Road Congestions Charges

[John Knight]

I'm all for private companies being brought in to run transport and other public services. our country has a woefull record managing public services in general. The current state of our schools, colleges and primary schools is evidence if nothing else. Yes they are throwing money at them now but only because they left them to rot for years. A better example is probably the good old NHS. . Hosipitals.... Did you know there are more managers than beds in the NHS and its gross turnover is greater than the GDP of some countries? same with our rail network, currently throwing money at it hand over fist after decades of inaction and the legendaryly appaling British Rail. Why on earth would you want all the same idiots running our public transport again. as architects we work in the private sector on public sector building and have frequent contact with the local goverment bodies. They are notoriously slow, difficult to contact. If a private business was run on the same terms it would go bust. Often private companies providing services within the public sector provide the service for less than the state run equivalents, for example the NHS outsourcing routine non emergency work to private companies.

I would stress that coupled with a potential congestion charge and significant investment that greater control needs to be excerised over the service providers and their fares and possible windfall tax's ought to be considered That together with more emphasis on quality and 'best value' rather than outright cheapest.

A detail of the plan worth noting is that Oldham and rochdale centres would not get connection without the addtional investment as a result of road charging . They would instead just get tarted up versions of their exisitng rail stations which are an awful long way from the actual centres, hence hardly used and the Ashton line would stop several miles short of the town centre again not particularly uselful.

[Mike]

They are bringing private companies into run a congestion charge, not the public transport infrastructure. Not only that but we have a system to tax vehicles for this sort of purpose. I object to a tax where you are paying the majority of the money raised to administer the system. London has zero advantage from its congestion charge - all the money goes on the administration. Why bother?! You could wipe it out and there would be no difference.

[johnriley1uk]

I was driving through central Manchester earlier today and the congestion along Deansgate was dreadful.

It was dreadful mainly becayuse the road system has been steadily redesigned to make it dreadful. In the 1960s Deansgate was two lanes wide in both directions, all the way through. Now it's like a side street and the traffic lights and junctions are designed to foul up the traffic.

It is in fact a cunning plan to make us feel there is a problem. Well there is a problem. The planners are the problem.

[Mike]

Has anyone received their ballot papers yet? I don't want to miss the ballot on this one.

On a side note I did find out that the Manchester Charge is the largest in the world. London is 8 square miles, Rome 2 square miles, Stockholm was about 7 square miles. By comparison Manchester is 80 square miles. The other interesting thing was the type of cities mentioned. All capitals apart from us!

Also England has the 6 cities in the most congested in Europe list here - why is that? I suspect it is because we have been building roads in a very bad way, I can't imagine there are more car users per head than any other developed European country.

[stimpsonslostson]

its because we drive on the left. No other reason.

[BarcelonAl]

Spot on Phil...why doesn't Manchester adopt a right-hand drive system as they bring in the congestion charge, just to really screw stuff up!

[stimpsonslostson]

yup. and every road into the city gets a loop-de-loop on it to get you onto the right hand side. If your car can't do it then you have to walk. congestion sorted.
of course building all these loops will need investment and design then construction... recession sorted.

p

[Mike]

Some people at work have started getting their voting papers. They are all Northern city dwellers but I am starting to wonder if I will ever get mine!

[BarcelonAl]

Have you had your leaflet thing yet? I got mine on Tuesday but we're only supposed to get voting papers through in December, so don't worry just yet!

[johnriley1uk]

We've had our voting papers.

[BarcelonAl]

Got mine too...except my vote is in the name of a Gordon Alastair. If I fail to sign my voting form correctly it won't count...duh! I sense a fruitless phone call on the way and millions of void votes!

[mr_e]

Think we got ours yesterday or maybe today. I was expecting one per household for some reason, but it looks like they've used the electoral register, which is better for us lot anyways. Now I just need to check they've got my name right on it, given what Al's said...

[BarcelonAl]

Think we got ours yesterday or maybe today. I was expecting one per household for some reason, but it looks like they've used the electoral register, which is better for us lot anyways. Now I just need to check they've got my name right on it, given what Al's said...

Apparently Bambi's is correct, so I suspect it's just mine...cue unimpressed phone call tomorrow morning!

[mr_e]

You may want to check if your name appears correctly on the electoral register as well then... after a quick check, mine's okay.

[Mike]

Ours have gone missing in the post. So we have to fill in a form and return it and then they will be able to send out some new ones. What a faf.