"Niall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Adrian Stott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>Oh of course, because we all have a totally free choice of when and where >>>we >>>travel, because we're just doing it for a laugh and to kill some trees. >>>Or just choose a proportion of the workforce and force them to work >>>unsocial >>>hours. Never mind that people usually don't want work done in unsocial >>>hours >>>any more than the workers want to do it. >> >> Huh? > >Which part of that didn't you understand? What does the phrase "unsocial >hours" mean to you? What I didn't understand was why you had not realised that what people want depends on what it costs. Make it much less expensive for (e.g.) the plumber to visit in the evening, I would bet a *lot* of people would want him to visit in the evening. >> Municipal incompetence is not a valid argument against road pricing. > >It's one of the key reasons. And it's not incompetence. It is cold, >deliberate, artificial creation of exactly the percieved problem that >charging is the solution for. Have you had your panoids looked at lately? >> Congestion is an extremely inefficient way of controlling demand. If >> you allocate even a small value to the extra time required of all the >> drivers in the jams, it turns out to sum to a greater total than the >> tolls would. > >Or: > >>>> Actually, they will probably balance out, as the more congested the >>>> untolled road gets, the more people will be willing to pay to use the >>>> tolled one. > >Pick one. Naw - I'll have both. The inefficiency of congestion would cause drivers to realise it is worth paying the tolls. Or tolls would be introduced on the previously-untolled road. >Indeed. Revenue neutral? Sure. The neutrality is calculated nationally. >> >> Everyone always complains about paying for things. Or about having to >> change their habits/baehaviour. If they didn't complain, you could be >> sure that the policy was proving to be ineffective. > >It's not good medicine unless it tastes bad? Come on. If solving the problem requires a lot of people to change their behaviour, I'm afraid that's about right. People will have already adjusted (perhaps expensively) to the status quo, so resist any alteration to it. For example, if you have bought a house somewhere because there is a good free school nearby, you are not going to be happy is school charges are introduced to save the education system. >> Also, the people who live in the London Congestion Charge area *don't* >> pay the CC (or, actually, do pay a much reduced one). This is one of >> the serious flaws in the CC, as those local people make up a very >> significant proportion of the traffic. Other flaws are that you pay >> to drive *into* London, not *in* London (i.e. the charge does not vary >> with the distance you drive in the CC zone), and "public service" >> vehicles (which includes not only buses but also taxis) don't pay, >> even though they contribute a great deal to congestion. > >Service and delivery vehicles OTOH, *do* despite the fact that the system >won't function without them. So those who benefit from their services will be willing to pay more to the organisations that operate them. Or will insist that organisations operate more efficiently. Or both. >> >>>I hear business are complaining because lack of business cause there is >>>no >>>through traffic? >> >> Have you ever come across any businessman who does *not* complain that >> some bad people are reducing his business? Anyway, why should a >> business have a right to be more profitable at the expense of the >> streets being clogged up for everyone else? > >Ah, the evil capitalist. How dare he make a living? Tell me, at any stage >did anyone pay you for your labours? "We mustn't stop people robbing banks. Think of all the bank robbers we would put out of work." >> In fact, we are travelling far too much now, because travel has become >> much too cheap. If you reduce the price for anything, the demand for >> it goes up. Since the tubes, trains, buses etc. are priced very much >> below the market level, and well below what is needed to produce >> enough revenue to support them, it is clear they are under-priced. > >So why are they hugely subsidised? Because we have a socialist government? Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
