More Equal
Page 65
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LEARNED economists and other experts here and abroad insist so often on the need for road users to pay for the tracks they use just as the railways have to pay for theirs that in the end one becomes convinced there is something in the contention. Only one thing keeps the flicker of doubt alive. Not only do the experts fail to agree on the method that ought to be used to equate track costs, but they are not even able to explain their own pet theories adequately.
In a recent paper to the Manchester Statistical Society, Mr. D. L Munby, reader in economics and organization of transport at Oxford University, insisted that "some system, however crude, of charging for the use of congested roads and expensive land in cities is a necessary part of any economic solution to the roads problem ". He did not make clear why this should be so, except that it would contribute towards his " ideal " of approximating road charges to the railway system.
His own suggestions for realizing this ideal were hesitant and incomplete. Tolls would be possible in some cases, even desirable, but in general they were costly and a nuisance in a country where distances were short and there were many alternative routes. Special charges ought to be made where congestion occurred, chiefly in cities, but this would mean reversing town planning policies which required developers to provide more parking space than they wished, in addition to which the charges could not be levied on through traffic. In the end, it almost seemed as if Mr. Munby had talked himself out of belief in his own theory.
THE search for a satisfactory equation might be one of those blind-alley projects that seem to have such a strong attraction for the economists when they come to consider transport. It is an industry that does not easily find a snug place in any of the usual categories. The mistake most frequently made is to assume that the different forms of transport are no more than variations on a single theme and ought therefore to respond in the same way to the same analysis.
It should be obvious that this is a fallacy. An account of the railways, for example, would give little (if any) clue to the nature of road transport. Trains will take people or goods only to certain places. They run according to a time-table which cannot be adapted to meet the requirements of an individual customer, although there is some elasticity on special occasions. Again with some exceptions, no passenger or trader has more right than another to a seat on a train or space in a goods wagon. Travel by rail within the limits of the system is regulated solely by the purse, without reference to the social or economic value of the journey or of the consignment.
This egalitarian framework may explain why the railways are nationalized and road transport remains under free enterprise. Public ownership means also that the railways do not have to concern themselves with the appropriation of track costs according to use. All the same, they enjoy rating and other privileges that indicate the opinion of the authorities that the provision of transport facilities is a public duty.
These facilities are expected to pay for themselves. It is easy to find out whether this requirement is being met by the railways who are, of course, falling short of their side of the bargain at the present time by something like £150 m. a year. Direct comparison with road transport is obscured by the fact that mechanical vehicles do not have exclusive use of the roads, that it would be difficult to assess some of the items of cost, such as the traffic duties of the police, and that it would be impossible to allocate among individual users whatever global figure for road costs was finally ascertained.
All that can be said with certainty is that the figure would be far below the amount now paid by the users in direct taxation.
EVEN to attempt an allocation would be absurd. A purely financial assessment is not enough. The freedom of the road is not as straightforward as the right of the public to use the trains. Sheer lack of road space, especially in the centres of large towns, means that social and economic judgments have to be made, and that the right of vehicles to enter a congested area or to stop there must depend upon the purpose of the journey.
The distinction has already been made. Areas where cars are forbidden to park without payment also make some limited provision for the loading and unloading of goods vehicles. The same thinking is behind much of the planning for new and better roads. The Minister of Transport, in his report for 1961-62 on roads in England and Wales, begins by saying that the main reason for an efficient road network is the need for the cheap and quick transport of the products on which Britain's life as a trading nation depends. He is quick to add that the growing number of private motorists will also benefit from the fuller enjoyment of leisure travel which improved and safer roads make possible, but leaves no doubt where the emphasis should lie. Later in the same report, when dealing with motorways and trunk roads, he states that priority is given to routes carrying a high proportion of commercial traffic. The order of particular schemes is "determined by the economic benefits to be derived from them, and• their state of prepa ration."
PLANS for the future, therefore, as well as the use of existing roads, are determined not merely by the likely volume of the demand, but by its character. On this basis, the need is for a much faster rate of building progress than the Minister's five-year plan, which calls for the expenditure of £590 m. on the road programme in England and Wales. Closer ties with Europe, the contraction of the railways, and the danger of increasing unemployment, especially in the north of England and in Scotland, all in their different ways present problems that require better road transport facilities as part of a satisfactory solution.
Some of the new projects, although vital to the communities they serve, may cost more money than the actual users could reasonably be expected to pay in the form of tolls and parking fees. It would be absurd to suggest that for this reason any particular stretch of road should not be built. The reasonable expectation is that, with the passage of time, the road will attract more and more trade, and will in due course more than justify itself financially. This, the purpose for which it is planned, would never be reached under a system such as that envisaged by Mr. Munby, whereby each section of the road track had to pay for itself by means of discriminatory levies. .