PAYING FOR STAYING?
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• Sorry if this sounds like heresy, but in principal we can't help but be attracted towards the Institute for Public Policy Research proposal that vehicles driving through congested inner cities should be made to pay for the privilege — if sitting in an interminable traffic jam can really be considered a privilege. Yes, we do realise that such a scheme would hit hauliers delivering goods into the proposed "pay and stay" zones — but the key target for the IFPPR is actually car drivers. Get those drivers who take their cars into our cities onto public transport and everything in the inner city garden will be rosy . . . won't it? Working off the Institute's own figures, if every vehicle entering central London was charged 23 a day then the estimated "net benefits" would be a cool 2190 million a year, and average speeds would rise from below 21km/h to some 31km/h. That's some benefit.
Unfortunately at this point the Institute's verbose pro-environmental policy document starts to fall apart at the seams. While realising that "delivery vehicles and buses require higher priority", it doesn't actually get around to saying who will pay for the privilege of driving on these newly uncongested roads. One thing's for sure: it won't be the haulier_ Any operator picking up a bill of 23 per day per truck into London will rightly be looking to pass that cost on to the customer which inevitably means you, me and everyone else, including the IFPPR.
What's more, while encouraging more car drivers to catch buses is a good idea, it won't be very long before London's entire bus operation will be fully deregulated. Will those entrepreneurial PSV operators who have been nibbling away at routes around the capital be so keen to take all those former car users around the inner city if they have to pay 23 per day per vehicle just to get in there?
If they do you can say goodbye to cheap fares, unless some special exemption were raised for them. And if buses become exempt then why not trucks? After all, they are just as vital — arguably more so.
As we said at the beginning, "in principle" the idea that people should be charged for driving in cities seems a good one. The trouble is there's a world of difference between a car driver and a road haulier.