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And two wheeled motor vehicles get in free. The pay back time for those who commute into the charging zone will significantly be reduced if this goes ahead, so I will be expecting more motorcycles on my way to work.
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I will be expecting more motorcycles on my way to work.
Sounds like a good thing to me - motorcycles take up less space on the road, and can help reduce congestion greatly (especially if each bike rider would otherwise be in a car).
Plus, the more of them there are the safer it becomes for each of them (car drivers will gradually become better at looking out for them).
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It was as inevitable as the arrival one day of your funeral cortage...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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The wider point is that Red Ken has proved that local authorities can introduce such charges and get re-elected, so coming to a town near you...
The overwhelming majority of London commuters benefit from reduced congestion, and only a very small minority use the cars which cause the congestion. So in London there is a masive inbuilt majority of support for the congestion charge -- a lot of Londoners would like to see it go much higher.
Outside London, where cars are a more widespread means of commuting, the electroral logic may be a bit different.
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Where do you get that stuff from NoWheels?
No offence, but this is probably the biggest pile of propaganda cliches since Lenin and Trotsky.
What majority of commuters benefit from congestion charge? So you bus journey takes 12.5 minutes instead of 15 compared to pre CC times (which by the way could be simly down to bus lanes). For an 18% reduction in traffic the CC is inconvenience to statistically 110,000 motorists a day that pay £5 fine for having no other option but to drive through. Inconvenience to 110,000 motorists every day to gain just 29,000 bus passengers this year. How is that sane? How is that "majority benefiting"? There is one, proven way to reduce congestion. And that's faster, more efficient traffic flow. Get the transit out of the city, get the commuters go through the city as fast as possible. Make 40 mph zones where possible, build bridges further east, return to original speeds on A12, A13 and A2 exits from London. But instead of redesign, we have bunch of morons trying to invite whole world to olimpics through one, almost single lane Blackwall Tunnel and from 29th of November we have first 20 mph zone on the main dual carriage way connecting The City with whole South East and it's guarded by SPECS cameras. Surely it will help congestion.
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v0n, I forget the exact figure, but only 10-15% of London commuters commute by car. Plenty of them do have a choice, but choose to use their cars ... and take up many times more roadspace than they would on a bus.
The reduced journey times don't just benefit the extra bus users -- they also benefit the huge number who already used the buses, but found their journeys delayed by the congestion caused by the very small minority who clog up the roads with their cars.
There is one, proven way to reduce congestion. And that's faster, more efficient traffic flow
Excatly. By reducing unnecessary trafic, the remaining trafic moves faster.
I agree with you about the Olympics, though. Daft idea: straight from the Millennium Dome school of thinking (thanks, Heseltine, for that legacy! not)
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>>(thanks, Heseltine, for that legacy! not)>>
It's well documented that New Labour, when it came to power, wanted to scrap the Dome scheme.
However, Tone insisted that it went ahead despite most of his Cabinet being opposed. Once the Dome proved to be such a white elephant his interest suddenly waned......
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I think No Wheels has it broadly right. Would not disagree with v0n that optimising traffic flow would help, though smooth flow and eliminating pinch points is more important than whether the limit is 30 or 40. However the idea that all 110,000 people paying the congestion charge have no choice is risible. A handful are essential car users making client calls with heavy kit or needing to arrive exit London outwith tube/rail hours. For them the CC is a crude tool and permits would be a more equitable answer, but one that is politically unnacceptable. The rest have made the calculation and decided that the car is still more convenient and worth the cost.
I am a CC beneficiary. I use my folding bike from a mainline rail station to my office. The CC has cut the jams right down. Next target the vans that use bus lanes as loading bays!
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The CC in London works. As I pay £16.50 a day to commute into the city then even £10 is not an unfair charge for the CC.
What is missing tho is the infrastructure around the CC. Like fast inner city ring road around the CC zone. Large underground car parks at the edge for park and ride.
Like everything else we do in the UK re transport, traffic, roads and all other infrastructure its done in isolation with no thought for integrated policies.
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Ah, but the infrastucture for integrated policies costs serious money (sustained heavy investment for decades), whereas tinkering is much cheaper. Since voters choose low tax regimes, the serious money isn't available :(
Sometimes this has comic consequences: I read somewhere recently that some London business groupings were seeking some equivalent of the Parisian transport tax on businesses, to raise the funds to build a serious transport system. Despite these willing taxpayers, the govt still said no. Go figure :(
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Next target the vans that use buslanes as loading bays!
Also include all the Taxis who set down and pick up in the bus lanes blocking them and forcing buses into the other traffic.
In fact I cannot see any justification for taxis being allowed in bus lanes at any time.
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In fact I cannot see any justification for taxis being allowed in bus lanes at any time.
That's funny..... Ken Livingstone uses taxis wherever he goes. You know the ones; single passenger journey when a bus and tube journey would be so much better for London. Hypocrite that he is, he fails to see that simply not owning a car doesn't make him a car-free person; he's simply passing the ownership to a third party whilst retaining all the benefits of car ownership with the added bonus of dedicated travel lanes.
Oh hang on, I think I may have just described 1980s Moscow.
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When it comes down to it, a taxi is simply a chauffeur-driven car which doesn't need to park.
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Outside London, where cars are a more widespread means of commuting, the electroral logic may be a bit different.
It all works a bit differently outside London.
You move to an area with a nice market town, and useful shops you can park outside while you nip in.
Then the council puts in the yellow lines.
You don't mind too much because the parking is free in the car parks, but the shopkeepers complain and are ignored.
Next a strange one way system is put in that nobody understands and which requires you to give way at all the places where you are travelling in a straight line. The shopkeepers complain a little more, and are ignored.
Then time limits are put on the free parking period. They're quite reasonable at first so no-one minds much. The limits creep down.
Pay and Display is brought in. The shopkeepers complain and you notice there are rather fewer useful shops than there used to be, and rather more charity shops and end-of-line shops. The council notice that people leaving are handing their Pay and Display tickets with remaining time free to new arrivals at the car parks, and introduce fiendish new machines to frustrate this.
The parking charges keep going up, strange traffic constructions, humps and chicanes appear. The council decides to deliberately limit parking spaces.
You don't care any more though because there are no shops left worth going to anyway. You get your shopping either out of town or over the internet. In the Sunday magazines you read environmental groups are complaining out of town shopping centres are killing high streets.
Sometimes you think it might be time to move another hundred miles further out from London.
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A very poignant story.
Alternative story
Tescobury builds huge megastore halfway between nicetown and pleasanttown soley based on catchement area. Tescobury sells everything you need cheap including petrol. Nicetown & pleasanttown go bust.
Its that simple. Market economics.
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> Its that simple. Market economics.
Where I live the economics is that the council get the revenue from the parking, whereas the shopkeepers get the benefit from it being free. Guess which way the council votes.
If they're trying to protect local businesses from the evil multiples then they're the sort of ally with which you don't need enemies. Don't know if the link below will work but the gist of it is a town councillor tore up a petition from 400 town traders on the issue of keeping free parking.
www.newmarkettoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?Section...6
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P.S. much of the stuff in my original post came from where I used to live in Surrey. Newmarket is just catching up...
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Exactly what Ro says has happened in Northampton town centre. Just add in the draconian TOPS parking wardens and you are there. Businesses pulling out of the town centre, old Fish Market (used to house fishmongers, butchers and fruit and veg guys) is now closed and the historic market (in the market square) is on its last legs.
Council response to falling revenue from parking? Raise the parking rates...
Where do Northamptonians shop now?
Milton Keynes.
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I agree with Ro.
However, look at the demise of milkman. Mostly because people could get their milk a penny or so cheaper from asdabury and went prepared to pay the extra to have it delivered to the door.
So it isn't all congestion charges and parking restrictions and daft traffic systems.
1) Vote everytime and vote in accordance with the things that are annoying you or conversely making you happy.
2) Make sure your local councillor/politician/whatever knows how you feel.
3) If there is a facility you wish to retain, then use it.
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Exactly what Ro says has happened in Northampton town centre. Just add in the draconian TOPS parking wardens and you are there. Businesses pulling out of the town centre, old Fish Market (used to house fishmongers, butchers and fruit and veg guys) is now closed and the historic market (in the market square) is on its last legs. Council response to falling revenue from parking? Raise the parking rates... Where do Northamptonians shop now? Milton Keynes.
Interesting point Thommo; the Council could have done more (or perhaps less) to allow optimal traffic flow and a little more on street parking. The real problem though is that shopping has become leisure not obligation and that we all started to dive into town at the drop of a hat. Short of whole scale demolition the road infrastructure cannot cope. The Town Centre has lots of parking spaces but the whole shebang just gridlocks. Even ten years ago it was quicker to park at the station and walk into town. Now you can get pretty much anything Tesco/Sainsbury/Morrison's or at the out of town parks. The same applies in large towns up and down the country.
Milton Keynes was designed for the car, but even there most of the free parking has gone.
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True enough Mr.B. Tried to stop at Rymans (near station in MK) only to find that I had to pay to park outside the shop and the wardens were hovering. Damned if I was going to pay so I drove off and they lost a sale. I assume its all pay around there to force commuters in to the multi story car park.
I am old enough to remember the unequivical statements from MKDC that it would always be free to park in MK. Plus ca change.
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It seems to me that ro's analysis of the progression from freedom to chaos in suburban towns (and its effect on local businesses) is about right.
But what I'm surprised by is that people seem unaware that this process actully began in London and that the entire Congestion Charge scam was predicated on a situation local councils had actually caused.
During the argument about Livingstone's introduction of this charge, figures were produced proving that the number of vehicles using central London had not increased by anything like the amount claimed and that traffic speeds had been deliberately throttled by a variety of measures supposed to "improve" traffic (timing changes on lights, cycle lanes, bus lanes, obstructive bus stands and the like).
What Livingstone and his fellow travellers in city planning had done was make a situation worse, so that they could invent a solution which suited their politics. It's an old trick.
Claims that Londoners "support" CC are spurious, at best. If Livingstone had the courage of his convictions he'd hold a referendum on this single issue (as they did in Edinburgh). But he won't. In fact he won't even allow a process of public consultation. Like the frantic shredding of documents before the Freedom of Information Act came into force (of which he openly boasted) it isn't hard to work out why.
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London's a big place and I don't think the majority welcome the CG! Yes, commuters may do but then they mostly don't live in the area affected or even in London itself.
As far as Rec Ken is concerned I wonder if he prefaced the introduction of the CG with that well know political disclaimer "we have no plans to increase taxes". Now where have I heard that before?
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Forgive me for being cynical but I reckon 110,000 mororists a day paying £5 a time is around half a million £s, so every week week Ken gets an extra £5 million, this is the main reason for the CC.
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too much vino with lunch, should have been 2.5 million a month.
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