----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Haywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 1:47 AM Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: Proposed new car tax (OT) ON Line Petitions
> > Only if we do the same for roads. Make drivers pay not just for the cost > of > the road, but the cost maintaining it, policing it, lighting it and > otherwise keeping it open. Then we should factor in costs for the road > infrastructure caused by traffic damage, the Victorian sewers that > collapse, > the water pipes that crumble, the street architecture that's damaged by > lorries trying to get along roads never made to accommodate them. Then > there's the cost of the infrastructure of cities damaged by traffic. > Houses > where foundations have been made unstable, where walls have had to be > pinned > as a result of years of heavy traffic; small towns that have been > virtually > destroyed by traffic. Oh, and then there's the medical costs of traffic; > surely they should be paid for too? Not just the people killed and maimed > in > accidents, but the thousands of kids suffering from asthma as a result of > particulates in the atmosphere. And while we're on this tack, shouldn't > drivers have to pay for the environment too, the long term damage that's > being done to the ozone layer as a result of the overuse of the internal > combustion engine? They already do. I'm not going through the whole list, you'll only accuse me of failing to provide facts anyway, but just for the hell of it; Asthma clusters. Many of which are in places like the Orkney Isles where traffic jams are, well... uncommon. Fitted carpets, double glazing and central heating in combination have been suggested as a more plausible explanation. >And shouldn't they just have to pay for making our lives > a misery, the noise they cause, the stress they engender, the light > pollution necessary to illuminate their nighttime journeys? etc etc etc What a worldview. If you think cars are "making your life a misery" you are in something of a minority, and one I can't really relate to. Most people see them as providing a significant improvement in quality of life over the alternatives as historically experienced. That's why they go out and buy them. I have seen this elsewhere though, you'ld like the guide to the Scottish Lowland Canals. It's peppered with references to unwelcome road noise and the visual impact of pylons, but includes a reference to how nice the trains on the parallel railway look. I think the author has issues. Me, I enjoy the sound of a Class 37 or a Scania 420 or a Bolinder or a CFM56 just the same. (Guess which one has the least emissions :-)) I will say that I now live closer to the A80 than I used to live to a less than main railway line and road noise doesn't wake me at 3 o'clock each morning like the railway did (never did find out what that was but it sounded like 2 x 37's hauling a scrapyard over a tin roof...), but it didn't "make my life a misery". There are roads out there, lots of people drive on them, meh. Not bothered. Rather not pay through the nose for incompetence because some people have issues. > > Me, I think public transport might just nose in front on cost criteria. And yet, it has to be subsidised 2:1 just to bring it within most people's reach, whereas road transport generates a huge surplus, yes it's not hypothecated but it still in cold fact pays for things like canals. You can produce all the nebulous hidden costs you like but they have to add up to a hell of a lot of money. (You can do the ad hominem post now, no doubt everyone is anxiously waiting to see it.) -- Niall
