FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Sunday, August 06, 2006
More UK Toll Roads
The BBC news reports today that the government's Transport Secretary, Douglas Alexander, is planning to implement a nationwide network of toll roads making it likely that drivers in the UK will be charged each time they wish to use any major intercity roads, such as the motorways. Alexander is quoted as saying :
"We are considering pilots on the trunk road network as an important stage towards national road pricing."
Now, perhaps nobody told him but we already have a national road pricing scheme called car tax. With this and the massive fuel duty that the government collects from motorists I personally feel that car owners in this country are already paying enough to subsidise an inefficient and unreliable public transport system - surely Tony Blair and his cronies should be concerning themselves with offering people a practical alternative to getting in their cars instead of turning back the clock to a time when only the wealthy were privileged enough to have the convenience of getting around in their own vehicles.
The only real solution to today's transport problems I believe is to re-nationalise the public transport system - as long as the rail and bus network are run by private enterprise the priority for their owners will be to maximise profits, resulting in a reduction in service levels and and ongoing increase in price. Clearly, this situation needs to be reversed if we have any hope of convincing people to leave their cars at home.
"We are considering pilots on the trunk road network as an important stage towards national road pricing."
Now, perhaps nobody told him but we already have a national road pricing scheme called car tax. With this and the massive fuel duty that the government collects from motorists I personally feel that car owners in this country are already paying enough to subsidise an inefficient and unreliable public transport system - surely Tony Blair and his cronies should be concerning themselves with offering people a practical alternative to getting in their cars instead of turning back the clock to a time when only the wealthy were privileged enough to have the convenience of getting around in their own vehicles.
The only real solution to today's transport problems I believe is to re-nationalise the public transport system - as long as the rail and bus network are run by private enterprise the priority for their owners will be to maximise profits, resulting in a reduction in service levels and and ongoing increase in price. Clearly, this situation needs to be reversed if we have any hope of convincing people to leave their cars at home.
