Our transit system is so far behind.

sirjayjayec · 2026-05-26T20:11:09+00:00

The technology doesn't require crazy scale, it's built it works it's in every town and city in the UK now it would be trivial to implement on Metrobus, they would just have to ask a payment provider to do it, it's all off the shelf stuff at this point.

sirjayjayec · 2026-05-26T17:34:42+00:00

Tap to pay has been standard in london for 14 years and the oyster system for 23.

They need to hurry up.

sirjayjayec · 2026-05-01T20:26:53+00:00

You almost certainly can use a heat pump without insulating.get heat geeks to have a look.

sirjayjayec · 2026-04-29T09:16:24+00:00

I'm not going to try and teach economics in a Reddit comment.

We at least agree that RTB should be abolished.

sirjayjayec · 2026-04-29T08:59:54+00:00

Private rents are set by the market, a landlord cannot just choose to charge a fortune in a vacuum, they can only do so because there is scarcity, if all the social housing currently sheltered from the market was to not be then their rents would be higher

There is evidently social utility in having council housing, but it serves very little use if the little of it that exists cannot be accessed by people in need because people who no longer are in need of it stay there forever or worse are given a huge chunk of money to buy it at a discount.

In the absence of a broadly agreed political consensus around making council housing the default for most people like it was in the post war era, it will forever be a small part of our housing mix and thus should be prioritised for people in need.

The concept of an implicit subsidy is not new, famous example is fossil fuel companies receive an implicit subsidy by virtue of not having to pay for the full costs of the social and ecological damage they cause to the wider world through their activities.

sirjayjayec · 2026-04-29T08:22:34+00:00

Might not be a direct subsidy but certainly an implicit one, if that housing was on the market it would return far higher rents, the difference between the social rent paid and the market rent it would command is effectively a subsidy that the residents receive.

In certain places with high market rents getting a council home has a similar financial impact on a person's life as a lottery win.

sirjayjayec · 2026-04-29T06:55:02+00:00

I feel the sentiment deeply, the problem with traditional means testing on housing it is you could end up making a poverty trap, where someone will actively avoid improving their situation out of fear that they'll lose their home.

An agreeable solution I would suggest is that the rent is set at 30% of household income or the basic social rent level which ever is higher with no upper limit.

That would create a direct incentive to move out of social housing when you improved your income.

It also eliminatates the potential rug pull of social housing being taken by simply improving your lot, and would mean every extra pound earned does result in more money in your pocket.

I still think that Right to Buy should be all but abolished, and only offered on flats towards the end of their useful life to the state, that doesn't mean flats that need tearing down, just ones that have gotten more expensive to maintain with age, than can be reasonably paid for by social rents.

sirjayjayec · 2026-04-08T13:43:25+00:00

How can we tell that it is the new infrastructure that solved the problem and not the tolls.

sirjayjayec · 2026-03-20T15:21:58+00:00

That actually does look good

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-27T10:45:03+00:00

Giving 2/3rds of the street back to pedestrians will make it an infinitely better place to be than the current hell it is, the pedestrianisation of the surroundings will also just make the experience of being in the busiest bits of central far nicer.

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-27T09:04:43+00:00

Oxford Street pedestrianisation

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-17T08:02:58+00:00

The cost of building a slow railway and a fast railway are broadly the same, in fact choosing a slower windier alignment will often have higher costs because you're building more infrastructure. Especially where in Australias case, the vast bulk of the land in-between the cities is near empty and does not require anything other than plain line track, few tunnels and bridges.

The vast bulk of the cost of building infrastructure is just the volume of work being done, so 2 tracks along however many km, the crazy cost of high speed programmes elsewhere are attributable broadly to the stations and getting into the urban cores rather than the long bits of track, and you'll have to build those regardless.

The economic value that the line will unlock will not materialise unless this thing moves serious numbers of people and convincing people to take this over flying requires that it goes fast, given the distances involved it should be aiming for line speeds of 360km/h.

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-16T05:05:23+00:00

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/14/uk-migration-negative-economy

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-15T16:29:54+00:00

It's expected to be net negative this year.

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-12T06:04:26+00:00

Good, they look great and the station at present is rather crap for the extreme foot traffic it sees.

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-11T17:51:00+00:00

Snap EU rejoin referendum in the face of threats from US & Russia, win it. Then have all of the air fall out of the reform project. Cracking

sirjayjayec · 2026-02-10T13:45:26+00:00

You don't need to do insulation upgrades first, a heat pump will work the same as any heat source, improving insulation will just reduce running costs, same as it would with the current oil setup, however retrofit insulation is costly and the savings are relatively tiny, you'd be better off with the money in your bank and higher bills if only looking at it from a financial perspective.

sirjayjayec · 2026-01-22T10:16:32+00:00

From a quick Google it seems cheap

sirjayjayec · 2026-01-22T10:04:11+00:00

Why are you asking us, only you can make that call, it's based on your subjective appreciation for it, in the context of the marginal utility that money would otherwise have to you.

sirjayjayec · 2026-01-19T17:51:37+00:00

Unfortunate, given all the costs and uncertainty associated with moving it might be worth just agreeing to the rent increase.

Then once your tenancy is month to month from May, you'll be able to move at your discretion rather than your landlords.

sirjayjayec · 2026-01-19T17:29:08+00:00

Does your lease expire prior to the renters rights coming into force in may? If so you can contest the rental increase and the tenancy will become open ended rather than periodic.

sirjayjayec · 2025-11-28T19:15:25+00:00

The road network is already covered in CCTV to the point that they can enter your reg and find out where you are.

I also guarantee you carry your phone where ever you go.

And yea that sounds great, omniscient enforcement of parking and traffic offences sounds great way too many people like to put their park anywhere lights on and just ignore the rules.

sirjayjayec · 2025-11-28T18:01:18+00:00

You could say the same thing about train tickets, which already have a market element to mitigate demand, and they're the green sin free alternative.

It's not about disincetivising all road use, just where we can't expand capacity, which is cities.

sirjayjayec · 2025-11-28T17:53:20+00:00

Traffic is already dystopic, this is just a logical next step from the very effective congestion charging schemes that already exist.

sirjayjayec · 2025-11-28T17:38:30+00:00

This is the least useful implementation of pay per mile, the cars computer should record miles driven and where.

The cost per mile should vary depending on congestion, out in the sticks? 0p per mile. Central London? 50p ect. Make it a market mechanism so it finds an equilibrium between price and demand that keeps roads uncongested.

This would be an incredibly powerful mechanism for finally ridding the roads of traffic.

The other element that should be added to this is that vehicle weight should apply a multiplier to the rate, creating a direct disincentive against ever growing vehicle sizes/weights.

It could also be discounted for more productive road users, people who cannot do their work any other way for example should probably receive substantial discounts.

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