"Bru" <[email protected]> wrote: >What a load of tosh!
Phew! What you've written contains so many false assumptions, it's hard to know where to start. So I'll take them as they appear. >The presumption that tolls will reduce traffic presumes that people are >making avoidable journeys. Almost all journeys are avoidable. Instead of going to mail a letter, you could have used email. Instead of going to the shops four times a week for small purchases, you could go once and buy the lot. Instead of driving to work, you could work from home via the internet or move closer to your job and walk to it. Instead of driving to your cottage in Wales, you could take the train(or sell the thing) ... >Who, in this day and age of £5+ a gallon, makes unnecessary journeys anyway? Almost everybody. Just look at all those clowns driving their kids to school, for example. >All that tolls on major roads will do is increase "ratrunning" on 'B' and >'C' roads - this is already a growing problem (for example, the road at the >bottom of our cul-de-sac is carrying many times more traffic during the rush >hour than it did 10 years ago with people cutting around the congestion on >the A14) Why are you assuming that only the big roads would be subject to tolls?. The sensible approach is for *all* road to have them, but only at times and locations where congestion occurs. A scheme, called "ADEPT", was developed at Cambridge which would do just this. Under it, if your vehicle stopped more than X times per minute, or averaged less than Y miles per hour for more than Z minutes, you would be deemed to be driving on a congested road and be charged one congestion unit (a unit being worth W pence). The scheme includes clever collection details, requiring almost no infrastructure and no keeping track of where you drive to. This approach would make the behaviour you describe pointless. >Now there's no doubt that in one or two, and I do mean one or two, major >cities where there is a good and reasonably priced public transport >infrastructure something like congestion charging can work. But outside of a >handful of major conurbations public transport simply isn't an option for >most of us. The problem with public transport is that it's now a government job. When buses and trains (and waterways) first appeared in this country, they were started as private businesses and run for profit. Now, the government has taken them over (or controls what they charge), so they are run to the Ministry's budget rather than to attract custom. No wonder they're mostly dire. If roads were priced at the market -clearing level, then fares on public (note, not "publicly-owned") transport could rise to levels at which it can make a profit. This would allow e.g. the railways to upgrade the track etc. to TGV level without any subsidy. ISTM that public transport can be profitable everywhere there is now road congestion, if the government will get out of the way.. >So yes, in a perverse way your quite right - introducing road pricing would >lead to my changing my car use ... but not in the way that is intended! If it were introduced the way I describe, it would have the effect I intend. >What is needed is not stupid schemes dreamt up by idiots who don't live in >the real world. What is needed is genuine, massive and long term investment >to reverse the trend since the 1950's of moving places of work out of town >and away from public transport and to improve and, importantly, reduce the >cost of using public transport. The reason this trend has occurred is that it save(d)(s) the employers money. That's because the out-of-town premises are cheaper. The employers don't have to pay the employees as much, either, as the government subsidises the roads they use to drive from the towns to those jobs. Barmy. Just as barmy as not allowing the commuter fares for rail and tubes to go up. >On average, in this area, any given bus journey takes around 5 times longer >than the equivalent car journey (due to the buses going all around the >houses) and costs about twice as much. And that's without taking into >account the wait of up to an hour for a bus to arrive. Furthermore, the >first bus into our village in the morning is fully two and a quarter hours >*after* my missus has finished work (she works nights) and there's no bus >service at all to where I work. Riding on a bus is almost always much less pleasant than riding in your own vehicle. You have to go to the bus stop, instead of just out on to your driveway. You have to wait for the thing to come. You have to stand out in all weathers (or in a smelly rubbish-strewn shelter in which some friendly person has taken an axe to the seating). You have to share the bus with someone of unpleasant odour who is coughing all over you, or shouting into his phone. The thing doesn't go very near your destination. It travels at an average of about 10 miles/hour. etc. >In truth, public transport is never going to be a feasible option for many >people. We can't turn the clock back 40 or 50 years overnight. It would be, if it were allowed to develop (see my points on fares and ownership above). Ever heard of "personal rapid transit"? That's self-driving taxis, to you and me. The technology is very nearly feasible now. You sell your car. When you want to travel, you dial a number on your phone, and a driverless cab appears at your door within five minutes. You indicate your destination, and it takes you there. Because there's no driver to pay (and there are several competing companies running the things), the fare is low. Because you are in a separate vehicle, you avoid most of the nasties of bus and train travel (you could pay more, and a self-driving Bentley would appear, instead of the usual Berlingo). You would save a fortune by no longer having a car, because you no longer pay car insurance, repairs, taxes, parking, fuel. I don't want to turn the clock back. I want to turn it forward. Trouble is, the government stopped the mechanism in the 1950s. Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
