Road Pricing

I bought an L-reg 106 for Anya last week for 500 quid. Got a full
years MOT, mint bodywork, 85k on the clock, clean and tidy inside and
an almost complete service history. Only needs a stereo to make it
complete.

Oh, and a righthand indicator that works all the time.

Even if it falls apart after a year, it'll still have cost less than
the depreciation on my ST.

 

When it comes from someone like you I know the mania is getting dangerous.
Why exactly do you think pricing is a fair way to restrict the availability
of essential goods or service? it discriminates significantly against the
lower income group while bothering the upper income group not at all. It
also raises overall taxation in a badly overtaxed economy.

If the argument is about reducing emissions and overall fuel consumption the
only rational solution (AFAIK) is to mandate manufacturers and introduce
fuel efficiency legislation. A simple litres fuel/minute/litre engine
capacity at say 3 given load ranges. Back that up by a removal policy aimed
at older less efficient vehicles. Govmint could also mandate
availability/adoption of alternative fuels and significantly incentivise
advanced propulsion units.

Forget this mantra about public transport. It only works in the urban
environment and only in some of those. It has no relevance to rural and sub
rural living. If people are supplied with cheap efficient PT it works out
naturally. London/Glasgow tube systems being the perfect example. Govmint is
incredibly reluctant to fund the construction of such facilities however or
fund PFI such that fares remain reasonable.

I *really* do not believe govmint should have the power to selectively tax
any goods or services over and above a blanket VAT type tax. It is
particularly stunning that the old socialist party as was has it as their
mantra.

 

There was an interesting debate the other week on CBC1[1] on one of their
talk shows, where the host was interviewing some head honcho in the
Chinese car industry. China is going through explosive growth and are
suffering in terms of pollution and congestion (among other things),
particularly in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Apparently, part of the problem in China is that (nearly) everyone aspires
to owning a car. It's a huge status symbol and they simply want it, and
want to drive it (often very fast when not gridlocked), and don't think
about the pollution or other negative factors.

One interesting point was that Tokyo has a higher population of cars than
Beijing but doesn't suffer the daily gridlock, simply because their public
transport is so good.

The guy being interviewed no longer rides his bicycle, it's just too
dangerous.

[1] Canadian Broadcasting Company

 

IME people will tend to find alternative routes all by themselves over
time if they're on a regular commute, and this *seems* to be the main
aim of the road pricing system. If it's actually to drive people to
public transport then fair enough.

I reckon that public transport does need improvement, though for those
of us who don't live and/or work in cities, even improved public
transport would probably be horrendous and most likely involve
commuting into a "hub", in my case Cambridge, then back out again to
our destinations.

 

This is a fair point, but the oint about high fuel prices is that it
really does promote efficiency and development of more economical
transport.

Remember ars in the 1970s/80s? You were lucky to get 90mph and 30mpg
out of a 1.6 Cortina. Now, any 1.6 family car will do 110 and average
about 40mpg. Diesels will do much better.

Good trafic management and mapping bring other efficiencies.
Computerised truck fleet routing and scheduling brings more savings.

Bang goes your RD400 (again) ;-)

Yes, this makes sense.

Ah, well here we differ, because I believe they do.

 

Doesn't surprise me at all. Beijing has the worst pollution and
congestion I've ever seen. This raises another point - the anti-road
lobby bleat that "More roads means more cars". Bollocks. People don't
buy cars simply because there are more roads to drive them on. They
buy them because they *want* them.

 

What needs to change is the approach people take to work, home and
commuting.

For example, wherever I've lived, I've made sure it's within a
reasonable distance of a railway station allowing me to get to local
employment hubs without needing to travel by car. All that takes is a
bit of forward planning.

TOG's example of being someone who commutes from Sutton to Tunbridge
Wells, and mine of working with someone who commuted from the edge of
Gloucester to Maidenhead, just sums up everything that's wrong with the
kind of personal mobility people take for granted. I know Hog has a
personal hobby horse about this, but there's a huge difference between
seeing basic personal mobility as a perk of modern life, as seeing it as
a baseline.

Vehicle tracking, road charging, public transport, it's all a bit of a
red herring. There needs to be a more fundamental shift in how people
see travel. I think we, as a society, have completely lost sight of
what's actually necessary - wants are perceived as needs, perks are
perceived as minimum standards, and it's all consume consume consume,
**** everyone else.

Christ, I'm turning into a commie luddite in my old age. Help!

 

TOG@toil, ,
wrote:

I disagree. I think they buy them because they see it as a fundamental
right to own them. The want only stems from that.

 

The irony is that this sort of commuting behaviour has been brought
upon us by successive governments that have encouraged a flexible
workforce to travel further afield in search of work.

I don't mind my commute, but I'd rather work closer to home,
obviously. The alternative is to move house every time you change
jobs, and that's hardly an option, unless you're an unmarried (and
childless) sociopath prepared to shuttle from rented gaff to rented
gaff.

 

TOG@toil, ,
wrote:

That doesn't detract from anything I've said above. Attitudes can be
changed by governments - look at the change in public perception of
smoking, drink driving and speeding over the last 20 years for proof.

Tbh, being unmarried and childless, that's the approach I took in the
past, but I've not moved around for a few years now, and having a mrs
who works as far from home as I do, but in the opposite direction,
limits my ability to move around.

Which brings me neatly to telecommuting. You're a journo/editor. How
much of your work is electronic? How much could quite feasibly be done
from any desk/sofa/sunlounger with the relevant voice/data/video
connectivity? Do you really need to go to the Wells that often?

 

<rushes in, panting>

It's fucked, then. It's supposed to go on and off, innit.
Intermittent, like.

Bangernomics, Ben.

My last three cars have cost me a total of 1800 quid. Sold two for a
combined 600 quid, so the current one stands me at 1200 and it would
likley punt on at five. Seven hundred quid for over nine years'
personal bad weather transport isn't bad, I reckon.

Even taking into account the cost of maintenance (I'll exclude tax and
insurance as that's pretty much a constant) I've had a car to use any
time I wanted it for less than fifteen hundred quid over nine years.
Chickenfeed.

 

I don't think people should have to travel a long way to get to work, far
from it. I personally won't go over 5-10 miles. Mobility is for leisure. I
do not think that the modern invention of mobility should destroy the
environment though and it simply does not need to. I don't want people to
pick me up wrongly, I'm an environmentalist but I'm not a luddite.

Well expanding our horizons is a necessary thing I think. As Champ would
point out, life is rather pointless, we have to live for the now or the near
future.
Other than not destroying the planet and the environment, looking hundreds
and thousands of years ahead is a bit daft.

But ok, by all means lets restrict car usage/ownership severely. That'll
stop the fuckers having so many children )

Oh them there Commies really look after the environment, don't they

 

Hmm. We're agreeing a lot atm. It makes me uneasy.

Sure, expand horizons. Race around on bikes for fun. Travel and learn
something worthwhile. But burning fuel and clogging up roads for 2 hours
a day just to get to work? What a waste of time, money and effort.

Fucking up the world, 5 years at a time.

 

On 13 Feb 2007 04:27:37 -0800, TOG@toil,

Without any effort to introduce or upgrade the public transport
system(s) to cope.

Or for successive governments to have improved, rather than degraded,
the public transport system.

--
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On 13 Feb 2007 04:27:37 -0800, TOG@toil,

It's a perfectly reasonable option IMO.

My Dad was in construction for all his working life, first for
Taylor-Woodrow, then Tarmac Construction. Because of this we moved
roughly every three years to live near his jobs because he didn't want
to live away from home a lot.

As a result I've lived in a lot of places in this country, good and
bad and I think my upbringing was improved because of that. It also
cemented my belief that I never want to live in the South East.

 

Exactly. And wait until you (God forbid!) ever breed. Then things get
tighter. Considerations like schools, neighbourhoods, etc etc become
much more important than (to take your earlier criterion) the
proximity of a railway station.

Agree 100%. With a phone, a Mac loaded with the relevant software
(which I have), and a decent internet connection, I could produce the
paper from anywhere. *Unfortunately* the company has had a rather
nasty experience recently of someone "teleworking" which has probably
queered the pitch for people (like me) who might have been gearing up
to say: "Well, why don't I....?"

 

Well, my Pa was in the Foreign Office and we moved abroad every few
years (although us kids all went to school in England), and I
relished, if not adored, the changing scenery (coupled with the
constancy of not moving schools all the time) but I'd suggest that you
and I are in the minority here.

 

Actually, the real villains in Beijing (and other polluted cities I've
visited) aren't the cars, but the bloody awful antique black fume-
belching horrible diesel trucks and buses.

 

....isn't likely to be travelling at rush hour, so isn't really relevant
to a discussion about congestion mostly caused by commuters.

I have a car. I don't use it very much. While there's obviously a link
between having a car and using it, and not having a car and not using
it, car ownership shouldn't imply that all journeys must be made by car.

 

I think a lot of that depends on what a person does, with my skillset
I've found almost every job has required a huge amount of mobility, as
much of the work is customer facing. Only recently have I really been
able to carve myself a work mostly at home niche, and if I change roles
it'll be back to full mobilie project based work, I suspect.

There's a fairly large group of people in a similar position to me, as
well, how do you propose we address that issue?