Happy New Year to you and V also.

I’ve never been to Switzerland, other than driving through it to the UK. But I can assure you, from my point of view, the transport system here, and certainly in Milan, is excellant. There is no need to drive in (I drive out to go to work, which is a different thing) but the Italians do love their cars….and that is the real problem.

We have many friends here who, rather than use public transport, will drive everywhere. Useful for lifts, from our point of view, particularly in winter, but not actually necessary.

The only people who use public transport here are the immigrants according to the Italians (whoops, that’ll be me then), but they have a real problem with immigrants who they see as all illegal (obviously not me as I look a little Italian) – anyone with a darker skin colour (that’ll be V then) and this means they would take the car above using public transport.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.

Cheers Alex, and a very Happy New Year to you and Mrs Fear.

The trouble with the London CC is that it hasn’t made a dent on congestion (especially the expansion which means residents who avoided the zone now use it), and apparently it is running at a cost (the only profit is being made from late payers).

Have you ever gone North and visited Switzerland. Public transport is excellent and there really is no need for a car. It’s the only place I’ve ever visited in the world (still I have a lot of places yet to visit) where public transport actually competes with private and there is no need to introduce congestion zones.

If governments would invest in public transport, really make it comfortable and something to be relied upon then they would have no need of congestion zones- people would willingly take the tube.