| 1 | 1 | | The idea of millionaires in their Mercedes speeding along a toll expressway on the |
| 2 | | MI, while the rest of us are left to fume in huge queues on a toll-free, frequently |
| 3 | | obstructed motorway alongside, is all too easy to scorn. But before the principle of |
| 4 | | charging for road space is laughed out of court as political lunacy, it is worth examining |
| 5 | | it with more care than a kneejerk spasm in a Mini permits. |
| 2 | 6 | | The real case against Mrs Thatcher's Government is not that it has become entirely |
| 7 | | market-obsessed as it explores the idea of funding new roads by charging tolls, but that it |
| 8 | | has lacked the courage, despite nearly a decade of power, to tackle one of the most |
| 9 | | expensive and frustrating problems of our age. |
| 3 | 10 | | With traffic congestion in London alone costing more than £ 1,500 million a year in |
| 11 | | wasted time and vehicle charges - not to mention even greater costs in pollution, safety |
| 12 | | and environmental damage - there is no disagreement over the size of the problem. |
| 13 | | Britain's roads in many areas are already grossly congested. And it will get worse. By the |
| 14 | | end of the century, car ownership is expected to increase by as much as half again. |
| 15 | | Heavy goods vehicles are showing a similar vertical increase. |
| 4 | 16 | | There are three basic approaches to this nightmare. The first is the one adopted by |
| 17 | | the Government: to let the situation gradually deteriorate, allowing congestion to act as |
| 18 | | its own restraint. If you have been stuck for two hours trying to get across the M4 bridge |
| 19 | | over the Severn on a holiday weekend, or jammed on the repair-prone M6 near Preston |
| 20 | | any day of the week, the experience serves as a deterrent to all but the most determined |
| 21 | | driver. |
| 5 | 22 | | The second approach to tackling congestion is the one preferred by the big-road |
| 23 | | battalions such as the British Road Federation, who favour building bigger and better |
| 24 | | roads. Costain's, the civil engineering firm, recently put up an ambitious £ 4 billion |
| 25 | | scheme for an eight-lane motorway through London via tunnels under the Thames. The |
| 26 | | difficulty about building more and more roads, however, is illustrated by the saga of the |
| 27 | | outer ring road around the capital. After several decades of dither and delay caused by |
| 28 | | prolonged planning inquiries and appeals, the M25 was finally completed last year. But it |
| 29 | | is already inadequate. |
| 6 | 30 | | A third approach, charging for road space, may seem political suicide in Britain, |
| 31 | | but four out of the 12 EEC countries - France, Spain, Italy and Portugal - have |
| 32 | | motorway tolls. More importantly, several foreign cities, including Singapore, Hong |
| 33 | | Kong and Bergen in Norway, have begun or completed trials in urban road pricing. In |
| 34 | | Hong Kong, a more ambitious project uses electronic vehicle number plates to trigger off |
| 35 | | pricing points buried under the road and linked to central computers. This means that |
| 36 | | motorists can be charged precisely for the congestion they cause. The experiment showed |
| 37 | | that this state-of-the-art technology permits the most sophisticated control of traffic and |
| 38 | | works perfectly. |
| 7 | 39 | | There are those, of course, who say honestly that they prefer congestion to road |
| 40 | | pricing on the grounds that the pain is, at least, equally shared by rich and poor alike. |
| 41 | | That, to put it kindly, is a remarkably short-sighted argument. The people who most |
| 42 | | suffer from congestion are not those who are rich enough to own a car, but those who are |
| 43 | | obliged to rely on unreliable and expensive public transport, and who have to live on |
| 44 | | dangerous, polluted streets since they cannot afford houses in spacious suburban areas. |
| 8 | 45 | | The arguments over inequality, moreover, would fade if the revenues from road |
| 46 | | pricing were used to finance new public transport investment. So what is holding the |
| 47 | | politicians back? Road pricing should not be treated as a political issue dividing Left |
| 48 | | from Right. It is a technical solution to a social problem and should be examined on its |
| 49 | | merits. |
| 9 | 50 | | When Edward Heath, then Prime Minister, got stuck in a huge Westminster traffic |
| 51 | | jam back in 1974, he flew into a towering rage and demanded the head of the Minister of |
| 52 | | Transport and the leading local politician. If only we all did the same, the problem of |
| 53 | | congestion would soon be tackled. |
| | | |
| | | Adam Raphael in 'The Observer', May 22, 1988 |
