I think we need a good motoring journalist, but sadly MR isn't it.
Try listening to his TalkSport show (to my mind a waste of the only motoring phone-in I know of) .Today he was on about the congestion charge , and he got the usual nutters phoning in. Sure, there are going to be things wrong with it but at least KL is doing somehting about one of our biggest problems today , congestion in our cities. Education and persuasion hasn't changed behaviour, this is worth a go. I know people who could and should go into London by train ( and the trains near me are GOOD) but they are too arrogant to do so .at least if they carry on they will pay for their selfish behaviour.Like most others MR rants about the scheme but has not ohter ideas to offer.
A few weeks ago one of his ideas for easing pollution was to build more tunneled roads ! Apart from the massive cost , and damage caused by cut and cover , where does he think the pollution from cars in tunnels goes?
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Mostly agree with you, but irrespective of opinion/politics, I did enjoy listening to him giving the Deputy Mayor and future Labour Mayoral candidate a bad time.
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"I know people who could and should go into London by train ( and the trains near me are GOOD) but they are too arrogant to do so"
That I find hard to believe. I know of nobody that drives into town for the fun of it - quite apart from the traffic it means you can't have a spontaneous cold drink or two! Also you can't read anything (well, I suppose you can while you are stuck in traffic).
As for GOOD trains - where's this? Not Connex that's for sure. When they do condesend to turn up they're disqusting. As for the Tube - Central Line anyone?
No. You make public transport acceptable before you try and price people off the roads that they already pay huge amounts toward.
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I'm not suggesting people drive in for fun.
I know someone who lives in Watlington, about 40 miles from London, and drives in to E1 every day, leaving his car parked there all the time , then drives back in the evening .it's a company car, and he has all the costs paid .In fact even if he didn't use it he'd be taxed as thoug he did. If he travels by train he still pays tax on the car and the train costs .
The good train line is the Chiltern line .I accept that there are other operators into London who are dreadful.Unfortunately fiddling around with the ownership, as Thatcher did, wastes money and solves nothing; what's needed is investment , best form the public purse and good management ( which is not the same things as privatised management )
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Agree with much of that Greenhey, but Oh boy, my car is fully expensed but no way would I make that guy's trip if there was anything like a decent alternative.
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Sorry to be pedantic but...Thatcher had nothing to do with it - she actually thought railways were a privatisation too far. It was Captain Charisma who made a mess of it.
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I don't think it matters whether people have paid tax to use roads, and I don't think even a huge investment would make a great improvement. Too many people try to commute into a small area every day, taking a large metal box on wheels with them, for the space to absorb - but many of them think it might be possible to go on doing so if enough others stop. That's a problem that spending money won't solve.
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Too many people try to commute into a small area every day, taking a large metal box on wheels with them, for the space to absorb - but many of them think it might be possible to go on doing so if enough others stop. That's a problem that spending money won't solve.
That's a very good point Andrew, and maybe if I had to commute into town every day I'd be exactly like the people you describe.
There are so many 'well if others stop I can still get away with it' people, that, as you say, it won't work.
And, also, as has been said before on this site, the only ones that are going to suffer, or stop using their cars in town, are the ones that cannot afford an extra £5 per day in expenses?
Without wishing to go into rant mode, all these schemes in the end just penalise the lesser-waged in society, and make no difference at all to those who, by luck, hereditry, or even sheer hard work, dont need to worry about such charges!
HF
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The answer is simple, if you want to restrict commuting then you restrict parking.
Shut all the National Car Parks and Council-owned off-street parking in London, exclude parking from office development and there would be no need for congestion charging.
Having said that, I believe that London's streets could carry double the amount of traffic with better laid out, rather than restricted, roads, more intelligent control of traffic lights and a revision of the one-way systems which date back to the sixties.
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"I know people who could and should go into London by train ( and the trains near me are GOOD) but they are too arrogant to do so"
That I find hard to believe. I know of nobody that drives into town for the fun of it - quite apart from the traffic it means you can't have a spontaneous cold drink or two! Also you can't read anything (well, I suppose you can while you are stuck in traffic).
As for GOOD trains - where's this? Not Connex that's for sure. When they do condesend to turn up they're disqusting. As for the Tube - Central Line anyone?
No. You make public transport acceptable before you try and price people off the roads that they already pay huge amounts toward.
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I'm with greenhey on this one. It seems that the last thing that MR covers in either his radio show or newspaper columns are CARS!
I think that trading standards should take a look at his claim that he has the only motoring programme on national radio. I want to hear about new cars, new products etc...., not the same anti-government crap he comes out with week after week.
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Greenhey: you got it. Open access to the centres of towns/cities means lowest common demoninator applies. I'd prefer a positive approach to public transport, i.e make it cheap to use, but that would cost money. Clearly a low priority nowadays, unless it can sprinkle profits around the City.
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>>. It seems that the last thing that MR covers in either his radio show or newspaper columns are CARS!
Considering that almost all the posts on this thread are about congestion charges, or cars v. public transport rather than cars, maybe he's delivering what people want.
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