Congestion Charge out of control?

[Abi]

Yesterday, Ken Livingstone extended the Congestion Charge Zone, to the Kensington/Chelsea area, and up to Shepards Bush. He's now talking about doing a congestion charge around Heathow Airport, to stop people driving there.

Is it out of control now?

I think the idea of putting it around Heathrow Airport is stupid. How else is the majority of people to get there? Yes, there are buses. But only if you can drive to areas outside of London, which would make them areas too busy. And even then, who wants to drag their luggage on a bus?!

Trains, yep, you could get them. But only if you go into Central London- And oh yeah! Theres a Congestion Charge there too! :rolleyes:

So whats left... Taxis? Yeah, i can really see people who come from miles away, getting a bloody taxi!

So whats left... Walking?! :rotfl:

So what do you think? Is it good, bad, or just plain ugly (Not Ken Livingstone remember, the Congestion Charge :p )

[Chloe O'brien]

Edinburgh Council tried to enforce a congestion charge last year, but they were unsuccessful. They wanted to put up two zone area's around the outskirts of the city, drivers would then have to pay £2 a day to travel into edinbugh. They thought that the plan would be given the green light as they were only giving residents who live in Edinburgh the chance to vote but the public voted against it. They have set up park and ride places where people coming into edinburgh can drop off their cars and use public transport to get into the centre of town, but the bus serivce is crap there is some services which run every 2 or 3 minutes as they are subsides buy companies who have moved their offices out of the town centre. Then there is other buses that only run every 30 minutes.

[Trinity]

On a related topic my work is starting to charge for carparking from 1st October.

This is to encourage us to use public transport and leave the car at home.

I work at a large University, but it has a campus out of town - everyone has to travel to get here apart from some of the students who stay on campus in halls.

If I was to use public transport I have 2 choices:

1. Walk 1 mile to a railway station, get a train then wark 2.5 miles to my office.
2. Get a bus to the bus station, get another bus to Edinburgh and then walk from a v. busy A road 1.5 miles to my office.

I have no idea of the time it would take me, but I have 2 children to see out of the house in the morning, and also back in at night. I don't have the time to do all that walking, even if the weather is fine.

[Katy]

I think its a silly idea to be honest, looking at the billions that will be spent surely it would be more useful to improve public transport rahter than a charge which is more than likely to cause more trouble than its worth. I dread to think what manc city centre will be like if they introduce on theres.

[Abi]

Edinburgh Council tried to enforce a congestion charge last year, but they were unsuccessful. They wanted to put up two zone area's around the outskirts of the city, drivers would then have to pay £2 a day to travel into edinbugh. They thought that the plan would be given the green light as they were only giving residents who live in Edinburgh the chance to vote but the public voted against it. They have set up park and ride places where people coming into edinburgh can drop off their cars and use public transport to get into the centre of town, but the bus serivce is crap there is some services which run every 2 or 3 minutes as they are subsides buy companies who have moved their offices out of the town centre. Then there is other buses that only run every 30 minutes.

Its £8 to travel into London, if you pay on the day. If you pay the next day, then its £10. If you dont pay within this amount of time, then you get a £50 penelty if you pay within 14 days. Otherwise, it goes up to £100. The only people who dont have to pay, are taxis and emergency services, and people who have a residency pass, because they live within the zone. So for us who live just outside the zone, its really OTT the amount you have to pay.

And using the Train isn't much better. Using an Oyster Card, which is the cheapest option, costs around £4. Without this, its about £5.50 ish for an Adult to get a return into London.

On the Buses, without an Oyster Card it costs £1.50. With them, it costs 80p for an Adult. Under 18's can use the Buses for free though, as long as you are in full time education. And even then, the buses dont travel that far, so to get into Central London from the Suburbs, you'd probably need about 3 different buses.

So over the top...

[Siobhan]

On a similar topic.. in Dublin they decided to move HGV out of the city center by building port tunnel but it is just moving the traffic on to the motorway and causing major delays to motorist.. futher to this, part of the tunnel is on a by-road used by many cars but they are now stopping cars using the tunnel and it is cause delays elsewhere cause they have to find different routes

Basically the "measurement" taken by all here (Ireland,England and Scotland) is keeping traffic out of the city but cause problem in other areas so it is a case of "we can't see it in the city so it can't be happening"

[Abigail]

I don't know what Ken Livingston is more bothered about - global warming and congestion or the money he/the government are raking in from all these charges.

People still have to communte to work. Public transport isn't good enough and doesn't go everywhere so it's not really an option for most people. Plus, the price of it is just ridiculous. Maybe if they reduced the cost of public transport and widend the routes more people would stop using their cars. But that would cost the government money and why do that when they are already raking it in?

[Jojo]

I must be the only one that thinks its a good idea (in principal) - even if its not working the way it should be :lol:

For me to park and ride into the city centre - £1.50 for a 15 min journey (£3 for a group ticket return of 3 or more people as long as you travel together in both directions). Buses every 10 minutes and as one leaves, the other arrives. Its never full, even during Christmas and what used to take an hour (to travel 5 miles) now is back to about 10 minutes during rush hour. It doesn't work in all areas, and costs etc are needed to be taken into consideration, and it doesn't work with all things - like deliveries, commuters etc and maybe if the money was a) reduced and b) we saw the money being used in the correct manner it wouldn't be so much of an annoyance.

It costs £4 return for an adult to travel on the bus into the city centre (a 15 min journey here) and there is no such thing as flat fees (like I recently discovered on a trip to Brum recently) for single stops etc inside the city centre.

There is an idea there, but it needs to be re-evaluated and looked at properly rather than just extending the area without making the previous area workable.