Road Pricing

Well, this would also mean a change to their attitudes to
accomodation, as in "don't buy". Or the process of moving from bought
home to bought home would have to be made a whole lot cheaper and
simpler.

Not always possible, though. Round here there are railway stations, in
fact, I live within about 3/4 mile of one that's a couple of stops
from Cambridge, but my old place of work was five miles the other side
of the city and apart from a probable bus service to the nearest
village, there is no public transport whatsoever.

It would be lovely to be able to pick a job within 5-10 miles of home,
but quite frankly, unless I want to stack shelves in Tesco, that ain't
going to happen. I could move closer to Cambridge, and pay for the
privilege with a colossal mortgage and be forever worrying about
interest rates. The trouble is, if everyone did this, this would
ultimately lead to yet more urban sprawl. The alternative is for
employers to scatter themselves around the country more.

Very true, but you could argue that we as a society are moving beyond
seeing personal transport as a perk. Perhaps we need to sit down and
think about where we really want to be as a society.

My personal feeling is that the fundamental problem with overcrowded
roads, and other modern issues, is overpopulation, pure and simple.
I'll admit that this is *slightly* hypocritical of me, seeing as
Herself is up the duff. I console myself with the fact that I'm in a
reasonable position to limit her procreative urges.

Sorry, you're beyond that.

 

Eliminate the majority of commuting to a regular place of work and the
remaining customer-site traffic shouldn't be too much of an issue, I'd
have thought. Just look at the drop in congestion during the school
holidays, when there's no school run, and imagine that that'd be like if
it applied to workers as well.

 

That's a bit harsh, ogden can't be *that* bad.

 

Well TBF I'd have an exclusion zone around schools for parental vehicles at
drop/collection times. A proper school bus system is needed, even the Yanks
manage that.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

No central tracking = no appeal against the bill you're sent.

Equally unacceptable.


--
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Has anyone else looked at regs for electric bicycles? they are bad and
about to get worse. Some EU fucker has now decided the pedals have to be
turning to keep the motor engaged. Max power 250watts, fine for Holland,
useless in England.

Decent hub drives are 500w. Having seen Tallblokes leccy bike they are a
feckin good idea for urban dwellers.

It's like they want to drive people into their cars.

 

I understood she was the Saving Grace

 

The real problem with this, and any of the 'pay to drive' options
under discussion, is that they don't attempt to promote and feasible
alternative to driving. Unless or until that is done I don't think any
amount of additional expense for drivers will significantly reduce
peak-time congestion. One logical conclusion to this approach is that
it would simply serve to drive salaries up to cope with commuters'
extra travelling costs.

--
_______
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`\|/`
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Yes, agreed there is a road space issue. However, don't you think that
making one road cheap and hiking the price of another will merely
shift traffic to the cheaper road? And f there's a time factor as
well, then people will simply pressure their employers to let them
work hours that suit the cheap road price times, because this is what
people *do*.

Note that in France, where most motorways are toll roads, there is a
definite increase of traffic on main roads that go in the same
direction. As you'll know, the main road south from Calais is a
classic example.

Pricing roads according to time will only make that situation worse, I
think.

 

<Applause>

 

But low congestion locations won't *be* low congestion locations if
everyone moves to them...

It's like saying: "It would be more popular if it wasn't so busy."
It's self-defeating.

Actually, it might. It would mean a seismic change in the way people
live and work. Think of schooltimes, for example. But the point I'm
making is that if you use tax to make one road cheaper than another,
because it's less congested, people will flock to the cheaper option.
And then it will become congested.

I strongly agree with you that spy monitoring is not the way to do it,
mind.

 

You forget what's happened with the congestion charge... it seems to have
become (if it wasn't in the first place) a method to extract money from
people first and a method of reducing congestion second. Hence the price
increases and the expansion of the area.

If overall revenue from road pricing starts to fall due to people changing
their driving times, do you seriously believe that prices *won't* go up/get
shifted to other times, regardless of the congestion level at those times?

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

Well, let's examine the one case of road pricing that already exists:
the so-called 'Congestion Charge'. That uses ANPR cameras, as we know.

So why are the cameras left on outside of the CC charging hours?

Oh look, one example, one case where the technology has already been
used to track vehicle movements. Quelle surprise.

You know as well as I do that they won't be able to resist; they've
already proven it.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Falling apart) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

The War On Terrorism, of course!

Also, the CC was succesful. So successful in fact, that they had to
increase the charge by 60% and expand the area greatly to ensure they
received the required amount of revenue.

Whilst a country-wide road pricing scheme can't be exanded, they will
surely up the charges if it actually reduces traffic levels to lower
than they anticipated and therefore have an unexpected drop in revenue.

 

Shirly half the point is that none of these schemes are anything other than
tax raisers? all this current green hype from Brown is nothing more than a
fix for his tax take shortfall.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

True, but it uses an extremely crude technique. I think we can agree
that toll-booths aren't suitable for a country-wide system, yes?

Permit me to re-phrase slightly; "let's examine the one case of
wide-area road pricing..."

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Falling apart) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

But they have already declared ANPR vehicle tracking as an overt goal and
it's on trial in Scotland. No ifs or buts.

 

Shhhhhh, you'll upset Champ...

 

They were saying that 3 years ago in Leeds, but it never happened.

 

It has up there now and is being deployed country wide