Congestion Discharge
2008 © Martin Cassini
According to the CBI, traffic congestion costs the UK economy £20bn a year. Transport for London has come clean about the failure of the C charge to reduce congestion, but aided by improperganda from its platoon of press officers, it continues to deflect blame. The usual suspects are cited: roadworks, volume of traffic. Meanwhile, the root cause of our congestion and road safety problems goes unreported: intrusive traffic control in the form, above all, of 24-hour traffic lights.
It’s not just that lights are often badly phased – obvious to everyone except the experts who phase them. Most lights are bad news per se. Look what happens when they are out of action: courtesy thrives, congestion dissolves. As soon as they are “working” again, the jams and hostility are back.
If we were free to use commonsense and courtesy on roads free of counterproductive traffic controls, and if subsequently road capacity were exceeded, then a charge might be justified. Until then, it’s another premature layer of control to vex and tax us in a vain bid to cure problems of the experts’ own making. It does nothing to reduce danger and delay at junctions plagued by priority rules and traffic lights.
Remove priority, and you remove the “need” for lights, and the need for speed. Then all road-users can do what is natural and intrinsically safe: approach gingerly, watch the road, and take it in turns. Simultaneous filtering is not only infinitely more civilised than stop-start consecutive queueing, it is infinitely more efficient. It could bring congestion discharge. By all means phase in the advanced driving test and a programme of re-education to raise standards and help drivers meet the challenge.
In Edinburgh, the people were consulted about the proposed C charge. In London, majority opposition to the Western extension was ignored. The authors of discredited traffic measures usually remain anonymous. For the C charge flop, we can name two people responsible: Ken Livingstone and Malcolm Murray-Clark. Murray-Clark says the central zone is not under threat (yet?), but admits the extension “could be dropped”.
Cambridge – where congestion is caused almost wholly by defective traffic management – has been angling for half a billion from the DfT to impose a charge. Like London’s, it would benefit unaccountable officials but no-one else. Manchester, which reluctantly agreed to a referendum, is seeking a charge “to raise money for public transport”. But until there is an alternative to personal transport that is equally convenient in all circumstances, sledgehammer enforcement amounts to an attack on liberty. The first resort is always high-cost coercion. What happened to the art of seduction? How about making public transport desirable by investing in air-conditioned, electric-powered, wifi-equipped buses with delightful attendants and Radio 4 on tap?
The zero-emissions hydrogen Honda FCX will soon be available in Japan and the US. Why not here? Because we have no re-fuelling infrastructure. Our regulation playing fields are not green, and they’re not level. Take a Lexus with emissions of 192g/km and a VW with 99g/km. Which is C charge-exempt? You guessed it. The Lexus. Why? Because it’s a hybrid, while the Fiat Eco version, Ford Econetic, Seat Ecomotive, Skoda Greenline, Vauxhall ECOflex or VW Bluemotion “only” make refined use of existing technology. Depressingly, this doublethink is being perpetuated under the new mayor.
You’d think that if you live in the zone and do the green thing – renounce car ownership and hire as required – you’d be able to register for the discount as a person, with a permit that could be moved from car to car. You’d be wrong. As with residents’ parking, you may only register a vehicle. Why? Because individual registration would be “harder to police”. Instead of gearing things to the needs of the user, they impose a system to satisfy official paranoia. They urge us to do our bit for the planet, then they promote car ownership.
Not only is the CC environmentally, economically and politically inept, it’s socially and operationally odious. Like extortionate parking controls, it epitomises intolerance. If you forget to pay, or didn’t realise you had entered the zone – easily done, especially in the dark in pouring rain (yes, they got me) – you are punished with a ferocity that is out of all proportion to the “crime”.
The charge increases living costs, damages city life and commerce. It’s an invasive, parasitic, punitive, time-consuming disservice which, despite the improperganda, has not eased congestion. Livingstone certainly pulled off some spoon-bending, but look closely and you’ll see it’s a con(juring) trick with nothing to commend it, not even entertainment value.
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