congestian charge

[JimboJ]

[Deano]

What a load Bollox!! I doubt that it will happen.
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Dean Stone #777
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[Ste]

Well, in my view, the congestion itself is a great enough charge on road users. The system can easily be stopped/ clogged up, if everyone was to pay by cheque, or if no one would pay it. This will never happen, therefore people look for a way round it.

Scooter. You can be on the road for under a grand, which is 200 days of congestion charges. Now we have less cars, and more bikes/ scooter. Traffic moves quicker. Now they want something else to moan about, or charge, and the bike is a very easy target. if they start charging bikes a fiver a day, people will go, "fuck that, im going back to my car" and the traffic will get worse again.

The pedestrian issue is simple, people need to look before they walk out through slow traffic. Also, scooters do need to be aware of people walking through traffic.

A bike is a lot easier to get through without paying the charge. Small plates, different lettering, or just folding plates.

They need to think about what they were trying to achive by the congestion charge, and bikes are a very good solution to this.

[Robby]

they wont include bikes into the charge unless the number of cars really really cuts down - so they get no money, or unless loads of people start getting hit by scooters. They need some kind of a reason to start charging bikes.
however, i think the charge is great, cos i dislike cars and its nice to get something pro bike once in a while.

[Bendy]

It'll be a while before they look at the bike issue. Road safety campaigners are generally wankers who hate everyone anyway:)

First of all, the CC has to run for at least 6 months to stabilise and see what the true effect has been. It's half term so they cant judge anything at the moment.

And I reckon that rather than charge bikes to enter the zone, they'll just get tight on parking them... we've had free parking for a very long time, but if the number of bikes increases, the number of bike bays would have to increase. And I cant see them doing that for free. A number of councils are already trialling paid-for secure bike parking so I wouldnt be surprised to see it go that way. You get into the zone for free, but pay to park, so they still make some cash out of you somehow.

[Danny]

I agree there Stephen. Transport for London has been moaning that too few cars are driving into London meaning they get less revenue. I thought the whole idea was to reduce traffic NOT make money off motorists

Although I think generally congestion charging is a good thing in that it reduces traffic in London. I think it takes the piss that they are trying to get ppl on the tube, which is massively over crowded (my sister has to wait for 3 trains to go buy b4 she can get on), also it is over priced (most expensive tube system in the world BY FAR).

Now they are privatising it, have they not seen what happened to the rail system after privatisation (immensely expensive and tremendously unreliable)? The transport system should be there to transport ppl, not take ppls money for the pleasure of hearing 'err.. There appear to be some leaves on the line, so you wont be home for a very long time, thank you come again’: x Public transport should be non-profit, what next? Are they gonna privatise the Fire Brigade?

Politicians are supposed to be the representatives of the people at the moment they don’t seem to representing what ppl want (Blair-War).

Back to the point of bikes, now that a goof thing has happened i.e. ppl are using an eco-friendly/congestion friendly means of transport they want to charge ppl for it.

My God that was a long rant, sorry guys, just had to get that off my chest

[Kickstart]

Hi

The number of people commuting into central london by car dropped from 158000 in 1990 to 1370000 in 2000, yet congestion got worse. It is rumoured that it has dropped another 15% in the last 2 years already, without the congestion charge. So with less traffic and worse congestion it would seem that the number of cars is not the problem.

By the way, substantially more people commute into central London by car than by bus, but all road transport combined is far less than the number who commute by train

For 2000 there were 16000 people a day commuting by motorbike into central London. At £5 a day and with 250 working days that is an easy £20m extra tax for them to collect. Doubt they will resist the temptation for long

Personal opinion is that to solve the problem they should give all companies in central London 5 years to have enough on site parking for 50% of their staff. That would move enough of the companies out into areas where it was possible to get to them

All the best

Keith
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[Ste]

danny, for the system to operate, they do need to make some money.

And a privatised public transport system will work better than a public sector one. if you are interested, I can explain my reasoning and arguements for this.

[JimboJ]

tis a shame i dont live anywhere near london
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[Danny]

I agree for the system to work they need money, but not my fault they went into overkill on the no. of cameras = need more money.

Please explain . I don't see how money going to shareholders instead of back into the system can be good.

[Ste]

Ok. With a public system, the system is run by funding by the government. Therefore, when they are doing badly its just a case of getting more funding and subsidy from them. If people are not satisfied with the service, then yes they can complain, but what does the operator care? They have very little incentive to operate the system well, and to earn revenue/ profit.

If you have the sector run by a private firm, they have far greater incentive to operate it well to please the public. Firstly, as you said, they have shareholders. These are people they need to keep happy, so as they can keep in buisness. If a private company does not perform, they will lose thier operators license, which means all the money they have invested in rolling stock (which takes about 5 years to arrive from placing an order) is wasted.

A private company has a public to please. If they do not perform, then they will loss customers, which means they will loss revenue, which means lost profit, which means shares go down.

Do you want more reasons?

/me slaps A level economics

[Viper]

Hmmmm.....Congestion charges....where shall i start.....

I know this sounds very strange and backwards but...
What worries me the most is the increasing number of bikes.

Having to ride regularly through or around central london on most days, what worries me the most is the other bikes. Car dodging is easy enough to do, because all the drivers are so dappy anyway, their irratic moves they make are normally fairly predictable, so you can see them blatently coming.

But with bikes in London. Everyone seems to be a serious missions to get from A to B. To which weaving/lane jumping/overtaking/undertaking all have their own rules.
Unless you keep up with the rat-pack (or ahead of them all) you are at risk of being cut up/pushed out by other bikes.

I personally think the biggest threat to my safely being a biker in london, is in fact the other bikes.

A car is easy to see in you blind spot.
A bike (or two, or three) can so so easily be missed.
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[Demonic69]

[Kickstart]

[Danny]

In reply to Vipers comments, courier bikers are the biggest danger, they drive like complete absolute nuters!!!

Reply to Stephen.
I appreciate you know a-level economics and i don't, well i do cos i can hear an economics lesson on a Monday morning through the paper thin walls in my college during my philosophy lesson, but that's beside the point.
Recently the gov. has been giving handouts to private companies to stop them going bust, so what’s the point
Although I take your point that they (state funded transport) have no real incentive to do better.

[Bendy]

[Ste]

[zaknafien]

well as i dont live anywhere near london or ever plan to it doesnt bother me, but if they fuck us over much more it's bye bye england and hello nicer country.
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[Danny]

[Ste]

no, if trains become too unreliable, then the usage numbers go down. likewise with quality and service.

[Danny]

Ok. ok. i'll let you win

[Kickstart]

[Demonic69]

What are ppl gonna do if they can't be arsed to use trains any more? Fly? The numbers wont go down too dramatically cuz there's no alternative for a lot of commuters.

I'm not too fussed, I don't work in the city centre
Although I think the car-sharing scheme they have in some other countries is viable. You can't enter the zone without at least one passenger in the car.
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[Ste]

Walk. Train. Car. Pushbike.

If every train was (even more than currently) late, or huge amounts of the services just didnt run, at no notice, in other words, you cannot rely on it, you would have to find an alternative.

In general terms, number go down, as opposed to stop all together.

The car sharing thing does sound quite good, but you get people buying life size dolls for thier cars

[Kickstart]