TRUCKS TARGETED Congestion charging is promoted as the means of
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getting people out of cars and onto public transport. It could bring slight relief for those trying to service our urban centres, but as in the short term this is likely to involve a massive increase in bus priority measures. These benefits will rapidly disappear, with overthe-kerb deliveries becoming even more impossible.
We are pointing out to Ken Livingstone, and the other London Mayoral candidates who favour charging trucks, that buses and tubes do not provide a alternative to the truck and that this stealth tax will do nothing to attract
business to London. But a package that included extensive truck priority measures,ro night-time delivery curfews, no London Lorry Ban bureaucracy and proper provision for delivery and servicing activities could be worth talking about.
It's doubtful if Ken's scheme would work. An independent group sponsored by the Government Office for London sees mid-2002 as the earliest a paper-based scheme could work; it adds that the enforcement process could itself cause congestion. It therefore proposes 150 stopping bays to check permits plus some 400 enforcement officers. We all know where the enforcement would be targeted! John Cuttridge,
London & South-East regional director, Freight Transport Association, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.