The people of Greater Manchester have voted against congestion charge plans which would have involved a peak-time road charge of up to £5 a day with the aim of providing a £2.8bn transport investment. A majority of voters in the region’s 10 boroughs voted against the plans, with 812,815 (79%) no votes and 218,860 (21%) in favour of the charge.
As someone who does not have a car and who has benefitted from improvements to bus journey times since the introduction of congestion charging in London, I’m interested to see what I can find on IBSS about the introduction of congestion charging schemes, so I do a couple of searches for “road traffic and congestion charging” and for “road transport and congestion”.
‘Road pricing in Britain’ an article by Chris Nash ( 2007) examines the success of congestion charging in London and the expectation that this would lead to further schemes being introduced in cities in Britain. However, the paper shows that implementation is some way off, with government policy focussing more on encouraging local authorities to introduce local schemes than to take action itself. This is no doubt part of the reason why cities like Manchester are having trouble getting schemes accepted.
In the case of Manchester, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly confirmed on 9 June 2008 that the Government provisionally agreed to invest £1.5bn in improved public transport in return for the introduction of the congestion charge scheme in Manchester. But the result of the vote shows that this commitment was not enough to persuade local people. The campaign group Manchester Against Road Tolls (MART) condemned the proposal saying it would force low-paid drivers off the road. Critics also argued that, once in place, charges could be increased without consultation. With respect to pricing it’s interesting to note that in Singapore – where they have had road pricing since 1975 – decisions to raise road charges are taken at ministerial level (“Road pricing in Singapore after 30 years” by Gregory Christainsen (2006)). This emphasizes what an important political issue road charging is, and that leaving it to local government may not be realistic.
The Manchester vote also underlines the problem of trust and of gaining acceptance by the local community. This is examined in the article ‘Explaining variations in public acceptability of road pricing schemes’ by S. Jaensirisak, M. Wardman and A.D. May (2005). The paper shows that whilst planners recognise the importance of charging for alleviating congestion, fighting environmental impacts and raising revenue, they may not be focussing sufficiently on the “acceptability properties” of proposed road charging schemes. Reviewing the available research, the paper shows that acceptance by the public depends on a wide range of factors including: information about what the pricing revenue will be used for, in particular in terms of public transport and environmental improvements; the balance of views of car owners and non-car owners; information provided on potential time saving benefits and the severity of current congestion; any options for rebates on other road taxes; and the overall issue of freedom and fairness.
Is it time for central government to show the sort of courageous leadership displayed by the London Assembly and look at road charging legislation for all major UK cities both to relieve congestion and to tackle environmental issues?
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