Sir Rod Eddington brings some common sense into the road pricing discussion
Sir Rod Eddington, who was brought in to advise the Government on transport, said that only motorists driving on the busiest city roads should pay to do so.
Well, yes, makes absolute sense to me.
Sir Rod said he had never backed a national scheme in which every car would be tracked wherever it went.
Good for him. As I’ve pointed out here before, I am not opposed to a pay as you drive scheme in principle, I am opposed to tracking our movements to do so. It is not necessary and only a rabid control freak would think that it is.
Last night the Government appeared in disarray over the issue with a senior minister making clear that a comprehensive scheme was still an option, while Whitehall’s main adviser was advocating something entirely different.
Nice to see them in disarray. Perhaps if they thought a little more about their proposals, a little less disarray might result? But, then, we are dealing with politicians here, so common sense is not on the agenda; control freakery, power grabbing and self-serving are.
The apparent split is the latest example of mixed messages coming out of Government over road pricing in recent months.
And we are surprised by this?
But in a recent newspaper article, Tony Blair said road pricing would not be forced through if the public did not back it.
That’ll be a first, then. How about forcing through identity cards on people who don’t want them?
“Sir Rod Eddington, who was brought in to advise the Government on transport, said that only motorists driving on the busiest city roads should pay to do so.”
And this makes sense to you???????
Unless the pricing can change quicker than drivers can change route, this will utterly self-defeating. The previous day’s expensive roads will be basically empty the following day as everyone uses the cheaper side roads.
Yes, I do think Sir Rod makes sense. Cost, not being just measured in money, the principle you outline applies now. So given this, why do I continue to use busy congested streets at eight o’clock in the morning rather than the less costly quiet ones?
Two reasons; firstly, they don’t go where I want to go and secondly, where they meet the major routes, they become part of the bottleneck.
Given that congestion is not a street by street problem, but rather it affects whole areas of a city, some sort of zonal system a la London is likely to be the obvious course of action. Given that, the cost of the “quiet” roads will be no different to the cost of the “busy” roads. As the countryside tends not to get congested, not having a congestion charge (because that is what road charging is all about) makes eminent sense to me.