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.

*It's amazing how carless families cope."

They cope because they choose to live in places with good public transport, choose to work in places with good public transport, choose schools with good public transport, etc.

If everyone did that, there'd be huge swathes of the country where people couldn't live, loads of employers with empty factories/plants, loads of empty schools, etc.

Unless you're going to make sweeping changes to the entire country, i.e. close down and demolish smaller towns, villages etc., and close down and demolish workplaces and schools, many people still need cars or you're going to have to make massive improvements to public transport.

YABU. It penalises people who are not very well off, as it forces them onto public transport, that is usually very expensive, and usually less than ideal with delays, engineering works, impractical routes and timetables.
It penalises those who live out of the commuter belt too and may have no realistic alternative, has a negative impact for shops and businesses that need the foot traffic.

Better public transport is needed, cheaper, quicker, more direct routes with better reliability and timetables, and greener vehicles, better incentives to get rid of the petrol guzzling cars, more trees and greenery are needed in city centres to help filter out pollutants too.

You mean big cities? Which is what this thread is about.

Not sure of your point. I wasn't suggesting that smaller places like say Slough, Maidenhead, Harrogate have a congestion charge but the big cities- which have public transport.

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?

I live rurally and can see it happening. I don't think people will own their own driverless electric car but more that it will be like an uber service. The cars will go back to charging carparks and dock themselves as needed to charge.

Apparently the cars can cope with emergency braking and are being used on the roads in California now. I know there's been a fatality when someone was run over, but most of the time they seem to be working well.

*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,"

Not all homes in rural areas are "nicer" - plenty of small, old, housing stock in small towns, villages and even more remote areas too. Not everyone who lives in more rural areas is rich you know. Plenty are poor or middling too. Far too many people living in cities don't have the first clue about rural areas. Lots of rural area have been decimated by the current London-centric society, lots of jobs in rural areas, small towns etc no longer exist. Lots of people are "trapped" in rural areas because they can't afford to move to live in London!

I live rurally and can see it happening. I don't think people will own their own driverless electric car but more that it will be like an uber service. The cars will go back to charging carparks and dock themselves as needed to charge.

But that actually increases the traffic if these cars are driving around empty between jobs and having to return to central bases for charging. That will increase congestion and road use. At least if you're driving your own car to work, it's sat in your drive when you're at home and in a car park when you're at work, i.e. not on the roads. If you have to hail a driverless car, it's driving empty on roads to come to get you, then driving empty after dropping you off to go to it's next job or to charge, then it's empty coming to pick you up to take you home again, and empty to go back to base or it's next job when it's dropped you off. Therefore it's travelling on the roads, causing congestion, more! How is that an improvement and how does it relieve congestion?

Apparently the cars can cope with emergency braking and are being used on the roads in California now. I know there's been a fatality when someone was run over, but most of the time they seem to be working well.

Stopping when it sees an obstacle is the easy bit. How does it know what to do next? Eg if it's driving on a country road and stops because a herd of cows are coming the opposite way. How does it know it has to reverse out of their way? How does it know how far back it has to go to just beyond the gate they'll be going into? If it just stops and waits, it'll either get damaged by the cows or the cows will stop too and it'll be a stand off. How about busy areas with bikes, other cars, pedestrians, pets, etc., it'll be constant stop start every time someone steps a foot into the road to get past a pram or whenever a dog steps a foot into the road, etc - you're not going to get anywhere and congestion will be worse.

For driverless cars to succeed, they'll need segregated roadways - and will only be in certain "driverless car friendly" areas. There's no way we'll see them as mainstream on all roads throughout the country in our lifetimes.

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.

Or it was the house we could afford? There was no way we could afford one nearer the city centre, so we have to live out in a suburb.

I live in a small city. The transport links aren't great. There are buses into the evening, but they stop fairly early. Also I'd then have a walk from the bus stop through an area which isn't exactly the safest.

I work shifts, so public transport isn't really an option for me (and it is not a job that can be done from home or anywhere else). I do go into the city to shop sometimes and I think if I had to pay a congestion charge I'd probably just stay away and order from Amazon. So that would achieve getting my car off the road, however, our city centre already seems to be struggling (judging by the empty shopfronts and the low footfall) so I don't think it could really survive without car-drivers trade.

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.

Can you see how ridiculous you sound?

Millions of families live rurally because they can't afford to live anywhere else! Houses in cities, in good catchment areas and with good public transport links to work/school/shops are not cheap! If I wanted to move to our closest city, our mortgage would be over double what we pay at the moment - we simply couldn't afford it. We live in a poor seaside town - 2 bed houses are 60k or less here, there's two small supermarkets, two primaries and one high school within walking distance. That's it. The next nearest high school is a 30 minute drive away on country roads - there is a school bus but there's no public transport to get you there. The nearest big supermarket is 40 minutes away in the other direction.

The roads often close in winter so you either cannot get to work or need to take huge detours, nearly doubling your journey time. But I can't afford to live elsewhere. My salary wouldn't stretch to living in the town I work in because it's a tourist trap, and locals are priced out because 90% of jobs here are in retail, care work, hospitality and tourism - none of which pay well enough for people to buy houses that cost 300k+.

So I have to live miles out of work and drive in everyday. That's the reality for most people who live rurally these days - there just is no other choice. Public transport either doesn't exist, or is just too extortionately expensive to be usable. But of course, tax those people even more for daring to not be able to afford a nice house in the city!

YABVU The London congestion charge has done nothing to reduce congestion, in fact it is worse than ever.
The whole concept is a huge money-making machine, nothing more nothing less.

I live rurally and can see it happening. I don't think people will own their own driverless electric car but more that it will be like an uber service. The cars will go back to charging carparks and dock themselves as needed to charge.

But how will that reduce traffic? Surely it doubles it - car comes to collect me (empty), takes me to work, goes off to charge/to the next job (empty), comes to collect me (empty) and takes me home. Whereas if I drive, my car is on the road for 40 minutes, twice a day, and spends the rest of the day parked outside my house or in a carpark at work.

I think the cars will pick up multiple people on the way, so some sort of cross between a bus/tram/taxi

How many people who live rurally, drive into the local equivalent of zone one for work? Not many I'd imagine.

It's people that live and work in the cities that are the problem.

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.

Why ? Are you still thinking of one-car-per-person ?

One of the goals mesh and electric cars will be able to deliver is that no one needs own a car. I'm sure we'll look back on 1960-2020 in amazement as we realise that people actually spent tens of thousands of pounds on a machine that got used maybe 3 hours a day, and spent 21 hours doing fuck all on somebody elses land.

(Well, when you put it like that ....)

I think the "pod" idea is more about a fleet of little cars that are immediately there when needed, and which ferry you where you want to go, to then pick up the next user. If anyone owns them it will be the local authority, or a subcontracted company like Uber.

Going back in time, very few people were able to own private transport, beyond a stout pair of boots (and even then ...). Going forwards, I suspect that will be the way (see also owning property )

Also, more people own a car in order to work, than as a means of watching sunsets all over the county. It's become a tool of capitalism, not a portal to freedom.

Returning to the OPs point, maybe congestion charging is the way forward. Coupled with the appropriate reduction (or elimination) of road tax and fuel duty. After all, we've PAID FOR THE FUCKING ROADS, and the PAID FOR THE FUCKING FUEL TO DRIVE ON THE ROADS, so maybe a bit of balance ?

Or just slap higher taxes on the fuel duty so those that burn more, pay more. Regardless of where they burn it.

No major city only has two buses a day.

Depends where you are coming from.

We live on the outskirts of Manchester. The transport in is diabolical, partially due to train strikes, there aren't enough replacement buses put on and it takes twice as long. The ordinary buses are at inconvenient times and you have to change several times - it's fine if you are literally going from main road A to city centre stop B, but getting from your housing estate to main road A and from central stop B to central stop C can take almost twice the time as driving it!

Aragog totally disagree with your description of Sheffield centre (other than the fact its struggling). Horrendous traffic on the inner ring road and struggle to park is normal. Also all those having to live in the city centre have to breath very polluted air.

No major city only has two buses a day.

When DS was 15 and seeing a girt, he decided on a date at a relatively (3-4 miles away) cinema towards the out of town. They went straight from school, and I got a phone call from him at 7pm saying he'd only just seen that the last bus went at 6:30pm. This was a weekday, and it's still inside Birmingham.

Cue me doing responsible Dad, and jumping in a car to provide the lift. Gawd only knows what a taxi would cost. It was an independence-crushing event for him ....

(I can recall having to travel to the depths of Herefordshire in the 80s, and finding out that the weekly bus managed to leave 10 minutes before the train arrived at the village station. And no one thought it was odd.)

This thread is a bit "London-centric". OP, you are probably correct in London. You don't need a car. However, thankfully, most people don't live in London.

I live 10 miles from a city which is the regional centre for the council, the main teaching hospital and university. Within the city, there is an acceptable bus service. Outside the city it is useless. The city council thinks that by charging motorists to park "because the public transport is great" it will deter drivers. True, and now they are bewailing the fact that the shops on the high street are shutting. They fail to realise that if you are going to attract the people from the outlying villages/hamlets, you have to give them the option of using their car because they don't have any other way of accessing the centre.

10 miles from Exeter, my hamlet has no bus whatsoever. The nearest village is a mile away, the bus stop is a mile and a half away. The road between the hamlet and village has no pavements, is unlit and has a speed limit of 60mph. The bus goes once an hour to Exmouth or Sidmouth and stops at 6pm. To get into Exeter, I need either to catch the bus to Sidmouth then get another bus into the city or go to Exmouth and get a bus or train. Apart from the ludicrously high cost of crossing a district boundary, it's completely unworkable.

Finally, all the talk about electric cars is fine for city-dwellers. Our power supply is unreliable and we often have 2 hour outages. Electric cars do not even fit in the tools of my trade, namely a double bass. I have taken it on the tram in Edinburgh and received a whole load of abuse from a ticket collector. It won't even fit on a bus or train, not round here anyway. Now tell me I have to pay a congestion charge and I'll say thanks but no thanks. You have to have a full working accessible public transport infrastructure in place BEFORE you can think about punishing drivers.

This thread is a bit "London-centric".

Well, when practically 1 in 6 people live within "London" it's hard not to be. Which is another issue for another thread (the continued pumping of the South East way beyond it's natural sustainability ...)

I live near a major city (and don’t drive so no vested interest!)

Our public transport within the city is good. But a huge amount of people travel in to work in the city from more rural towns an hour away. And trains are infrequent and extremely unreliable, many of my colleagues have been late for work because they couldn’t physically squeeze onto the train. Lots of towns don’t even have a train station. One of my friends lives in such a town and for her to commute by bus would take two hours on two buses and the buses are once an hour so if she missed her connection that’s three hours. Or she can drive in which takes a little over an hour. Driving to the nearest town with a station would take half an hour, then an hour on the train, but trains frequently late or cancelled or too full to get on.

So YABU until every major city has public transport on a par with London, including to the outlying commuter towns.

many of my colleagues have been late for work because they couldn’t physically squeeze onto the train.

But "late for work" - like Scandinavian drama - is a man-made construct. There's always the option to revisit the rules and see if you could shift working patterns to avoid the morning and evening crush.

Obviously not for every job. But it only takes 5% to see a dramatic reduction in traffic.

Whenever there are other solutions - much easier to implement and manage than an instatax like congestion charges, my hackles rise. It's lazy thinking. It's lazy governing. It's lazy citizenship too. And it has all sorts of avenues for misuse which we know will happen. Starting with Capita or ATOS or some other politicians-pork-barrel company getting the contract to "administer" the thing.

Need to look at the problem in other ways.

How about converting more of the derelict empty shops and central brownfield sites into housing so more people can actually live in city centres again?

How about encouraging (tax breaks etc) firms to relocate away from the big cities and into the smaller city and town centres again? (Or higher taxes for those locating in the most congested cities).

How about a new "localism" initiative where people are encouraged to shop and work closer to where they live, i.e. lower tax or NIC if your workplace is within x miles of your home.

Put all these initiatives into force and you wouldn't need a congestion charge as, over a decade or so, there'd be movement out of the city centres and back into amenities and employment in smaller/local communities

Manchester public transport isn't bad IF you are travelling in and out of the city centre. My work requires me to travel between people homes, including during the evening rush hour. There's no way I could get from Chorlton to Kersal or Flixton to Sedgley Park using public transport without it taking several hours. My friend has to get 2 buses to take her son swimming! Congestion charge would mean I'd have to pass the extra cost onto my clients. I agree that something needs to be done but I think promoting electric cars would be better.

Kazzyhoward gets it ... nothing there is technically impossible. The only problem is they benefit the wrong people, so are non-starters.

Bath is introducing one. There is no exemption for those living inside the designated area so if they move their cars off their drive then they are hit. Even Bath has large areas of social deprivation.

It'll hit the less affluent very hard. £9 a day is a lot of money and cars older then 2006 (petrol) and 2014 ( diesel) will be caught. There is actually no way to the hospital from north of the city without passing through the congestion zone.

Retailers are up in arms - Bath relies on the tourist trade but buses and coaches that don't meet the standards will be charged £100.