Congestion charge to be rolled out nationwide

**DimPrawn** · 29 November 2005, 19:34

No surprises.

Yes the govt would like to know your every move and EVERY speeding offence you make.

Yes the charge will be on top of the existing taxes and fuel duties.

Yes traffic will bunch up on smaller cheaper roads.

Yes you fecking idiots voted in Blair & Co for another five years.

**BigTime** · 30 November 2005, 03:45

Further grounds for working from home.

**IR35 Avoider** · 30 November 2005, 10:29

1. I don't want someone knowing everywhere I've been in my car.

I agree in principle, though mostly can't envision circumstances where this is going to have a negative impact on me personally. The upside of "big brother" monitoring is that the uninsured, untaxed and criminals generally are likely to be even more affected than most of us. (Actually if they use it for enforcing speed limits without visible cameras, that would be crap, but then I already have various roads/bridges/tunnels in my neigbourhood which enforce 20mph with hidden cameras that measure your speed over a distance.)

2. I think it will push traffic onto local roads and jam them up.

A proper system will charge wherever there is congestion - problem solved.

3. It will be an additional tax - we'll still pay fuel duty and vehicle licence fees.

It doesn't have to be, and government have suggested that excess revenue may be used to reduce taxes, but I suppose we should only believe that when we see it.

Edited to add: Fuel duty and congestion charge should not be seen as alternatives to each other. The government are screwing up congestion charging to the extent they are suggesting it might be an alternative to fuel duty. A 10mpg Hummer should pay more to make a given journey than a 60mpg car, and it's the job of fuel duty to capture that difference. It may be legitimate to reduce fuel duty, but not to eliminate it.

4. There is no alternative. Public transport hasn't improved much despite competition from the car. It won't improve at all if competition is reduced.

This is the most objectionable objection to me. I want a better world (in transport terms) and 90% of transport is travel by road. Regardless of whether I'm using public or private the only way to achieve improvement in my area is for there to be less congestion, and congestion charging is the only way to achieve that. Saying no to congestion charging amounts to saying we want a future that's as crap as the present, or even worse.

If you can get from A to B reliably in your car, then you are not affected by congestion and won't have to pay the charge. If your journeys do go through congested routes, adding buses without first sorting out the congestion isn't going to help. People who are faced with a journey of indeterminate duration/reliability are going to be even more determined to stick to their cars so that they can at least have maximum comfort while they're not getting anywhere.

5. Haven't our taxes already paid for nearly every road on the island?

The point of congestion charging should be solely to reduce congestion to the point that roads are usable. Where there is no congestion there should be no charge. Even if it failed to cover the costs of running itself, let alone generating excess revenue, I would want it. If it generates excess revenue that's a bonus that can be spent in various ways. I'd prefer tax cuts but no doubt you are right in presuming Labour governments will have other ideas.

**DimPrawn** · 30 November 2005, 10:46

Sounds like a great idea then IR35 Avoider. I can't wait for New Lie to get EDS onto the job ASAP, hopefully offshore as much as possible and then we'll all reap the benefits of this great plan.

Cracking.

**IR35 Avoider** · 30 November 2005, 10:59

I can't wait for New Lie to get EDS onto the job ASAP

You're merely worried that they will **** up the implementation. I suspect that whatever party is in government, that would cost several times what it should, and be delivered several years late. What worries me is that this government won't get the principles on which it should be based right in the first place. eg they will use it instead of fuel tax, or to raise revenue by charging more is justified to reduce congestion.

The thing is, however much I fear they will mess up principles and implementation, I see congestion charging as the only way out of the present transport nightmare. (Don't forget I live in London.)

**BoredBloke** · 30 November 2005, 12:30

"The upside of "big brother" monitoring is that the uninsured, untaxed and criminals generally are likely to be even more affected than most of us"

How would this happen. I thought the idea was to have a black box in the car to let the powers that be know where you have travelled and when. I'd expect the uninsured lot to simply not have a black box and clone the plates from another car.

"A proper system will charge wherever there is congestion - problem solved."

Taxing people off an expensive (busy) road simply pushes the problem to a cheaper one. Also, how are we going to know the cost per mile our roads? Is there a system which will tell us the cost per mile before we drive on the road or will we be billed after the event?

"It doesn't have to be, and government have suggested that excess revenue may be used to reduce taxes, but I suppose we should only believe that when we see it."

The government already get £40billion off the motorist. I would say that the likelyhood af any extra being 'given' back is somewhere between none and none.

"If you can get from A to B reliably in your car, then you are not affected by congestion and won't have to pay the charge."

Yes you will. None of the proposals included 'free' roads. All roads would incurr a cost. The levels of congesstion would simply be a factor which is applied to the base cost. But if you price a motorist off a busy road by forcing them onto a cheaper one surely this will increase the congesstion there. This will increase the price on the cheaper road. Do you really trust the government to reduce the cost of the expensive road (as the motorists are going elsewhere) if the price of the cheaper one rises?

Also, what is to stop councils messing with the traffic flow to artificially create congesstion and justify a charge? What happens on a road if roadworks are causing congesstion? Does the toll of the road rise due to the congesstion caused by the roadworks?

It is very easy for our London based politicians to pontificate about public transport. Most don't use it as they have a hefty expenses packages. Outside of London the public transport in this country is expensive, dirty and unreliable. I had a contract a while ago where I had to get from my house to the other side of Manchester. The total distance was some 18 miles. There was no way that I could use public transport AND fit 8 hours in the office. The best I could get was 7 hours of work and 4 hours commuting.

Personally I would use public transport if it were cheap, frequent and reliable. It isn't so I don't.

**John Galt** · 30 November 2005, 12:45

Originally posted by IR35 Avoider

You're merely worried that they will **** up the implementation. I suspect that whatever party is in government, that would cost several times what it should, and be delivered several years late. What worries me is that this government won't get the principles on which it should be based right in the first place. eg they will use it instead of fuel tax, or to raise revenue by charging more is justified to reduce congestion.

The thing is, however much I fear they will mess up principles and implementation, I see congestion charging as the only way out of the present transport nightmare. (Don't forget I live in London.)

The transport problems in London are caused because the city is totally over populated and the infrastructure can't support the numbers

**stackpole** · 30 November 2005, 13:51

Originally posted by IR35 Avoider

"I think it will push traffic onto local roads and jam them up."

A proper system will charge wherever there is congestion - problem solved.

I don't see how the problem is solved. If small roads start charging higher, the congestion will move back to the main roads. We'll be back where we were AND paying congestion charges.

Originally posted by IR35 Avoider

Saying no to congestion charging amounts to saying we want a future that's as crap as the present, or even worse.

We'll agree to disagree on that because I'm not convinced that blanket congestion charging will make it better.

Pedestrian precincts and the existing congestion charge aren't so bad because they in the middle of towns, forcing drivers around them, where there is more room. However high charges on, say, the M25 will push traffic through satellite towns and minor roads and clog them up.

So the charge is raised there as well. But as I set out on a journey, how do I know where the charges are high today? Just as important, how do I know where the congestion will be today? It could be a circus, and one more thing to worry about every morning.

So where's the alternative? It now takes me an hour to drive to Slough, but would take more than two hours by public transport. And we shouldn't kid ourselves that public transport will improve significantly. There isn't much precedent for that.

At the moment we know the areas to avoid and, if we can avoid them we do, if we can't we leave a bit earlier. Switching traffic hotspots round in circles just creates uncertainty.

**IR35 Avoider** · 30 November 2005, 17:53

I don't see how the problem is solved. If small roads start charging higher, the congestion will move back to the main roads. We'll be back where we were AND paying congestion charges.

The problem is solved because some journeys no longer get made - people take jobs, shop, take children to school closer to home because congestion charges make alternative unviable. Some people do switch to buses. Some people move house to be closer to work. Some people even car-share. (No I wouldn't want to, but it does sometimes happen in real life, it's not just a Green party fantasy...)

Of course it's not good that people are being priced out of journeys they would otherwise wish to make, but what happens now is that lots of people are not making journeys because of congestion. Under road pricing it's the people who will pay, whose journeys are more economically worthwhile, that get to use the roads.

Pedestrian precincts and the existing congestion charge aren't so bad because they in the middle of towns, forcing drivers around them, where there is more room

Again with the talk about routes. The point of charges is fewer vehicles, journeys not made, it's not about alternative routes. The London congestion charge has resulted in fewer vehicle trips. Charges need to be raised on all routes so that traffic moves (say) at least 20mph in town and 50 mph outside. You just keep raising the charges until enough people drop out to bring traffic up to that speed. You do this to control congestion on every single road (I'm assuming the technology - don't know if it exists) therefore it is irrelevant whether people are using a particular road as their first or second (alternative) choice. The same mechanism prevents congestion everywhere. Of course I'm talking an idealised system - what's being actually proposed may fall short, but then we are just arguing about the state of technology, not the principle of charging.

At the moment we know the areas to avoid and, if we can avoid them we do, if we can't we leave a bit earlier. Switching traffic hotspots round in circles just creates uncertainty

You clearly live with much less congestion than me - for me the alternative to congested routes are usually (a) walking and the tube and (b) not going. If one route is going to be bad then any alternative is not going to be any more viable.

Congestion charge to be rolled out nationwide