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MOTORWAY MADNESS

9th December 1993
Page 24
Page 24, 9th December 1993 — MOTORWAY MADNESS
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

If the Department of Transport is so keen to improve Britain's motorway network, why isn't it spending all the money it generates from fuel tax and VED on our roads, instead of trying to cover the cost with motorway tolls?

Could it be because the Government has a massive Public Sector Borrowing Defecit and the DOT daren't say boo to the Treasury? Take a look at the figures. In 1992 the DOT raised £19.4bn in fuel tax, VED, VAT and other car taxes. It spent £9.4bn on road building, maintenance, policing and clearing up after accidents.

Where the did the rest go? You'll have to ask Kenneth Clarke; it certainly hasn't ended up in the DOT's Marsham Street piggy bank. If the DOT wants to improve our motorways it need only stick its hand in its own pocket. John MacGregor says:"Motorway tolling of the network means the user pays and gets the benefits in terms of freer flowing traffic from the road improvements the tolls fund." For barefaced cheek that's a peach.

Here we have a Transport Secretary saying that if you want better roads you'll have to pay more for them, and somehow in the process congestion will be cured. Does anyone out there believe a word of it? We certainly don't. In five years' time—the period set by the DOT to introduce motorway tolls—road users will be paying twice. Once when they cough up the VED and fuel tax (which is rising like a rocket), and again when motorway tolls come along. Road hauliers might also be wondering why trucks are expected to pay more for using a tolled motorway. Of the 20.4 million vehicles on our roads only 400,000 are LGVs. 5o making trucks pay more, under the old chestnut Of greater "road damage" is missing the point. The real reason why our motorways are congested is because there are too many cars, not too many trucks. If you set the motorway toll fee for private cars at 10.5p a mile, instead of the suggested 1.5p. per mile, then plenty more car users would think twice before turning up their noses at public transport. Of course that would never work. Not least because this Government, like Conservative governments before it, have slowly strangled the railways and provided the perfect incentive for people to continue using their cars. Did someone mention Catch-22?

There's no guarantee that Motorway charging will attract funds from the private sector to finance any new roads. To date the Government's attempts to generate private sector finance for roads haven't produced a single new road. The same apathy from private investors has greeted the golden opportunity" to build a high-speed rail link with the Chunnel. At the heart of the matter is a Government with no alternatives in the cupboard. Instead they're happy to bleed road users dry on the basis that they can't go anywhere else. Whatever happened to the free market?


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