unclebuck

Reporter Jason Barlow takes a road trip around the UK to gauge public opinion on the proposed Toll Tax, which offers a pay-as-you-drive solution to congestion. He explores different methods used to prevent gridlock over the past 10 years, and asks whether the freedom to drive must come at a price.

Might be worth a look. Might be more government backed propaganda.

pslewis

Freedom to drive SHOULD come at a price ..... the rich should be able to drive and the poor should walk

FlightMan

FFS whoever infracted PSL for that, can't you see the smilie? Its obviously a tongue in cheek comment. What is this place coming too?

RB5_245

I agree.

gazza-uk

here here,

me think the infractor is inline for a ban

unclebuck

Could we stay on topic please. We don't need pslewis' trolling ruining yet another thread.

_RIP_

FWIW a is not a

HTH

gazza-uk

it was on topic until some halfwit infracted psl for a fair reply.

unclebuck

A Scooby with a pay as you go device fitted A vision of the hell to come....

gazza-uk

I'm sure most will mysteriously break - how terribly unreliable

Tam the bam

Quite sad ain't it! Time for the infraction system to be binned

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

OK, let me have a little thing about this, and then you can help me out if I have got it wrong.

Back in the 70's nearly 100% of the tax taken from motorists was spent on roads. Today, its less than 25%.

The government's solution is to charge per mile, with the price altering for the type of road, and the time of day. This will help us in two ways. 1) Bring in revenue for them to pay for transport solutions, 2) Alter people's driving habits.

To me, that means 1) they have already had the money and not chosen to spent it on roads, and 2) price the poor off the roads.

Finally, and this is a big point. Be absolutely assured that when they try to introduce this, for the average person you WILL be better off. They will make sure that they sweeten the deal so that you will accept it. Then, later on once the system is installed, the price will be hiked massively. For just one example look at the rise in council tax. Then think road tax (the charge was just meant to cover admin), and then think fuel tax escalator, then congestion charging and schemes to charge people to park at work. Does this sound like a policy that is meant to be better for your pocket?

_RIP_

? Sorry m8. Why?? You need to speak out. Say it like you mean it etc.

The Chief

This made my blood boil.

44 billion is paid in tax every year by motorists yeat only 8 billion is spent on transport.

gazza-uk

we already have a pay-as-you-drive system in this country, its called fuel tax ?

MattW

City centres will eventually become ghost towns.

Abdabz

Absolutley...

dpb

Ah yes but the hope is that the can foist the scheme on us along with the bribe of reducing fuel tax by a few pennies


s'obviously UB with the infractor gun

richs2891

mm well what about the recent rises in road tax - where does that money go ? Not on road maintence. Bet they wont drop that nice little earner if (when) they decide to bring in pay per mile.

Richard

PeteBrant

Agreed, but the argument goes that you need to discourage travel at certain times of day. Obviously fuel tax doesn't allow you to do that, where as a congestion charge is more flexible as to how much you charge and at what time of day.

Not that I agree with it.

OllyK

While congestion charging may get people out of their cars in London during peak times, what effect will it have in other cities where there isn't an underground and public transport is pitiful? I suspect in reality it will just generate revenue. Businesses need to try and be more flexible about working hours, while people all need to be at work at 9am there will always be a problem.

Dracoro

Very few people CHOOSE to travel at peak times, they do so as they HAVE to. Extra charges will generally mean lighter wallets and little reduction in congestion.

Better infrastructure is needed, remove road bottlenecks, bypass heavily built up areas, keep traffic flowing and as quickly as possible, this is what reduces congestion. Congestion is increased the more time you are on the road. If you're on the road for 30mins a day, you are creating less congestion than if you are on the road for 60mins and so on...

billythekid

How have our roads become so congested??

I will tell you how.

There are about 8 major roads into our city, there was always heavy traffic but it would flow nicely. About 10 years ago the (new labour) council started to bring in bus lanes on all these roads. This caused a lot of problems, but now the bus is 10 mins faster than the car to get into the city. However this did not sway many people, as for 10 mins in saved time they prefered to sit in their cars on a seat that does not smell of p1ss.

Their next step was to then remove roadside parking that had been there for 30+ years. The pavement was moved out about 2m. This happened in 3 areas - all major small town roads with lots of local shops etc. This did nothing except put quite a few businesses out of pocket, any many have since closed down. This in turn made traffic even worse around the areas that did have parking and junctions around the supermarkets are often at a standstill.

As this was not working the council then took some drastic action, lets CLOSE some roads and make the rest 1 way. This will force people onto the bus system.

As this did not seem to do anything other than make things worse then they took their last and most rediculous step, all new housing in the area will have ONE parking space. Only planning applications that were ANTI CAR will be passed. 4 / 5 bedroom houses with 1 car parking space. Roads on the estates will be ultra narrow meaning you cant park easily on the road either. The local council will also be putting parking wardens onto the estates to give tickets out.

I kid you not.

The council even openly admit this is to deter people from having more than 1 car. The first of these developments are now being built and I bet the people that buy the houses have more than 1 car, god knows where they will park their other cars.

So thats it, how to cause complete chaos in about 10 years. Easy.

But what does it mean for the country. Well it means I am not really happy, everything to do with cars is now mega expensive. So I now buy myself a cheap small city car - costs me next to nothing to run and in the summer I ride a bike. So the £100+ a week the govt used to get off me in tax from my motoring is now around £20 a week. And I know a fair few people who are doing the same. This means that in the long run they are going to lose a lot of money, billions. They need to get this back some how - I can only see one way to do it and thats to put up tax on everything else, income, alcohol, ciggs... I wonder how much more they can **** up the country in the next 10 years?

Clarebabes

Changing what time you need to be at work means total social change rather than just not driving to work for 8.30-9am. How can we choose when we start work realistically? Schools aren't going to allow kids to work flexibly, so we still have to get our kids there and back at certain times....

Not going to happen. Just anpther Government plan to fleece us - we have lots of money to spend on tax, don't we?

PeteBrant

Thing is, it's not revenue generating (assuming everyone pays when they are supposed to)

Yesterdays figures showed that if everyone had paid on time, then the London congestion charge would have been operating at a loss. The only reason they made a profit was through fines.

Sort of blows the whole revenue raising argument out of the window.

billythekid

Pete - that may be true for the scheme, but look at the companies that supply the people / hardware / software... they are making a few quid I can tell you.

Dracoro

The answer is simple, they just raise the charge (as they have done, as well as extending the zone).

The £5 (at a loss if you say so) was just the start so that people didn't complain too much. Once people are used to is they gradually raise the charge.

It'll be £10 p/day if Ken gets re-elected, up to £15 or £20 by 2010 I reckon.

PeteBrant

Not really. Capita had to be bailed out by TFL to the tune of £31 million.

PeteBrant

Its £8 at a loss. If you increase the area covered, then your overheads go up accordingly. Of course the late payers mean it is £80 million odd in profit.

Of course upping the charge will have an inpact (Livingstone wants it raised to £10 next year)

However, by law, all profits have to be plughed back into transport infrastructure.

billythekid

Pete, they were worth £100m 10 years ago... now worth £4 billion. Oh and lets not forget that they loaned New Labour a load of dosh too... Dont let the fact they lost the contract fool you into thinking they have not made any money...

IBM has the contract now anyway from 09. But again, they WILL make profit from it, and quite a nice one.