Public transport clearly demonstrates where the social priorities lie for local government

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I was busy thinking about the millennia that I had to wait for my CVS points card to be activated
when lo and behold I am faced with the same issue when foolishly thinking that I could top up my Clipper travel card instantly online. I am referring to this as Clipper-gate. It could be that the system is as fucked as the online transfers and some poor bastard has to go and get the cash from the bank, put it in an envelope and send it over to the Clipper accounts team who put the cash in a giant piggy bank, look up my name in a vast ledger and, using a little rubber-tipped pencil, scrub out the current total and pencil in an updated one. Its either that, or a lack of funding.

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Bay Area pubic transport is really good. I don't like comparisons with London, because TFL has had significant investment under BoJo and we have been revealing in a series of transport anniversaries that have attracted sponsorship and therefore additional pots of cash. (That said - take note, London - there are NO staff and NO ticket offices at many of the suburban Caltrain stations and we foreigners seem to be getting by ok). That said, someone from the local transport authority should really pop over and have a butchers. Heck, take the union reps with you - you want people to feel sorry for you? Provide a better fucking service. Troll through Clapham South tube station on a Friday night and see how inexplicably amenable and helpful the staff are there. Even when surrounded by a bowl of drunken dicks they still provide an outstanding service and most of them don't look like they've been smacked in the face with a fat, drunk girl's kecks.

I appreciate that the Oyster card caused kerfuffle, and it can be hard for non London natives to get their head round it (especially now that buses don't take cash. Have I made that up? I think thats true? I know they were talking about it?) but the system is now prolific and outstandingly managed. You can top up your Oyster card at all the stations, using the same machine at which you buy paper tickets. You can top it up online. You can top it up with cash in hundreds of newsagents across the capital.

Now, lets explore the Clipper card, beloved in San Francisco. You can use it to travel on most of the transport systems in the Bay Area - bus, train, tram. Jolly dee. The pricing system is complicated as fuck, (why are the fast pass options so complicated, and why are they separate to the cash bit?) but as long as you can simply have a running cash total on the card that is deducted with each use then we are onto a winner. And the cost of travel is excellent, especially for the second most expensive city in the US. Now we come to the bits that clearly need more thought. And by "thought" I mean "funding". As I said - the public transport in the Bay Area is really good for the US, and is a lifeline for lots of people who live in cheaper areas and travel to work in the major conurbations. This is how we reduce traffic into and out of SF everyday. This is how we reduce the animosity towards immigrants to the area who are working in the big tech companies and getting their flashy private wifi buses to work everyday and blocking the publicly funded muni. Social diversity, less stress, better mobility, blah blah blah - read a modern essay on town planning and you'll get the gist.

So, firstly we need to have Clipper machines in all stations. Secondly, when one adds money to a Clipper card online it should not take 5 days for the money to appear. It should be instant. I appreciate these are little things, and that they actually probably cost a lot to implement, but if this were a private enterprise, or serving the wealthiest inhabitants of the Bay Area then they would already be dealt with. Plus wifi on the trains. And a buffet cart.

And while we're on the subject of investment in transport, I would like to raise the high speed option. The UK is tiny and has invested, (some issues there - MPs giving contracts to companies in which they have a vested interest etc), and we have got archaeologically and ecologically important sites coming out of every orifice. Plus our ancient low bridges which scupper double decker trains and certain portions of high speed track. Plus having to work round existing buildings and foundations which are EVERYWHERE (the Crossrail team deserve medals on ingenuity. Seriously - the work they had to do to ensure London didn't jump implode is astounding).

There is significantly less of this in the US. There are still protected areas of natural beauty, Native

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American land, historical sights and dinosaur bones, but not as densely (or expensively) packed as the UK. If inhabitants of Fresno or Sacramento or Oakland were able to get over to the wealthier areas of Nor-Cal quickly then they would be able to seek employment there and command higher salaries that would raise the general quality of life across the whole freakin state. I wonder if the local authorities would be so reticent to commit to a large scale plan and greater investment if the Silicon Valley elite were pushing for it? Or if some of them didn't have personal interest in oil & gas and keeping cars on the road? Feel free to accuse me of being a communist or a conspiracy theorist - I'm not either of these things (don't let the little tufty Lenin beard fool you. Thats just hormones). I just think I'm smarter than everyone else, thats all.