2009/12/11 Adrian Stott <[email protected]>: >>> In fact, the way we pay for road tax and car insurance tends to make >>> the per-journey cost by car cheaper than most transit. Hence one of >>> my reasons for supporting road charging (to replace road tax and fuel >>> duty), which would transfer that cost from the vehicle to the trip.
I didn't think that this is a sentence I would ever write but: Adrian has a point. But only up to a point. Raising money from driving by charging by use has real merits. Fuel duty is better than road tax because it has some relationship to use - and encourages more efficient vehicles. It rewards those who drive efficiently and avoid congestion because they will get a higher mpg from their vehicles. People who live in rural areas may drive much longer distances but consume less fuel than us Londoners who see getting into 3rd gear as a bit of a treat. The congestion charge adds a further disincentive to driving in central London, though Boris is removing it from his affluent inner West London vote bank. But using markets to ration can be unfair. Given the great differences in wealth and income in the UK, this kind of market pricing for public policy reasons can completely exclude some people and not be noticed by others. That may be fair enough for vintage champagne, but is an issue for something as basic as mobility. Part of the answer is better public transport - and another merit of the congestion charge is that its proceeds do help improve public transport in London. Bus services improved markedly in my part of East London under Ken, and have so far kept up under Boris. But not everyone can economically have a bus service for every possible journey - although the deregulation of buses outside London didn't help as the free market stopped cross-subsidisation from busy routes to socially necessary but unprofitable ones. And not everyone acts in rational ways when confronted by market signals. People, particularly it seems men, put a very high emotional value on being in their own car, as opposed to a bus. It becomes part of their identity. Behavioural economics - basically the study of why people do things that appear irrational to free market economists - is fascinating and deep stuff. This - in my view - is one reason why road pricing always provokes such a strong and visceral reaction. Oddly some of its biggest opponents come from the same free-market, small-state bit of the forest in which Adrian lives - that's because he is more free-market than he is small state I guess, and he does get points for consistency (though refusing to call anything he likes a tax lets him down a bit.) There are of course interesting technological fixes for some of this. But simply inventing something is not the same as turning it into an economic proposition, particularly if left to the market alone. There is no guarantee that things will be adopted unless the existing less good alternatives are banned or priced out - with little likelihood of political support. But what do the rest of us conclude? There's no easy politically-acceptable way to reduce congestion. A simple belief in one approach won't work, and the best that can be done is use a mix of regulatory, tax and alternative public provision in a pragmatic way knowing that anyone who has their behaviour changed will be jolly ungrateful, and anyone who benefits will take it as their right. People will think what they do is ok, and other people need to change. Electorates get the politicians they deserve. -- Nigel Stanley
