What a load of tosh! The presumption that tolls will reduce traffic presumes that people are making avoidable journeys.
Who, in this day and age of £5+ a gallon, makes unnecessary journeys anyway? Certainly not me! All that tolls on major roads will do is increase "ratrunning" on 'B' and 'C' roads - this is already a growing problem (for example, the road at the bottom of our cul-de-sac is carrying many times more traffic during the rush hour than it did 10 years ago with people cutting around the congestion on the A14) Now there's no doubt that in one or two, and I do mean one or two, major cities where there is a good and reasonably priced public transport infrastructure something like congestion charging can work. But outside of a handful of major conurbations public transport simply isn't an option for most of us. Now I use the A14 up to four times a day at present. If a toll was introduced I'd, if it was cheaper (and it probably would be), simply change my route to avoid the toll. It would result in a roughly 50% increase in my mileage thus *damaging* the environment. It would also increase traffic through two nearby villages that I currently avoid. So yes, in a perverse way your quite right - introducing road pricing would lead to my changing my car use ... but not in the way that is intended! What is needed is not stupid schemes dreamt up by idiots who don't live in the real world. What is needed is genuine, massive and long term investment to reverse the trend since the 1950's of moving places of work out of town and away from public transport and to improve and, importantly, reduce the cost of using public transport. On average, in this area, any given bus journey takes around 5 times longer than the equivalent car journey (due to the buses going all around the houses) and costs about twice as much. And that's without taking into account the wait of up to an hour for a bus to arrive. Furthermore, the first bus into our village in the morning is fully two and a quarter hours *after* my missus has finished work (she works nights) and there's no bus service at all to where I work. Would you sit around for over two hours after finishing a 9 hour shift? Oh and although she could catch a bus there, it would involve a journey time of 1 hour 45 mins (car journey 15 mins) so she'd be out of the house for about 13 hours every day! She just looked over my shoulder and said "not bl**dy likely"!!! In truth, public transport is never going to be a feasible option for many people. We can't turn the clock back 40 or 50 years overnight. Bru > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of Adrian Stott > Sent: 04 December 2009 11:21 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [canals-list] Re: User charges (was BW's investment portfolio) > > "Colin Shepherd" <[email protected]> wrote: > > >I (and 1.8 million other people) signed the petition against road > pricing. > >All I got was a e-mail from Gordon telling me how silly I was to > object. > > I think that's the first time I've heard of Gordon saying something I > agree with! > > Congestion is caused by an excess of demand over supply. With roads, > increasing the supply increases the demand ("more roads" generates > "more traffic") , so building more isn't the solution (even if we > could afford it). The answer has to be to reduce the demand, and > surely the way to do that is tolls. That will transfer the demand > elsewhere (e.g. to transit), or reduce it in total (helping save the > planet), but will retain everyone's freedom to use the road when he > wishes. > > The same applies to busy locks, and use of waterways during times of > drought, of course. Much better to charge, then to introduce an > arbitrary number of lockings per day and queues which make it > impossible for those with a greater need to get through first. > > >Mind you when he has to pay for his own motoring in June he might > change his > >mind. > > You've actually supported my point. If you have to pay each time you > use a road, then you will alter your car use compared to today's. > That's exactly the result we want, isn't it? > > Adrian > > Adrian Stott > 07956-299966 > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > >
