Congestion Charge

The planned congestion charge announced at the Labour party conference (which is to pay for the expansion of Metrolink that we had been promised years ago) adds insult to injury.
Not only will it be charging people to come into Manchester from all over the connurbation who will live nowhere near a tram stop, even after the expansion (unlike London the network is nowhere near big enough to offer alternatives for everyone) but actually its the buses that are causing the gridlock, not cars!
Labour doesn’t seem to understand that car ownership is an expression of greater wealth in the population, and that lots of cars aren’t causing traffic problems so long as they’re still flowing – gridlock is the main problem. As for the ‘green’ impact of cars – BUILD LIGHT RAIL SYSTEMS!

Buses – Gridlock

The siuation is getting worse it seems. Recently I’ve been stuck on trams unable to get into and out of Piccadilly Gardens because of the buses.
If I have to read in the press one more time that this is due to de-regulation in the 80’s I’m going to scream – you mean to tell me that something that happened 20 years ago is just having an effect now and so therefore we should re-regulate them as the unions are calling for and the city council seems to be sympathetic to. THE BUSES ARE JUST IN THE WRONG PLACE! You’ve had years to see this coming, years to find a solution and now proper gridlock is here, sort it out! We need MORE not LESS transport through the city, the populaion in the city is going to double, which isn’t sutainable without far more jobs in the city centre. How are we going to attract larger companies to move here and expand when you can’t get throught the city. Not only are we not going to attract people here, we’re going to loose them!

Think about it – we need to re-think Piccadilly Gardens. The whole plan to ’sanitise’ the city, clense it of cars and transport in general really scares me, its the kind of thing that could kill commerce, residential living and retail stone dead. Does anyone think Cross St is better for having buses removed? What about people going to and from the world-class Royal Exchange Theatre? What has it done to Piccadilly, increased volume there pressumably? Shudehill interchange which was meant to be a big solution is in full operation and has had no affect on gridlock in Piccadilly. – further streets are going to be ‘cleansed’ of traffic…these plans need some serious opposition and there seems to be nobody to do this….yet….

Bridgewater Bonk!

Further to my submission about sex down by the canal near Piccadilly, residents at Bridgewater Bank have complained about people having sex (and urinating) in the entrance to their carpark off Whitworth St. Its not good, maybe its some kind of new tourism though that hasn’t made it into the papers yet!

I think the fundamental thing to say about all these unpleasant things is people will always do what they think they can get away with. Urinating in the street goes TOTALLY unchecked, nobody would imagine in a million years they would be fined for it. The biggest indicator of this is when you challenge someone about doing it they are SURE you are in the wrong for doing so. I’m afraid we have to take a page out of New York’s book ’80s style – if an environment for crime exists, crime will take place, eliminate the envoronment and you eliminate the crime, with small things that aren’t serious crimes, most people are opportunist and will only do what they feel they can get away with, they actually do feel social restraints, but not if they’re not present.

Before anyone panics I’m not saying we should remove Manchester….we need better street lighting to remove dark streets, and social incentives to stop people comitting social offences. I’ve mentioned it before, but maybe not simply a fine would suffice, but make them clean it up of the pavement, doorway and doors that they urinate on – this happens elsewhere and does seem to work.