Dr Susan Kenyon argues that a rise in England\u2019s bus fare cap from \u00a32 to \u00a33 hurts the environment and increases exclusion \u2013 both concerns for \u2018working people\u2019. The bus [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10922,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10914\/revisions\/10922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}