Adrian
Most people who commute via train commute at the buisiest time of the day, both ways, and they work in the place the train goes to (IN this case, Central London)
Good for you, I'd imagine you have a gas guzzling car. A Peak travel card costs about £24 from TBW, it's 55 miles to work, 45 miles back from work, 100 mile round trip, 50mpg, just under a tenner.
Free at my work, out of neccesity. Of course certain people want to charge for company provided work place parking. It's quicker via car too, as the destination isn't the centre of London (which is almost always quicker via train, as all "roads" lead to "rome")
Ignoring the subsidies that the train companies get (yet they still can't do tickets anywhere near the price of private transport), I've got no problem with incentives to travel by train (start with carnets, season tickets encourage more travel as 4 days a week costs the same as 5 days a week. Decent park and ride off the M25, in the case of London, would be good too -- last time I tried to park at Tonbridge, the car park was full. By the time I'd found a space at Hildenborough I was 30 minutes late for work).
Trains are pretty packed in the rush hour though, if everyone that went via car took the train they'd be worse. Same the other way arround. Unless we increase capacity mbuttively, especially at London Bridge (from the Kent point of view), the only option is to encourage companies out of London, however politically that's not a good move.
However incentives to travel via train does not mean dis-incentives to travel via car, which I gather Begg is on about.
