To think we need a congestion charge in every major city?

[impossiblecat]

The traffic is getting insane.

It's dangerous and bad for everyone's health.

With the exception of the disabled and people who live within the limits of said congestion zone, obviously.

I'd have all money raised ploughed into public transport.

I avoid our local city centre due to the increasing hostility to cars and the place is dying. Let the shithole die as far as I’m concerned if the council are too stupid to encourage people to come.

I live 7 miles from Swansea and it is not over congested. I can navigate it quite easily 😊

YYABU. For so many reasons I can’t be bothered to list them here. BANES Council want to introduce a charging zone. It’s essentially a tax on people (e.g low paid workers such as nurses who work at the RUH) who cannot afford the latest cars. I already do the majority of my shopping online but used to visit Bath on occasion to go shopping or take the children to the park. If this new charge comes in then I will avoid avoid avoid. It will become too much of a faff. And let’s face it - it’s a way for the council to make up the budget shortfall reall isn’t it!

• clean air zone aka “funding generation zone”

The issue with public transport is it can be very unreliable and slow. In theory our bus service is every 10minutes in reality you can wait 40 minutes for a bus to actually arrive. If I walk or bus to the children’s school I have to leave at the same time as it’s so unreliable when I should be getting there faster. A car would get me there fast and I could leave 15 minutes before the gates open rather than nearly an hour.

No major city only has two buses a day INTERNALLY- but, you see the thing about major cities is that they are the biggest city for ALL the small villages and towns surrounding them, and in many cases YES THERE ARE only two buses a day to/from said little village to big city. Surely anybody who has ever lived anywhere the slightest it rural knows that?

The other big issue with your suggestion is what happens where the public transport ends? I used to live on the outskirts of one of the cities you've mentioned - public transport is on one hand plentiful, as there are lots of buses, but on the other hand shit, as said buses go all round the houses and take about an hour to travel the six miles into the centre of the city. There is no train provision despite it being a major city - I am sure you find this hard to believe but it's the truth.

The problem is that the bus stop was a ten minute walk away, through an underpass, from my house, in a not-particularly nice area. Someone was murdered near there last week. I was happy to get off the bus and walk at five pm in the middle of summer, or if with DH or a friend. I was really not confident doing it in pitch black at 8/9pm after going for a meal/cinema in said major city, or even sometimes at 5pm, on my own, in the rain. That's why people, often women on their own, prefer to drive.

Totally agree user. Successive governments have created the overcrowding problem in the first place

The Bath thing is laughable. I’ve done the Bath commute both ways, you’re funnelled through the city. You’d have to burn up shed loads more diesel and time going round thus shifting the problem to less wealthy areas. Said CC wouldn’t include Cat 6 vehicles so my diesel car wouldn’t be charged anyway. The powers that be don’t seem to get that all these environment saving options like electric cars( which have their own environmental problems) and CC just serve the rich. They need to focus on the rest of us- affordable good public transport, cheaper electric cars, looking at hydrogen cars.....The maj of us aren’t rich.

Some people are going into town from a long distance away for work so public transport may be expensive. Instead they should look at charging (except BB holders) for short drives where walking or cycling is feasible e.g less than 5 miles.

I also can't work without a car or get to work on public transport without leaving at 6am and doing an almost 2hr journey and the same coming home

Plus I travel for work - tomorrow I start in a town 20 miles away (limited transport) then I am off to a small village 1hr away then back to the edge of a large town for a meeting then back home (with no direct link from edge of town to home)

it's not possible

I often drive in and out of different parts of Birmingham in one day - so may start in Solihull - then go to Handsworth - then to Erdington and end in Sutton - all for meetings at say 10am, 12pm, 1:30 pm 3pm - not possible on the bus!

(wish it was because driving IS bad in the city but it's just not an option!)

I live 10 miles from Birmingham. 90% of people I know that work in the centre commute either by train and (rarely) bus. Traffic is still a nightmare. A congestion charge wouldn't help. It would just discourage shoppers coming to the centre. There's several out of town shopping centres nearby that have free parking. They are always rammo. They are favoured already; discouraging people from the city centre isn't a positive

Public transport does need to be improved in rural areas but it's great where I live and people still drive in.

Well how fantastic for you!
Not so much for me and i don’t live rurally!
I’ve lost track of the amount of buses that haven’t turned up, or have gone out of service, or have magically decided to change to a different service whilst you’ve been waiting 30 minutesfor them

When i worked in one area it took me 6 buses a day!( 4 hours in total travelling).
now i still have to get taxi or a lift at certain times as it doesn't run on a Sunday, or Sunday service fantastic this time of a year when i have to pay extra if no one can take me in!
Now talks again about changing this service, splitting the service in half, so i’ll be forced to get two buses into work, (meaning some people will have to pay more fares).
If i need to stay late, forget about the bus.
Can’t get the train as it’s nowhere near my work.

If they want us to reduce using cars then public transport needs to be better, but it isn’t.

The congestion charge is simply a way of controlling poor people by denying them access to Zone 1 where the rich live. It’s about controlling the population, nothing to do with air pollution or fumes. If you are rich you can afford it or live within the Zone.
It also monitors who’s I. central London at anyone time and how frequently they visit.

Nobody will own cars in 20 years time and we will all be ferried around in driverless electric pods so I wouldn't worry too much.

I live in Manchester, and think that if the technology was there, the best thing to do would be to slap a fee onto car journeys of less than 5 miles around the city. The public transport is ok within the city and immediate suburbs, the cycling routes are improving, and less traffic would mean that walking was more pleasant, and the reduced air pollution and increased exercise would have a direct impact on the health of the local population. FWIW I work shifts, and cycle to work, it is doable.

Yes the congestion charge was voted down in Manchester, with a huge ‘No’ campaign financed by the bastard Trafford Centre, but we also voted No to a mayor and Devo Manc, and look how much notice the powers that be took of that referendum result, apparently they don’t all count...

'The congestion charge is a way of controlling poor people'!? What so those poor people can't walk into the congestion zone, or bus it, or tube it, or cycle in, all ways I believe that aren't affected by the congestion charge. If you are living in the middle of london you don't really need a car. The only way to solve this problem is for more people to get out of their cars and to lessen private car ownership which is hopefully already starting to happen

Nobody will own cars in 20 years time and we will all be ferried around in driverless electric pods so I wouldn't worry too much.

If that ever happens (and I'm pretty certain it won't), the congestion would be horrendous.

Our nearby city (5 miles away) has a brilliant bus service - on one route only which is a corridor to/from the university. If you don't live near that corridor you're pretty much screwed.

10 years ago, our village lost it's bus service (not a small village - it's got 6,000 population and only 5 miles from the city). We now have to walk over a mile (no street lighting) to the nearest A road to get a half hourly service to the city. That means my son has to leave home at 7.20 in order to arrive at school by registration time. A mile walk at our end, a very slow bus through villages and a mile walk at the other end. That's the reality of crap public transport outside major cities like London.

The same city just opened a park and ride, but the council lunatics sited it at the opposite side of town to where most people live, so you actually have to drive through or around the town to get to it. It's only a half hourly service and stops at 6pm (no service at all on Sundays), so is useless for the hospital shift workers.

If governments are serious about reducing traffic in towns, they need a cohesive and integrated public transport plan - not just throwing money at it for pet projects - it needs a radical redesign so that train stations have frequent shuttles to the bus stations (or better still, share the same location), it needs 18 hour 7 days per week park n ride schemes, it needs proper Sunday services on trains and buses. There's so much wrong with public transport, it's certainly not a quick fix.

Master freedom of movement is restricted. All these people moaning about cars are quite happy to jump on planes what about that pollution. You cannot get a family shop on a bus where do you put the bags. How do you carry it? You can also walk your child to school in the morning but it’s difficult if you then have to be in work for 9.00 am. Personal freedom is at stake and you are all just not getting it.

User145, I get it 100%. Our freedoms are already curtailed by the grid lock in this country due to our love affair with the car. There are alternatives in most cities. Btw you can get your shopping delivered! People who drive every where when there are alternatives are short sighted especially people who drive their kids to school when they don't need to.

Nobody will own cars in 20 years time and we will all be ferried around in driverless electric pods so I wouldn't worry too much.

Maybe in London, but I doubt very much it would happen anywhere else. What about people who live rurally? Can you see the windy country lanes full of electric charging points and electric, driverless cars?

What if a deer bounds out in the road, or there's a sheep on the road, or horses, or any other number of obstructions that may not be picked up by the car electronics? In the last week alone I've had to stop suddenly for sheep, a fox, a cat, someone driving on the wrong side of the road, huge flooded potholes and a branch in the way. I have absolutely zero faith in electronics being able to deal with all that.

There are also issues at the moment with the fact that driverless cars cannot cope with single-track roads and the fact that you often need to reverse around blind corners or into the verge/hedge to allow other vehicles to pass.

You can get you shopping delivered. Wow! In a van presumably! I like to chose my own goods which I’m paying for.

I do, however, think that schemes whereby you can share a car journey into town as advertised on the Tube are a good idea. It should be made easier re insurance, etc though. I just don’t get why the down on cars when people get taxis, mini cabs and Uber’s. Smaller cars, yes but again some of us have larger families or take out family members.

It's amazing how carless families cope...

Unless you live rurally, it is possible to do the school run and get to work on public transport- if you live in a very big city which is what I'm talking about.

I do it as do quite a few people I know. I don't drive. I get to work, get to Nursery and get the shopping delivered. Pick up bits on my lunch hour. It's perfectly doable in a big city.

If you live rurally, that's your choice and surely you knew that transport would be a pain but that's the price you paid for a nicer house, surely.