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Time for road charging?
I drive a lot for work. I have to drive usually because I carry a lot of equipment in flight cases. My most regular journey is from Worthing to Wembley, approximately 70 miles, which I can do on a clear run, without speeding in about 90 - 100 minutes on either dual carriageway or motorway. I have been doing this trip for a number of years and gradually the time I have to allow has crept up to 3 hours in peak times. On the way to Manchester yesterday I lost 45 minutes due to congestion on the M1 and don't get me started on central London. I believe it is time to follow the French model of charging for travel on motorways and possibly other major routes. I just can't spare the time to sit in traffic with people who could either travel out of peak time take public transport, walk or cycle.
I don't expect this to be a popular idea, what do you all think?
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Tarffic
A while ago I read, and I think it may have been Mark Ellen's diary column in Word, of someone who reported seeing a sign while stuck in a traffic jam. The sign read, 'You are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.'
There's a fair or better chance that many of those people you assume did not need to be on the road at that time thought exactly the same of you. Overall we just need to make fewer journeys, but I've no idea how to go about enforcing this, how I would feel about having my own journeys restricted (even though I don't drive), or whether it is even desirable to make people travel less instead of just allowing them to put up with the consequences.
True, I am part of the problem
However, I am prepared to pay for using emptier roads in order to make my business easier and more efficient. I did this yesterday on the M6 toll Road. I travel out of hours where possible but sitting on the M25 going nowhere at 11am or 8.30pm mid week is madness.
Ah the Mention Of Manchester
I'm lucky as I work nightshifts so miss the bulk of the traffic on the M62 - this 4 lane highway gets snarled because of the trucks either with limiters on or just unable to get up what is the highest motorway in the country. I'm sure its this that causes the frustration which then sees reckless driving and the many accidents that then result making it even worse. If a lorry can't do the national speed limit it shouldn't be on the road during peak times - and don't get me started about those bleeding giant cranes that travel at 40 most days.
I often have to drive to work
on major routes, because public transport would be too time-consuming and not much cheaper if at all. Being a self-employed contract worker I get no choice in what I'm paid beyond take it or leave it. Currently my rates have been squeezed back to what was the norm 3-4 years ago but petrol, food etc. prices have shot up. Road pricing on top of everything else would severely affect my already-reduced disposable income so I am against it.
My solution to road congestion is to more aggressively penalise bad driving - the cause of a major part of our congestion problems - and get the idiots off the roads, leaving more space for the rest of us.
There are an awful lot of drivers on our roads who should not be license-holders because they won't behave behind the wheel. Nick 'em and ban 'em!
What's bad driving?
Exceeding the speed limit? Driving too close to the car in front? Agressive driving? Staying in Lane 3?
yes
all of those and more
Those things cause accidents
not congestion. It's reducing three lanes to one that slows everything down, and the most effective way to do that is to sit a 68mph in the middle lane. I recently drove 3000 miles across The States where they allow passing on either side, and the traffic was far more free flowing. In Germany, they have two lane Autobahns with no speed limit and everyone pulls over when they've finished overtaking. It's only the Brits who dither in the middle.
Effectively
passing on either side is allowed here because people (including myself when it's safe to do so) do it anyway if middle-lane-hoggers (someone, somewhere once referred to them as Sharons, which seems grossly sexist, most of them being men) persist in not looking in their mirrors and making way.
All of the examples in the previous post I would class as bad driving except for -sometimes- speeding, because a blanket 70 MPH national speed limit is a bit ridiculous, in my view. If road conditions and the condition of one's vehicle are suitable, why shouldn't one go a bit faster than 70 MPH. Almost everyone seems to do it anyway on the motorways and the Police mostly turn a blind eye unless the driver is being reckless/aggressive (i.e. dangerous) or cocking a snook, or else they are bored and are looking for something to do to pass the time till the end of their shift.
Tailgating is a major cause of delay, it seems to me.
A minor incident occurs, causing one to brake. The person behind, if they are too close, brakes also but because they don't know what the original cause was, and because of reaction time, is obliged to brake a bit harder. The person close behind them is obliged to brake harder still and comes to a stop. As must everybody else following closely behind them. Starting the flow of traffic again takes time and meanwhile other vehicles are obliged to stop before they can start moving again. This, apparently, is fluid dynamics in action. It ws explained to me once in those terms and while I don't understand all of the ins and outs, I recognise the concept.
It is logical that as things stand, more new drivers will go onto the roads every year and if so, congestion will increase. There is only so much road-building that a sane society will tolerate.
The only realistic way of limiting the numbers, reduction of numbers being cloud-cuckoo land given the public's resistance to voluntarily giving up driving on our roads, is to take away some people's right to drive, and the fairest way to do this is to do it to the drivers who are a nuisance/menace to the others.
The tailgating thing is true
I saw it expressed as a sine wave on a James Burke type BBC science programme years ago.
I'd be up for that, Mr DaveBigPicture
As long as it meant that the government (local, or main) were categorically forced to make Britain's roads more driveable. There are still many thousands of roads that remain the older concrete style of road (horrible to drive on), or more pot-holed than the moon (everywhere else). Particularly at the sides of roads. I cycle nearly every day, and potholes at the sides of roads make travel somewhat terrifying, as occasionally I have to swerve to avoid them. And the people in cars behind are always too close. Admittedly our roads aren't as bad as many African nations, but we're getting there!
Does it really help though?
I think I've spent as much time spent in traffic on French motorways as English motorways. All it seems to achieve is it sends a bit more traffic through sleepy towns that don't really want it, but apart from burn a hole in your wallet it doesn't stop traffic jams.
If you charged for only peak hours then that would make a big difference and potentially push more of the commercial traffic into the night time hours.
The method used by the Swiss is more interesting where they have curfews in certain areas on commercial vehicles.
Not sure about the Swiss
but the French used to have a ban on anything over 7.5 tonnes travelling at the weekend. I think there are many more trucks on motorways over night and the bulk of peak time traffic is cars and then vans rather than trucks.
and...
national holidays/saints days/strike days....
Given the choice....
I'd commute on the train. Solace with iPod and a book.
However, with an annual season ticket for my relatively short journey of 27 miles from mid Essex to north London now costing £3,300 for an annual ticket and due to inconvenient rail interchanges at either Stratford or Liverpool St meaning a minimum journey time of 90 mins via train as opposed to 45 mins in the car mean it's still a no brainer.
Rail is the way forward but needs to be cheaper and accessible.
Yep.
My season ticket costs me £3,000 a year too. I live inside the M25. My journey is just over 20 miles door to door.
£3,000 a year. Jesus. It's SUCH a lot of money.
A million ups for Mr Dog
Roads are a problem because rail has been fucked.
Interesting
What suggestions do you have to improve the quality of rail travel without increasing ticket prices?
Imperfect though British Rail was
it didn't have shareholders who expected a return on their investment.
but every train i go on is packed
most major stations need extensions to build more platforms (London Bridge has done since about 1850!). I don't see the mass support for huge spending on Trains and anyway there's a feeling about all this of "we should build better trains so i can keep using my car".
They are building more platforms
The Thameslink service will mean more through-platforms at London Bridge, hence less trains taking up platforms by terminating there.
It's not always quite so simple. Often the main constraint into a big station isn't the platforms, but the track itself. Building more platforms doesn't solve a thing if you can't manoeuvre the train into it without causing a big disruption. So, sometimes, the solution is more tracks, and that's BIG money.
Birmingham New Street
for example.....
Renationalize it.
Get the government to subsidize it properly as happens in Europe. We need to accept that competition in railways isn't workable. If I want to get from London to Manchester I have the choice of Virgin or fuck all. That is not competition. British Rail wasn't perfect, but it was affordable and straighforward, which the current system is not.
Even writers (well Rod Liddle) from The Spectator think this.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle/6988888/trouble-on-the-tracks.thtml
We also have to accept that if people cannot afford to live near their work, then they need to get to and from it. Cheap, convenient public transport is therefore an investment. People work better when they are not fraught and exhausted by a commute.
Fair enough
I used to work in the industry, and was all primed to defend rail travel, saying it is much improved from a decade ago. However, I've no comeback to suggestions of renationalisation, except to say that while you may see it as a halcyon age, there are around double the number of trains running now than there was then.
I suspect while there are double the number of trains...
... passengers numbers have likely increased even more. Due to house prices and stagnant wages rather than the brilliant experiences of trains.
And I suspect it has improved because Potter's Bar was such a monumental f*ck up that it had to. It's certainly not because of the kind heartedness of rail operators and their shareholders.
or.....
the unions
Aren't the trains are a lot shorter than 20-30 years ago?
There was a time when a typical train seemed to be 10-12 coaches long - these days they seem to be 4-5 coaches.
Is it maybe the case that there are more frequent, but shorter, trains?
I don't *think* so
I don't have the figures to back this up, but I'd be VERY surprised if that were the case.
Part of my job was to find out ways of transporting more people. First idea is always to extend the trains to as long as possible, so in places that are still over-crowded, chances are the trains can't be any longer than they currently are (for whatever reason).
Admittedly, I'm talking more about London, rush-hour commuter trains that ones where you are, stimpy, but if you want to transport more people from A to B, it's the easiest way to do it.
I think we need better over all policy
not just transport but education and housing all them integrated.
Sadly many of the changes that may need to made most people don't want ie living at high densities closer to work, sending your kids to the closest schools, shopping locally (and walking to the shops). We may all say we want change but I feel we like the UK the way it is. We seem willing to pay any sum to use our cars ,fuel price hikes, congestion charges, parking fees don't seem to have deterred us. Nobody wants to live next to new railways or airports (or anything new for that matter). Like most things we want everyone else to stop using it so we can have a go.
This isn't the council of despair it's just until we are all honest with ourselves and tackle these complicated interrelated issues they won't improve; introducing road tolls without changing the rest of the way we live won't free the roads or answer the problem of is it desirable/sensible/sustainable to drive 3 hours a day just to get to work.
All very true
At least with parallel toll roads it allows those who are happy to pay for a faster, smoother journey to do so - and has the side effect that it takes some load off the 'free' road as well.
Of course, this relies on allowing the building of 'business class' toll roads parallelling the major motorways - and there are all sorts of issues there! :-)
Haven't got the figures
but the I believe that M6 toll hasn't worked as expected because people still use the free road and it still gets clogged up. I genuinely feel the problem hasn't got bad enough for enough people to want to do anything about it and the incremental increase in wasting of our time on transport delays is just small enough that we don't notice it and carry on.
Also our cars have got nicer places to be in order in some part to make waiting in traffic bearable Dvd players for the kids, aircon, cup holders, ipod sockets.If the school run was 5 minutes you wouldn't have to overhear Pixar's "Cars" for the 200th time.
But the M6 Toll works fine for those who use it.
It's quiet, empty, fast - everything that a motorway should be.
If people want that 'premium rate, business class' experience then they'll pay for it. If they'd rather sit in a jam when there's an alternative then that option is open to them as well.
M6 Toll stats just released
show 35k users per day compared with 55k per day when it first opened. Mind you, it ain't cheap and I've never seen a queue on it, although the M6 is chocka most days.
It may not be cheap
It may not be cheap but I would happily pay it to avoid the almost constant congestion on the old route (I've used it many times and always been able to claim it back because my company recognises that it's still cheaper than my time). It does get a bit galling to sweep along the toll bit and join the end of a queue on the real M6 that extends into the 'posh' bit. The services are a bit less manic than most as well.
The Singapore Approach
I think one approach that is interesting is the one they have in Singapore. It's a pretty straightforward one: they make it very expensive to own and run a car via a series of taxes and registration costs. This is then balanced by investment into a cheap public transport system (metro, bus and taxis) that is as good as any I've ever used. What is interesting is that expat professionals moving into the country do the sums and often decide not to buy a car.
Of course it's only applicable to cities, and is probably a bit too paternalistic for us in the west; I can't imagine any political party going to the electorate with that idea. Thing is though, Singapore is a pretty easy city to get around in ....
Public transport in Singapore.
I have been to Singapore many times, & the Metro sytem there is superb, clean, fast & safe.
Excellent system.
Singapore
I was going to post with regard to road pricing in Singapore in response to the opening question. We have extensive road pricing here. All the main arteries to the city centre have electronic road pricing -basically overhead gantries that read a box in your windscreen and deduct from the inserted cash card (one positive spin off from this is that most car parks now have the same system so you just drive in an out).
The pricing varies according to the time in an effort to manage the traffic flow - i.e get people to move away from peak times by having a lower price.
Whilst many complain about the pricing, the fact is that the government has implemented a strategy of moving the cost of car ownership from up front to usage. It used to be the case the buying a car was very expensive (still is but not as bad) due to import taxes etc etc. With the introduction of road pricing, the taxes on cars have come down. Could this work in the UK - reduce road tax, but move it to road pricing instead - i.e. tax those that use most (and hence cause the congestion)
And yes, the public transport is cheap, efficient and overall excellent.
But has the road pricing
reduced congestion?
Probably
I'd say on the whole it probably did, although I can't say for absolute certain as my route to work is not on one of the road priced roads !. On the times I do take those expressways with pricing, its does seem better although you do get pockets of congestion just before the price goes up at a "more peak" band.
It does seem to have increased traffic on some of the alternate routes as people have tried to find cheaper ways - I guess this is a desired effect in that it better balances road usage (although my wife would disagree as here route to work is one of those affected !).
The other factor in Singapore is that car supply is limited based on maintaining smooth traffic flow. Thus once road pricing reduces congestion, they release more car supply.... the cynics put it as basically a government money generating ruse.
Remote working
I could easily do my job from home. All I need is a phone and a computer. Perhaps spend one day a week in the office. My company won't do it though, so I'm just another figure clogging up the roads at rush hour, albeit on a bicycle. Perhaps the govt could offer tax breaks to firms who encourage home-working where possible. Then those who need to be on-site can get to work and back a bit quicker.
One of the biggest barriers to resolving travel congestion
are employers. They don't trust employees to work at home, despite the technology being readily available. I'm really lucky in that I don't go in to work if I don't need to. It saves me a 90 mile round trip commute and 2.5 hours of cross country driving. It's by far one of the most beneficial aspects of my current job.
The only way this will change is for the government to legistlate so that employers hands are forced. Car pools, company buses, 9 day fortninghts - there are lots of options but no employer will do anything unless they are incentivised or compelled.
Last time I looked, Nottingham was still set to levy a charge on companies for the parking spaces they provide. Their theory is that the big local employers - Boots, Experian - create much of this traffic, and that a parking levy would encourage employee and employer alike to consider the alternatives. As a former Boots employee all I saw were attempts by management to mobilise opposition to the charges - which will be passed straight on to staff. Another opportunity missed.
I wholeheartedly agree with you
That trust thing that employers have about employees "working from home" (ie anyone who does so is on the skiive): it's utter BS. Everyone I know who does so claim to be more efficient and have enriched lifestyles. I put in down to a generational thing - those at the top worked from an office in pre-internet times and are resistant to change. I didn't get where I am by working from home etc.
However, I also think that employees need to offer greater flexibility too - willingness to do off-peak working hours for example.
I used to book myself a day working from home
when I actually wanted to get some work done!
I used to work in an open-plan office, and the day often consisted of sitting in meetings where decisions never got made and work never actually got done, sitting at my desk with a constant stream of colleagues asking me questions, and being unable to concentrate properly on writing because everyone around me was making so much noise. I mean, having said all that, it was still a fun place to work but I never felt like I achieved a huge amount.
So, if I had a big document to do and needed to concentrate, I'd always book a day at home and get twice the work done in half the time. And no commute! And the catering was much better ;-)
But yes, I did once work for one of those bosses who openly admitted that he didn't permit his staff to work from home because he didn't trust them to actually work from home. Eventually I wondered if that actually meant that when he'd worked from home in the past he'd not actually done any work... as Ben Folds sings, "Seems to me, if you can't trust, you can't be trusted".
Trust
I too think it boils down to trust. My employer thinks that I'd spend the day procrastinating, drinking tea and talking rot online.
But that's what I do when I'm in the office, so what's the difference? I might write a proposal on that basis. Please let me work from home - I can't be any less lazy than I already am.
Exactly!
I'm working from home today. I will probably get at least as much done as I would in the office, and don't have a three-hour round trip into the bargain.
Plus my house doesn't have filters on the internet connection. *rubs thighs, Vic Reeves style*
I think home working
can be very divisive. Putting aside that C19th mill owners would have laughed themselves silly at thought of having workers who pay the rent on their own "factories".
Working from home tends to be only available for senior staff and in places I've worked a way for senior managers to avoid managing their team. It can lead to poor team work because frankly the interpersonal relationships that good teams need don't have opportunity to grow (skype etc are all when and good but face to face time is still important). Managers often forget that managing staff is sort of their job and often talk of getting their work done once their staff go home this is made worse by homeworking.
Working from home also divides on class and in some cases race grounds, in my former team (based in London)some admin staff couldn't work from home because basically they didn't have flats big enough to have a home office (and because black and asian staff weren't in senior posts this looked to many as a privilege available only for white staff).
Also the staff working in office felt their needs in terms of decent working environment weren't catered for because they weren't shared by senior staff and therefore seen as a priority.
I'm not saying these problems aren't insurmountable it's just that many firms seem to think it's a matter of giving people a lap top and paying their broadband bill.
Quite an insight
I had no idea that allowing someone to work from home might be regarded as racist.
I know it seems extreme
and it's more about perception than reality but that's the feedback we got via confidential surveys and staff appraisals.
Janus
My GLW's boss refused to let anyone work from home because they were not contactable, and prone to idling. The Blackberry and laptop apparently dissapear into thin air when you are at home.
She, of course, worked from home two to three days per week because otherwise she would be tired by a long commute, and found it to be more productive. Which is why when she did come in she arrived at 10 and left at 3. Unless she stayed overnight in a hotel at the company's expense.
Glad I work for myself.
I did a job at EDF Energy outside Exeter
They have almost no onsite parking as this was a requirement of the planning application. There are frequent buses though and you have to apply in writing and make a good case to be allowed an on site parking space. Another company who are making a real effort with transport and flexible working are O2 who run buses between the station and their site (at Slough certainly and I think at the call centres up North too)
Back in the day working at Vodafone...
They used to run shuttle buses from Newbury station around all the Vodafone properties in the town and the new huge HQ out on the by pass on a circular route throughout the day. Same in Croydon when they had the two big call centres there. Shuttle buses between the two. In tandem with interest free rail season ticket loans, it worked a treat.
just visiting
Bit of a pain if you are a visitor though...
Predictable perhaps...
Mitchell and Webb on "working from home."
Fantastic youtube comment after this clip
"I work from home for a large global corporation, I am generally a busy man, I have developed a super stealth ability to knock one out whilst on a long boring conference call. Seriously, I should be on Heroes......."
But I thought Lenny was
self-employed?
I work for a removal company
we send trucks all over Europe and spend a small fortune on tolls, we cant't drive our large removal vehicles (over 7.5 ton) on a Sunday, for 8 weeks in the summer we can't drive on Saturdays either, our drivers are stuck in truck stops for 48 hours being paid. Trucks from Europe can drive in the UK with impunity, free of charge and whenever they damn well like. It's time our roads had a toll system.
who pays the drivers?
I agree it is not fair that the UK and the mainland have different rules - but I think they should come in line with us, not us with them.
Their systems just adds costs, which in the end the consumer pays.
French model?
Oh alright then.
French toll motorways are built with private money.
Most UK motorways were built by the state with public money and it would be a very hard sell to convince tax payers to pay again to use motorways that they had already bought and paid for.
But the M6 Toll (the only UK toll motorway?)
was built with private money.
M4
Part of the M4 (where it goes over the Severn) carries a toll as well.
Good point! The same could be said for the M48
where it crosses the old Severn Bridge.
That raises an interesting (?) semantic point. Is the £5.70 toll a toll to cross the bridge or a toll to travel along the bit of motorway that happens to be on the bridge.
I'd suggest the former :-)
Not a shadow of doubt!
There's no doubt in my mind, it's a toll to use a motorway bridge. I hope that helps!!
As does the M25
witness the flip flopping shenanigans successive governments have adopted to raise tolls on the M25 QE2 bridge/Dartford crossing. We now have the Alice in Wonderland logic of having a toll, that generates congestion to collect, as a method of reducing congestion.
I'm sure the current government
would be in favour of selling the motorway network.
Why not?
I'd love to see Volunteer Motorway Maintenance. They could have a bring and buy sale on the hard shoulder.
Problem with peak time charging...
...is that some people / companies have no real option but to travel at those times, which is why they're the peak times. People don't drive at 8AM out of choice - they do so because they have to etc. If you started charging for the motorways and trunk roads I suspect two things would happen:
1. The "peak" period would extend as people leave home earlier in order to arrive at work at the correct time. Why leave earlier? Because...
2. More people would drive on roads other than the motorways, which would increase traffic in surrounding areas, whose roads aren't always designed for heavy and wide traffic, resulting in more congestion in more areas, not to mention potholes etc.
The peak time in London has extended
since the congestion charge was introduced. If I want to get a clear run to Wembley I need to be on the M25 at J9 (Leatherhead) at 6am as opposed to approximately 6.45am before the congestion charge was introduced. I am in favour of more school buses and rigorously enforced parking restrictions around schools too as the school run contributes in no small part to traffic levels.
Even in our little town, the streets around the two skools
are choc-a-bloc between 8:15 and 8:45. Much of it is down to huge school buses bringing kids in from the outlying villages; they're just too big for the narrow streets.
Good luck
getting rid of the school run. Will people send primary age kids on buses? Seems unlikely you won't get rid of the school run until kids can either walk to school and or both parents don't have to work and can walk them etc all the time both parents work or rely on child care you'll have the school run.This is made worse by "choice" in education with kids having to ferried from various schools through out boroughs.
Which is why tinkering with things like toll roads etc won't reduce congestion and it has to be holistic in the ways we live work,shop, educate etc. But as I said earlier I see no appetite for this from the public so we'll continue to have congestion.
I sat opposite
a girl of about nine this morning. She was travelling on her own on the U-Bahn into the city. Made my day.
Reading all of the above
I'm now very grateful I can get to work by a 15 minute cycle ride
(Albeit one dicing with death)
The downside? I work two jobs and still can't afford to run a car. Bad times indeed.
The reality of Toll roads
Frequent user of the M6 Toll when on business. It is very good and conservatively saves you around 40 minutes from start to finish. However it costs £5.30 except from 11pm to 6am and on weekends when it reduces by I think £1.00. This is too expensive for private use.
The road has been open less than 10 years and the price has increased from £2.00 to £5.30 - that's nearly a 250 percent increase - a bit more than inflation I would say.
No wonder the usage has dropped from a peak of around 85,000 vehicles per week to 34,000 in that time.
£5.30 to save 40 minutes sounds a pretty good deal to me
That values ones time at about £7 an hour and, even as a retired person, I value my time as worth more than that.
The price needs to be high enough to prevent too much traffic using it in order to ensure there's no congestion and you can guarantee that 40 minute saving.
Think of it as analogous to first class on a train or business class on a flight - people pay extra for the extra space, quiet and improved quality of service. The M6 Toll is a 'business class motorway'
Subsidy
Whilst £5.30 is a lot, the original £2.00 was a slightly distorted "opening offer". That was a subsidised price set for the first (100,000?!) cars through and the proper charge was always (£1?) higher than that. Even taking that into account, the price has still nearly doubled!
M6 trucks
I eagerly awaited the opening of the M6 toll, thinking it would take the trucks off my route (M6/M5). It didn't - because they were deliberately priced off the toll road. With hindsight, this was obvious - the toll road owners don't want trucks on it because (a) they slow the traffic down and (b) they cause much more damage to the surface. However, the combination of the toll road and the recently-introduced 4-lane running on the free road has definitely improved the situation.
We live on a small, crowded island.
The transport system, whether road or rail, is chocker. Increasing capacity is tricky and costly. The solutions? I can think of a couple.
The 24 hour society. Spread work and transportation throughout more of the day.
Universal broadband. This make working from home within the service economy a much more viable option. Use webcams and Skype for face-to-face stuff.
The road and rail networks are both busier than they have ever been. We have to think of some other ways.
You should work from home Lenny!
Erm, what is it you do again...?
It's quite a good option for dentists.
Big house, live upstairs, surgery downstairs.
Tax-deductible mortgage..
If we push the traffic from road
to rail, won't we simply end up replicating the problem but on rails rather than on motorways?
Given the car drivers pay far more in fuel and car taxes than is spent on the road infrastructure, we're also a source of revenue for the Treasury that would be diminished if we cut car use.
The simply truth is that we need more capacity, on both rail and road. Taxing one or t'other is attacking the symptoms and not the causes of the problem.
And as a logistics person, can I point out that if you want to move freight to night moves (not entirely a bad idea) do remember that staff have to be available to unload / reload said trucks. So don't complain about people having to work more night shifts...
Against dividing opportunities by wealth
I'm against road charging as I am against anything that intentionally divides opportunities according to wealth. Obviously many things are already to an extent, but I'd hate to see this increase. I don't believe that pricing lower-earners off the roads so people with more money can get places faster is in any way a fair system.
People would be more inclined to use public transport if it wasn't so expensive. I particularly disagree with the massive increase in trainfares at peak times, given that most people are not able to choose what time they have to be at work. I don't know how to improve it, but I travel a short distance to work by car everyday because getting public transport would take much longer and would be no cheaper.
Late to this thread,
traffic was murder.
Oh please yourselves...
Anyway, we already have it (whether it is used for its intended purpose or not is a whole 'nother point):
"But tell me, Dougie, how many doctors, nurses and teachers are you going to sack to pay for this savage tax cut?"