Labour are messing up on this one - they just didn't sell the scheme properly - people have recognised the need for urgent action on tackling climate change, but the government is failing to make the case for the sensible measures that need to follow.Photo: view down Ruscombe valley
Which measures we choose - and how to ensure any money made pays for better public transport - needs to be the subject of genuine public debate. The motoring lobby has run a deliberate campaign of misinformation and sadly what we're likely to see is the government rolling over at the first sign of trouble. A Stroud District councillor circulated the petition which gained public support from some councillors - below is my response just sent out on behalf of Greens:
Over a 1.2 million people have now signed this online petition against road pricing. There is indeed much wrong with this particularproposal: it might sound green, but it makes no sense to reduce fuel taxes so that gas guzzling vehicles can pay almost the same to drive as a mini. We need incentives in favour of fuel efficient cars, not a technocratic solution which involves just moving traffic off one road and onto another. Furthermore we need guarantees that data used for road pricing does not get abused by other Government agencies.
However there are now 33 million vehicles on our roads - 7 million more than in 1997 - and the number of miles driven on British roads each year is rising by between 400 and 500 million miles. It must be clear that neither the economy nor the environment can sustain a rise of 500,000 vehicles a year nor the journeys they make.
On top of that since 1997, the real cost of motoring in the UK has gone down while public transport costs have gone up, leaving many people without travel choices. We have the worst traffic jams in Europe and our traffic related CO2 emissions are rising, not falling. They make up a third of all our climate change emissions, yet the Government is going ahead with it's £12 billion road building programme. We cannot afford not to take radical action now - this is a moral issue regarding climate change and the state of the country for future generations.
Road-pricing could have a role to play, but it must be part of a strategy to reduce road-traffic, cut emissions and encourage more fuel-efficient vehicles. Sadly the government has failed to get across why change is needed. A sophisticated programme of road pricing could be accepted if people know that the money raised is helping sort out public transport and doesn't penalise the worst off.
We have got to stop thinking of motorists' and start thinking about people who need to travel to work every day in the most efficient and pleasant way possible - few motorist groups would argue that a stressful, wasteful gridlock every morning is the way forward.
An effective and fairway of addressing both climate change and congestion, would beindividual tradeable carbon quotas. Using smartcard technology everyone would get the same ration and light users could actually benefit by selling to others - on average the poor would benefit from such a scheme. Individual choice and ingenuity into how to economise on energy use would be increased. Using this approach the total quotas available each year could be gradually reduced, in line with our national CO2 obligations.
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Households and companies intend to adjust some of their car journeys when user tolls are introduced.
Dutch researcher Taede Tillema has shown that households will adjust about fifteen percent of their home-work journeys by car in the case of rush-hour tolls. The biggest change is in the non-daily shopping trips to another town. About nineteen percent of these journeys will be adjusted as a result of the user tolls.
The introduction of the London congestion charging zone has led to benefits that have been felt by everyone who enters it, whether cyclists, pedestrians, car owners or visitors. Pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square has turned it into a vibrant public space; similar plans are afoot for Parliament Square and Exhibition Road. Traffic in the zone has fallen by 20%, leaving space that has the potential to be reallocated for pedestrian use, making the city centre a more pleasant environment to be in. Cycling has increased by 72% - a massive jump. This scheme shows road charging can bring benefits, and has the potential to be replicated in other cities.
Blairs' answer re road pricing - 'build roads but it doesn't work'!!
"A second option would be to try to build our way out of congestion. We could, of course, add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside. Certainly in some places new capacity will be part of the story. That is why we are widening the M25, M1 and M62. But I think people agree that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity."
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