At our last meeting in Dundee we had a short discussion about our Free Public Transport policy. We want to look at it more locally than nationally.

What do you think of transport in the city? Is your street clogged up with cars? Does your bus take forever and not stop near your house? Quicker walking home after work than being stuck in a queue? Fancy riding a bike to work but not back up that hill again afterwards?

Feel free to comment below with your thoughts on transport.

Five of the SSPs Candidates in the European Elections discuss the alternative to the boom and bust of New Labour, Tories and the SNP.

The staff of Travel Dundee have voted 3 weeks of work to rule action, followed by a one day strike on 24th April.

The reasons for the strike are a pitiful pay offer and the workers bearing the brunt of commuters anger and frustration of cuts and changes to the services. This anger should of course be directed towards Travel Dundee management.

The line from the company and the media is of course appalling. Part of the work to rule action is that drivers, mechanics and others will no longer work through breaks to make up delays caused by faults and poor traffic due to the huge number of roadworks going on in the city recently. Their line is that this will bring disruption to customers and services are set to suffer.

The flip side of this is that the services are returning to their normal state. If not for drivers sacrificing break times to catch up we would see the real state of the services being provided – and that is what is set to happen from Friday April.

The reality of it is the services have only not been suffering because of workers sacrificing their own time. Managements contempt for workers both through their wages and time are the reason there will be disruption and why services suffer.

The power of workers collective action is shown in the statement by Travel Dundee boss Lawrence Davie when acknowledging that there would be no buses running on the strike day.

As the business is fully unionised, the proposed strike action on April 24 will result in a complete suspension of services for our customers he conceded.

We wish the workers every success in their struggle and would urge all those affected during the next three weeks to review the SSP policy on public transport.

Whether you are on strike, or the strike has affected you by showing how much the staff sacrifice to ensure your bus home arrives on time you should find it illuminating.

Today in Dundee and around the country SSP members and supporters took part in street campaigning on the issue of Free Public Transport.

Tonight’s Eveneing Telegraph contained an article about the activity in Dundee

For more information on the issue visit www.freepublictransport.org/

When the policy was introduced in Hasselt in Belgium there was a massive uptake in the use of public transport. Massive numbers of people started cycling after encouragement from the local council (contrast with Dundee where the Council stopped a local bike recycling charityselling their cheap affordable bikes in the city centre!).

If you would like some stickers, posters or leaflets about the campaign, contact us.

The SSP is launching a week of action highlighting our radical Free Public Transport Policy.

There is a website with all the details here.

In the Belgian city of Hasselt, which covers an area double the size of Dundee, congestion was eliminated in the late 1980s after the introduction of a totally free public transport system.

How It worked in Belgium

The site also contains details of how the policy would be funded and the wide ranging benefits it provides in the other places it has been implemented.