Road pricing bill before Commons

[gingerjedi]

If you can afford to work a long distance from home then keep paying. I don't know what you're complaining about. Do you want some kind of special allowance because you travel a long way to work? I don't think it would be very popular among people who pay huge rents to live in cramped conditions in town if people like you living in massive houses in the countryside for less money were also getting a discount on their travel costs.

Too many assumptions there, I live in a seaside resort where my job options would be bar work or old peoples homes, our local council has been putting up homes faster than any other town in Europe over the past 20 years yet there has been no investment to improve job prospects for the local population so it has become yet another dormitory town serving a larger city. Every morning I sit in a queue of traffic for twenty minutes just to get on the motorway as I have no real choice, I just don’t see why I should pay for the privilege.

[EternalOptimist]

If the charges are by the mile, sitting in a ten mile traffic jam will generate zero money. Millions of people making short school runs will continue making short school runs.
People who have to travel a long way for their work (ie most of us) will still have to queue 20 mins for the motorway, then pay for every further mile. How this will defeat congestion is beyond me.

[dang65]

A seaside resort that doesn't have a train station serving the city it's a dormitory town for? That does sound disgraceful I must admit. And more expensive to live in than the city you say? A terrible situation.

[VectraMan]

If the charges are by the mile, sitting in a ten mile traffic jam will generate zero money. Millions of people making short school runs will continue making short school runs.
People who have to travel a long way for their work (ie most of us) will still have to queue 20 mins for the motorway, then pay for every further mile. How this will defeat congestion is beyond me.

Exactly. Punish the people who do the short trips, and I have no objection.

I don't queue at all for the motorway. That's part of the reason I live further away from where I work.

Everybody has some example of why public transport is worse, but for me it's an easy walk from my house to the station, and the same at the other end. I could take the train, but if I want to be there for 9am I have to leave at 11pm the night before and wait for 7 hours at Reading station. Is that more convenient than getting in my car at 7.30am? Now let me think.

[dang65]

More from Have Your Say:

An idea to cut down congestion (in urban areas anyway) would be the Government to fund schools money for school coaches/mini buses to pick up children who live over a mile away from the school In this way the kids will be get to school safely& coach full of 50 children for example is potentially taking 50 cars off the road

I love this logic. Children have to be dropped off at school at a specific time. The schools don't open their gates before, and you get marked on the register if you're late. Parents of those children that have to be at work for 9am therefore have a mad rush to get out of the house at the right time pile at least one kid into the car, more likely at least two, get the kids into the playground and make sure they're safely in class, then leg it to the car and get to work as soon as possible, hopefully getting to their desk just in time to not look like they're taking the p*ss.

Meanwhile, BMW man drives himself (rarely does one see more than one person in a rush hour car) 3 or 4 miles to the office, goes straight out for a Costa's coffee and a Danish pastry, then sits and reads a few websites till 9am when the woman opposite comes rushing in and dives into her chair, at which point BMW man thinks, oh well, suppose I'd better do some work. Might go for a quick fag break first though.

But it's the school run mums that have to be got off the road!

[gingerjedi]

A seaside resort that doesn't have a train station serving the city it's a dormitory town for? That does sound disgraceful I must admit. And more expensive to live in than the city you say? A terrible situation.

It does have a station, yet the trains that serve have been inexplicably cut meaning people have to stand all the way, in truth if I didn't drive the wife to work I could possibly use a train service if it was comfortable reliable and inexpensive, I even tried it for a while (the wife drove) but found it was none of these. It’s cheaper to live here than in the city hence the dormitory town status.

I have seen places abroad mostly France and Germany where I would happily use public transport to commute but ours simply does not measure up.

[Ardesco]

It's not cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than the car.

Rubbish. To get to the inlaws house in london (outskirts of) costs me about £5 in petrol. The same trip taking the bus/train/tube would cost about £50 and take 2-3 times as long.

Also the fact that there is no train station where I live and no buses until 08:00 means that there is no way I can get to a station to commute anywhere in a reasonable time unless I drive to the train station (About a 20 min drive).

For me a car is not a luxery, it is an essential.

[dang65]

Rubbish. To get to the inlaws house in london (outskirts of) costs me about £5 in petrol. The same trip taking the bus/train/tube would cost about £50 and take 2-3 times as long.

I just costs you £5 in petrol? That's amazing. I thought everyone was complaining about how the government keeps putting "road tax" up, and how much congestion charges cost, and how much fuel is taxed, and how cars devalue massively from the minute you drive them away from the dealer, and how outrageous parking charges are, and residents' parking to park outside your own house, and MOT, and there's speed cameras everywhere, and insurance premiums have shot up, and clampers, and your car getting towed away, and time lost sitting in traffic jams... £5 you say? I might have to get one of these things, they sound great.

(I work 40 miles away from home. It costs me less than £7.50 a day on the train with a monthly travelcard. Fuel alone costs more than that. Bung in all the other costs of a car and I reckon it would be at least twice as much to drive in.)

Also the fact that there is no train station where I live and no buses until 08:00 means that there is no way I can get to a station to commute anywhere in a reasonable time unless I drive to the train station (About a 20 min drive).

For me a car is not a luxery, it is an essential.

So, how many petitions have you signed to get public transport improved? How many fellow drivers have you organised to all give up driving cars so there would be demand for an earlier bus?

[dang65]

It’s cheaper to live here than in the city hence the dormitory town status.

Cheaper to live in you say? And all that fresh sea air. Perhaps a slightly bigger house than you might get in the city too? Bit quieter of a night, I expect. Less chance of getting mugged on the way back from the pub. Able to park your car outside your house when you get home from work, and without having to display a special resident's ticket on the dashboard?

Sorry, you were saying you don't see why you should pay extra to drive in to town? What was the logic behind that again?

[VectraMan]

To be honest, what I spend on a day in petrol is around the same as the train ticket (about £30). However, if I took the train I'd reclaim £30 per day in expenses. Using my car I reclaim 40p per mile = about £80 per day.

But that's at 33mpg. If I bought a more economical car and/or started driving slower, I'd be more ahead.