Autocar - First for car news and reviews

Britain's transport insfrastructure is "unable to meet the needs of a modern country", according to a report published by leading think-tank Policy Exchange.
The "Towards Better Transport" report, suggests that charging 5p/km for cars and 10p/km for goods vehicles, at peak times in congestion hot spots could raise £1.5m per km in a year. In turn, this would pay to widen a motorway to eight lanes, or even to construct a brand new six-lane motorway.
This means that the cost of doubling the ...Read the full article

No bleeding *** Sherlock..!!

For the cost of a trip from home to work - I could have come up with this. And as for charging me to sit in the same traffic I sit in everyday - any cretin authoring this 'report' can take a bloody jump.

If you wnt me in train - don't make one journey more expensive than a week in y car!!

How much did this 'research' cost? Did I pay anything towards it?

And once again, the car hating intellignsia manage to get something out into the public domain with no-one there to tell the other side of the story.

I saw the women on the BBC news this morning spouting off about this report - she could barely string a sentance together and clearly had spent too much of her professional lif knitting yoghart rather than doing anything useful for her fellow citizens.

Welcome to Standard Britain - its only going to get worse.

At risk of sparking mass revolt, I actualy think a lot of what the report says makes sense. How is it that only £8bn goes into improving (this includes maintaining) the road network, when we're clearly paying so many times that in fuel tax, vehicle tax, etc etc.

I travel a lot of motorway miles, and if paying 5p every kilometre solved the congestion and resulted in a drop on fuel tax, I would pay it happily. Granted, that's a John Prescott sized 'if'.

Congestion must be solved somehow, and the only long-term way is surely going to involve more roads. At least this report takes a realistic look at how much congestion costs, and what might be a reasonable solution.

Don't get me wrong - I do not want to pay more tax on top of the vast amounts we already pay, in return for yet more persecution and no rewards whatsoever. But if this genuinely solved the problem of congestion, perhaps it should be considered.

BUT - before any more charging takes place, surely there are some things that can be done that don't require congestion charging or building more roads.

Transfer much of the goods haulage onto the rail. Non-perishable items in particular, could be put on trains leaving perishable goods to lorries that can deliver straight to the destination in less time.

And also, teach people how to drive on a motorway. You can build as many eight-lane motorways as you want, but unless you teach otherwise, the majority of the traffic will still sit in a 70mph traffic jam in the middle lanes, leaving inside lanes empty and outside lanes packed full of frustrated drivers waiting to overtake.

And who travels consistently at 70 mph on the motorways? A sensible speed limit rethink, including enforcing a minimum speed limit, has to be considered or the law is a mockery. I truly think it would help ease congestion, as well as make the motorways safer.

Improving public transportation is a must. I live near London, and yet the public transport is still diabolical - unreliable, uncomfortable, and more expensive than a car. Why should I pay £40 for a one way trip to Bournemouth from London, spent with my face pressed into somebody elses armpit, when I could drive there for less than half the price and in half the time?

Anyway. Having now solved the whole country's transport issues in one post, I shall go away and await the backlash... ;-)

You make your point well.

But do you believe for one minute that a single penny will go back into the system? No - IMO it will go to some huge white elephant project like the 'London' Olympics - or something else I'll never benefit from. We've been lied to for years about this notion that a combination of public transport and road pricing can solve all the worlds problems but I won't get onto a train, by choice, until the government can comnvice me it's safe and cost effective.

I took it for granted that any money raised by pricing would simply be siphoned off elsewhere and not put back into the transport infrastructure hence my criticism - Iwould argue it's niave to expect anything else from the clowns in charge. The problem will never be solved in the UK - we are mugs and we go on paying more and more for less and less on every level of our lives without so much as a 'what's going on here then'.

We are a cash cow for HM Government whoever they are - don't expect them to do anything for you that makes your life any easier or for that matter, any cheaper.

They despise you and your miserable little lives.

 

You're right. That is the biggest problem facing transport, and numerous other issues in the modern world. Nobody trusts the government to actually use the taxpayer's money to the taxpayer's advantage. In truth, I don't either.

But I suspect we won't have any choice, so why not back a scheme that, on paper, appears to offer a reasonable solution to a growing problem?

I'd at least like to see more in depth analysis, and realistic plans for what improvements would be made to the road network in returrn for how much charging.

 
 

In all seriousness - it's a debate I'd like to see but like everything else these days anyone elses point of view is spun to reflect the thinking of New Labour.

We need debate - and then consensual policies can be agreed upon and implemented - will it happen? No.

It's this I completely detest and IMO - the real point of my objection behind the study - it's this notion that I can't think for myself and that I need to have a view imposed upon me by virtue of having no choice at all. Like all emotive debates - this administration polarises every argument of national importance and rules by division.

It's why we don't debate immigration in this country because we're all rascists.

It's why we don't debate law and order because we're all fascists.

It's why we don't debate road usage because we're all murderers.

I'm sick of it because we are not any of the these things - we resent thse issues because we can't talk of these things without fingerpointing and name calling following from people who don't actually experience life the way we do day in and day out.

 

We've always got a choice, Vicky. How our various Governments and their ailing bodies choose to deal with what we choose is the real measure of their intention.

Scummyplum makes a good point into how we are blamed for successive Government failures, whatever their denomination.

The simple fact is the transport network is not up to scratch, it is not our fault and never has been. Though we are now expect to take the financial strain to recover the lost ground they have appeared to have, to their shame, squandered.

Paying for roads and railways is not the problem, the management of them is.

Isn't it always the same? The answer is to take more money from us, claiming reinvestment only to find the investment isn't returned.

The issue here has become a mere money making process, without plan or structrure. How can you know what is to be fixed when you don't know what's wrong. If this report is true, all previous claims of reinvestment in our transport system must be fraudulent.

We must find out how this has happened, and how to stop it before we continue investing more money into insufficient infrastructure.

Its amazing how the victorians managed to build an entire railway system within a few decades that is still in use today. If they could see the sorry state of what it has been reduced to they would cry.

A road usage policy has the potential to be more fair to some drivers than the current one.

Example A

Current system. 

1 Somebody driving a bluemotion polo, pays no road tax, does 10,000 miles per month.

2 Somebody drives a porsche 911.  Band G, pays £400(?) in road tax.  Does about 1000 miles per year

If the new system was done fairly, then the guy doing the mileage would be charged much more fairly.  There could be discounts if the mileage is essential, ie some sort of courier.  Or what about 1p/km if its band A, 1.5p/km if its band B etc etc etc

 

if i wasn't married i'd ask for Vicky's phone number.  quite spooky how i agree with everything she says!

 

back on topic, i personally believe that our democratic culture has screwed everything up.  everything seems to be done by committee and populist vote, so much so that what was once a good idea will be watered down, adjusted, tinkered, etc until it is a pale reflection of what it once was and achieves even less.  we get caught in endless cycles of useless admin and forget what we were all supposed to do in the first place.

for every clever person (like mr plum), there are a thousand stupid people.

sadly we have to work with/ for them.

 

 

The British road planners tend to get bogged down by pointless idiosyncracies such has, what colour the road should be?, what speed limit should we impose?, lets no build it near 'my' house!', lets put the bypass through the area that has less of a chance of fighting the plans and finally the ritual of self back slapping for a job nearly well done.

Once all these things are achieved the plans are put on a shelf and forgotten about.

In the meantime any other Country in the world are not only using their roads by the time we get a build start date, they are resurfacing it.

As far as I can see, our roads have never, ever, ever, ever been fit for purpose.

My Dad says so, too.

Well there's hope for us all without the additional expense of road pricing and other tax raising measures - can all those who are already taxed to death please stop keep advocating 'paying a little bit extra' all the time.. you already PAY TOO MUCH TAX ok. Thanks. 

Anyway Newsnight was massively refreshing on Monday night with reporter Martin Cassini and some other ensembled experts expressed the type of refreshing, common sense wisdom so sadly lacking from our nannying, ignorant, safety numbing, scaremongering politicians.

He provided clear evidence for removing traffic lights (and road markings, road architecture and speed cameras)  and advocated allowing humanity to take its natural course and the in-built rules we all adhere to.

Traffic set free.. it was like a mountain stream pouring out of the TV set after years of road rage at bl**dy stupis traffic calming measures, congestion created not by motorists but by grey, unaccountable, traffic management 'experts'.

If you missed the article here's Martins article on YouTube.. so refreshing :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_YV3Cru7aE

If you want to join the BBC Newsnight debate get stuck in here. The pro-tear-down-the-stupid-lollipop-boxes are outnumbering the green nambies 4 to 1 on posts (nice to know so many of us out there:).. and BBC have re-posted the thread on Newsnights front page because the topics been so popular..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2008/01/the_case_against_traffic_lights.html

Another pointless post from someone who will likely never return.