ESSENTIAL OR OPTIONAL
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Liquid fuel was one of Professor Buchanan's examples. He might have gone on to point out that in practice fuel rationing was applied very strictly to the motorist unless he could produce strong arguments whereas the commercial user, who had a more generous allocation at the outset. could usually obtain a supplementary ration with little or no difficulty. There was a tacit recognition that all commercial road transport was essential whereas the use of a private car was optional unless it could be proved otherwise. For what it was worth, therefore, wartime fuel rationing provided an early demonstration of Professor Buchanan's subsequent and celebrated distinction in Traffic in Towns between essential and optional traffic.
Road pricing as a theory is too limited in its scope. It fails to take into account what Professor Buchanan never forgets, that towns are primarily intended as places which people can live. Transport mu always be subordinate to people. It is w( worth reading the paper which he present( to the recent International Road Federatic conference in London. and not mere because almost alone among the experts c transport he has a telling turn of phrase.