Luring passengers on to the water
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ENTHUSIASTS for the Thames bus do not give up despite the failure of previous attempts to persuade people to travel to and from work by river.
Experimental operation from Greenwich to Festival Hall with a new type of craft is proposed to start next summer at an initial cost, according to Dave Wetzel, chairman of the Greater London Council Transport Committee, of 14m to £5m, with annual running costs of up to f15m.
Just to pay its way it would require 30m passengers a year at an average fare of 50p. That sounds a tall order.
Meanwhile, coach passengers are streaming by the million across the water to the Continent. More travelled from Dover in coaches than in cars — 4.6m compared with 4.3m — in the first nine months of this year.
Shoppers stocking up in French supermarkets are a boon to coach operators but, as the French say, one man's meat is another man's poison, thereby offending sex-equality freaks, vegetarians and butchers, apart from the British nation of shopkeepers, who are suffering from ill wind.