Date published: 2005/03/24
The BBC says:
Gridlocked roads or paying by the mile is the stark choice facing British motorists, says a group of MPs.
The influential Commons transport committee says national road charging should be introduced as long as the benefits outweigh the costs.
Ministers suggest a national scheme is not feasible before 2014 but there can be local charges in the meantime.
The MPs say the government must not duck its responsibilities for cutting jams on motorways and trunk roads.
Their report says people travelled 5.2 billion miles more on the roads last year than in 2003.
By 2015, road traffic could be up 30% on 2000 levels, according to government estimates.
Some new roads are needed but the UK cannot build its way out of its congestion problems, say the MPs.
Instead, there must be new efforts to manage demand, with road pricing the idea with most potential to cut congestion.
The most radical vision for road pricing would see a satellite tracking-based system, with drivers charged variable rates per mile depending on traffic levels on the route they used.
Contracts are now being taken out for running a lorry user charging system - which is likely to be the trailblazer for a wider pricing system.
The MPs want thorough research of the business costs of congestion so it can be judged whether road pricing is worth introducing.
Committee chairman, Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, said: "Road pricing is not pie in the sky: the country's first congestion charging scheme has successfully reduced traffic congestion in central London."
Needless to say, the charging scheme in London is not a congestion charge, it is an access charge, with congestion reduction being but one side effect. Road charging is all about getting the poor (in particular the workers) removed from the roads of Britain. There is nothing worse than a mobile working class, those dreadful peasants should be forced to travel the way the ruling elite decide they should travel.
There is not much you can do about road capacity in towns (although the only thing local government does these days is to reduce it) because there is no space, but you could easily add capacity between towns, it's just that the UK ruling elite has decided this should not happen. There is the usual fiction stated that "the UK cannot build its way out of its congestion problems". It is obvious that there is a limit to road usage, when everybody who is of driving age is in on the road in a car at the same time. We are probably not far off that scenario (perhaps within a factor of two at rush hour) but the ruling elite (in particular Gwyneth Dunwoody and the other silly MPs on the Commons transport committee) prefer to pedal the usual trite assertions rather than build a road network fit for the 21st century.
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