Subsidies—
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legislation next year
'LEGISLATION to permit introduction of subsidies for public transport will be considered next year, Mrs. Barbara Castle said on return from the USA on Saturday.
Asked whether free public transport was one answer to the problem of increasing road congestion, the Minister of Transport said she thought this was going too far. However, fortified by the knowledge that the New York Transit Authority receives subsidies amounting to £75m. a year, she said that public transport in the UK would have to receive some Government assistance and the 1962 Transport Act would be amended next year to provide for this.
Last week in America Mrs. Castle told an audience: "We are ahead of you in mass transit", and she warned of the danger of being "swallowed" by the march of the car.
At London Airport she said: "We must make public transport as comfortable as possible" and the way to attract motorists from their cars was to provide "convenient and comfortable" link facilities.
The suggestion that toll roads should be introduced in this country was rejected by Mrs. Castle, although the idea of read pricing is still very much in her mind. Pressed for an answer she admitted that an experiment in some isolated town would be a good idea.