Congestion charge will make city life less practical
February 20, 2007Its a funny thing with the congestion charge, a Conservative colleague was pointing out to me that if the city is less congested, city life will be better. This of course I imagine would be true, although not many of us have chosen to live here for a quiet life. There are two reasons that I think the charge will damage city life however, and I wanted to just put them out there for debate.
- We live in the city to take advantage of the quality bars, restaurants, cafes etc, not as I said earlier to have a quiet life – if the congestion charge leads to businesses failing it will be bad for city residents. My favourite coffee shop near Piccadilly, Manna, has gone out of business, businesses fail all the time in the city, its tough out there. Most places in the city have to rely on business from outside the city, as there will never be enough of us in the city to sustain these things all ourselves, the population is still that of a very small town taken on its own. The closing of the Establishment was blamed on the fact that its simply difficult for people to come into the city to dine etc. This was an argument many people made against the recent parking proposals from the Lab our Councillor Neil Swannick. This would be much more acute with congestion charging. Are people really going to take a long bus journey from various parts of the region to support our top quality food and drink establishments? When the industry suffers and our favourite places close, and city life becomes much less for for us all will we be glad that its quieter?
- As I tried to explain to Neil Swannick, the City Council seems to not care or not understand city life – maybe because nobody in the town hall lives in the city centre ward, not the Lib Dem candidate, the Labour candidate nor it seems the Labour city centre spokesman. People can’t live in the city if it cripples their family life and social life. If it becomes too difficult for people to visit us, we will leave the city to visit them (again bad for the city’s economy) until the process seems so arduous people will leave for the suburbs – this is already happening due to lack of parking. Lets be clear about that also, deliberately restricting the number of parking spaces for residents in the city doesn’t ease congestion, it just means people won’t live here, or won’t stay here, thus endangering the whole project of city living that many people in the city like me want to see succeed.
Equally though if the city becomes ridiculously congested as it is at the moment, Manchester will become a city in decline with no business in their right mind wanting to invest there.
Yes naturally, but lets be clear about what we’re saying here – traffic is bad for the environment, but NOBODY is under so much preassure to not use their car as residents of Manchester City Centre. Many of my friends have done as I have which is to give up our cars while we live here, but what about our family and friends? We’re less mobile without and many city residents have visitors partly because of that, which is good for our city, my parents will visit me here and we’ll spend our money eating out in the city rather than spending that money outside the city…..the fact our city is busy is actually a sign that it is starting to work, and people are actually wanting to visit our city. More cars are bad for the environment, but lets not forget they’re also a sign of success, they’re not a dissease in that sense, traffic generally doesn’t choke business in the same way that putting people off going into the city does.
Have you seen which areas will be included in the congestion zone? It apparently includes many areas which have no congestion. The worst congested parts of the city are actully that way due to buses. Are we to expect many more buses if there are fewer car journeys, and therefore even more congestion? Many of the buses are old and very dirty looking, is it better instead to focus on environmentally friendly cars? We should have expansion in Metrolink in place and functioning before we have a congestion charge.
I equally oppose it because its so clearly blackmail for funding of the Metrolink that New Labour should have just got on with and paid for. London’s Cross rail scheme started out at 7 billion, and I read in the paper the other day the costs are now expected to be 16 billion – more than double. (to put that into perspective the extra money we could have a share of for Metrolink is something like 200 million) Will the new Labour government withdraw funds for Crossrail it unless Londoners have a specific tax to pay for it? Not likely, but they can treat us badly here because most people will carry on voting for them regardless, so whats their incentive to listen.
The original poster is missing the point that the fundamental driver of congestion is time. The idea of a city or road becoming ‘ridiculously’ congested or gridlocked to use the current sound bite of choice is a misnomer. If it takes too long to negotiate a particular traffic pinch point then drivers soon learn to avoid it and seek another route. If we had a transport policy driven by common sense rather then ideology then the correct response would be to engineer out the pinch point. However as our transport policy is in the hands of buffoons, their response is to;
1) Close off alternate roots to the pinch point thus condensing traffic and compounding the problem
2) Remove half of the available road space with white lines and bus lanes.
3) Complain that congestion is getting worse and the only possible solution is to tax the driver.
Cynical? – not me!
I like reading blogs where people write about the cities people are living in. For that reason, I was quite impressed when I first came across your blog, Rob. That’s why we linked to your site. Congestion charging seems a hot issue in Manchester at the moment – but I’m sure there are other hot issues too. Would welcome reading your thoughts on those too…
Total rubbish. A city centre congestion charge is the way forward for Manchester. Recentralisation of the bus network is another must.
Can I ask Mr Archer, do you actually live in the city centre? The way forward for Manchester would be for people to have a much more ambitious and holistic approach to trying to make Manchester a better place to live and work.
- We need a world-class light rail system.
- Better vision for buses – the council’s plan for the Shudehill exchange to ease pressure on Piccadilly Gardens has failed spectacularly.
- Manchester City Council issues half the cab licenses that Liverpool and other regional cities do, I often cannot find a black cab to hail on the street or at taxi ranks
- This is not a city centre congestion charge, but actually a new road tax which covers an area far greater than the city centre, many areas where there is no congestion. It is a tax for the people of Manchester as a further slap in the face after this London obsessed Labour government has taken away our funding for our public transport.
Its interesting to note that the costs of London’s Crossrail scheme (not even to mention the Olympics!) has more than doubled and yet will still recevie funding. London does not have to go through the same process as the regions do in order to try to get funding. The reason for pulling the plug on Metrolink was that its costs had NEARLY doubled. The only people who really should be supporting these new taxes for Manchester and the regions are Londoners, who benefit already from our tax money for national projects like the Olympics, the National Football Stadium at Wembley, the 16 billion Crossrail scheme to name just a couple, and getting regional cities like Manchester to raise a local tax to fund such things means the Labour government can get on with simply being the government for the world’s capital city – London.
hi there
do you know if i have to pay a congestion fee to visit wembley stadium ? thanks
Great thinking. Restaurants and bars that make money off serving alcohol will definitely go jugs vertical when drivers have to pay to get in to the city centre between 7.30 and 9am on weekday mornings.
I often say to my other half, “morning love, fancy making the 5 mile round trip in to town in the car during rush hour to have a pint with brekkie?!”
Yes of course thats not the case, and thats not the point I was making. The strategy for the city centre has been a residential city and a leissure city – as you point out neither of these are going to generate a lot of money for the congestion charge – the big question is that when the council has sold the idea for the reason it will repay the loan, how is it going to do that when they claim at the same tiem so few people will pay it. If it doesn’t pay its way it will be expanded. The strategy for the city centre hasn’t ben putting jobs into the city centre, its been apartments and bars, so how is the congestion charge appropriate to that? In London the central economy is very different, a large number of people still pay to drive into the city to their place of work – and their charge STILL doesn’t make money, so what hope is there for the Manchester charge?