Plans to ease congestion...

[bloodmoon]

Been listening to this all day. The powers that be are looking at tackling the growing problem of congested carriageways which many of us have to deal with day-in day-out.

Several ideas have been put forward:

-using the hard shoulder of the motorway as an extra lane.

-physically widening motorways.

-introducing tolls for the worst offending roads (M62/M1 junction in particular)

Personally, although it may be a step in the right direction, I believe that tackling the problem from a different angle will pay dividends in the long run. For example, rather than attack the motorist (as usual) why not radically improve the public transport system?

Or perhaps introduce more flexible working hours, scrapping the traditional 9 to 5 working day. Some primary schools in London are trialling this by opening their gates an hour earlier, the intention being to get the school run out of the way before the commuters hit the streets.

Any comments on this? It affects all of us after all.

--
Antony

 

[Brian WH]

In my opinion, for what it is worth, widening roads just moves the congestion further down the road, it's that law I can't remember the name off that says "If you give someone more room they will just fill it and not resolve the problem".

 

[andy_k]

public transport is great but not everyone can use it for going to work - it would be impossible for me

So, I'm stuck with using the car to "commute" and I already pay heavily for the privilidge, my fuel bill is 90% tax, I pay road tax, VAT every time the car needs any money spending on it etc etc.

Governments through the years have perpetuated one of the biggest "frauds" with us the motorist funding it.

The road fund was introduced in 1910 to fund the building and maintaining of Britains roads based on engine power, this was replace with a visible "tax disk" in 1921 at the rate of £1 per horsepower. It replaced petrol tax which was then abolished.

The motorist is currently pouring in some £800,000,000 per year into the exchequer (road tax/fund, VAT, tax on petrol, customs and excise duties etc) and the governments are spending a fraction of this money on what it's supposed to be used for ie improving and maintaining the roads. Most maintenance is now borne out by local authorities which we pay for again in our council tax.

An estimate I read somewhere suggested that 3 pence per mile would be the amount the government would need to charge for motorway journeys across the entire network to cover lost revenue if the road tax system was abolished (that would cost you £60 to drive from London to Leeds!!!!!), but, they won't abolish it as it's a good earner for them, propping up tax cuts and other government expenditure basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Besides which unless they introduced tolls on every road people in rural areas would do quite nicely out of it - the nearest motorway to us is some 40 miles away and we have no need to use it so we would see an overall reduction should they abolish road tax but we would get caught if they introduced a congestion or timed charge, the kids go to school 10 miles away with no public transport and no school bus service.

Annie (the other half) works a further 10 miles away at a place where there is no public transport link to and no "works bus service" - funny thing is she is a civil servant and the union suggested a shuttle bus service for government employees but it was vetoed as it was seen as uneconomical and a needless expense I work all over the South East and I can't always travel "off peak" and as I said earlier public transport is impossible so congestion charging or other minor road tolls would hit us.

I can't see how the system could be worked fairly in this country and i can't see any government introducing a system that benefits the motorist and leads to reduction in the amount of money each and every one of us contributes other than adding a couple more pence to the cost of every litre of fuel sold and scrapping toll roads and the road tax system.

Andy

 

[jimmy]

I think it is absurd that suggestions have been made to allow the hard shoulder to be used as a carriageway. Imagine being involved in an accident and waiting for the emergency services to arrive having to battle through four lanes of miles of stationary traffic. No thanks, it's a frightening thought.

 

[bloodmoon]

And lets not forget the chaos that would follow when a vehicle breaks down on the hard shoulder and all the traffic behind that vehicle (which has had to stop) now has to pull out into fast moving traffic. Imagine the tailbacks and the sea of brake lights.

Not a good idea

--
Antony