peter i enjoy the way you go in depth
but your wrong in a few things

we used to have electric trams[here in brissie]
they ran every 10 minutes or so..but then govt got presure on it
to privatise it..[and globally the same scam went down]

it was run by general moters
they bought up the tram system
sacked maintanance devision..and changed the sceduals

soon people stopped using the tram
and yes bought cars..[holdens of course]

but not enough did
so one dark night the depo caught fire
and most of the wooden trams burnt...and soon the service was so bad it was dropped alltogether[clem jones could explain it better]

anyhow..public transport runs to sceduals
it MUST met up with other services
thus time sceduals arnt flexable

people must get to town center before 9 am
or its not a service[you lose ya job]

you say private enterprize could do better
i say thats bull...only govt can run a service
without making extra for the sharholders...

if its for proffit
its not a service

look at the disaster of privatisation of govt is doing globally
christ church cant call up heavey machinery because it privatised public services..

the contracter is too busy doing other things

its time we reduced govt
each time it privatises all govt
elected or workers[especially bosses]should go to
cancel their overly generouse pensions as well..

if they dont serve..
they de-serve nothing

OUG
Unless you can answer the five questions I've asked, all you are proving is that people hope to get something for nothing, and they couldn't care less what it costs, so long as they can use government to force someone else to pay.

Hazza and OUG
Sorry I shoulda said 50 return trips to the moon empty in that last post. This is the article I was thinking of. You gotta have a read of it, PLEASE:
http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=53112

Now remember, that monumental waste is just with buses, and just in NSW, and just at the State level. But, as I have proved and you have been unable to disprove, this problem affects all government projects everywhere. Imagine adding up the billions and billions and billions that are wasted at the Federal level - EVERY YEAR - let alone at the international scale.

It is pure illogical fantasy that government can provide infrastructure cheaper than private services. The only reason people like OUG think it can, is because unlike business, government doesn't have to recover all its costs from fares, it merely hides the additional costs in the general tax bill, is completely unaccountable - they NEVER send the citizen an account of how much of his money was taken and what it was spent on - and then the economic ignorance, and sheer gullibility, of people like OUG and you, believe they're getting something CHEAPER!

Then when businesses charge what it costs including the costs of foregoing alternative uses that you are NOT taking into account because you don't even understand the concept, you mistakenly conclude that business makes it more expensive. But you're using a double standard, because businesses are the only ones that have to charge what it costs, and governments are the only ones that are allowed to hide, and lie about the costs!

It's laughable superstitious credulity.