Congestion Lies

A report in Manchester Online proves how the government and the 'Yes' campaigners in Manchester lied about the level of congestion. While they lied about possible gridlock traffic levels were actually going down.

Sean Corker of Manchester Against Road Tolls, said: "Tens of millions of pounds were spent on the congestion charge plans over a two-year campaign, and now we are told congestion is going down.

"Someone has not been telling the truth and it is time somebody resigned."

Thankfully the overwhelming majority of Mancunians had the good sense to vote against the proposed congestion charge in December. All we need to do now is scrap bus lanes, chicanes, speed humps and traffic lights. Hey presto, congestion will virtually disappear.

Congestion? Use Vicks!

Congratulations to the commonsense people of the former Greater Manchester on telling the politicians to stick the congestion charge up their exhaust pipes. Is this the start of the fightback against the nanny state?

Strange but when the people are actually asked they tend to throw out the 'brilliant' ideas of the politicos. Remember the referendum in the North East nearly 5 years ago? Prescott wanted elected regional assemblies but the people shouted NO.

In Manchester and surrounding boroughs the vote was around 4:1 against. It's perhaps time that the politicians realised that we are their masters not the other way round.

Finally, if the charge had come in, and they may still sneak it in as the EU does when people vote against it's ideas, what would have happened if everybody used public transport and nobody paid the congestion charge? Just a thought.

CBI Back C-Charge

It seems that a majority of CBI members polled support the proposed congestion charge in Manchester, according to this Manchester Online report.I've often wondered what motivates the CBI, apart from cash, and this makes me wonder even more.

Yet again motorists will be shafted in order to subsidise public transport. If you want to use public transport then you pay for it, don't expect me to pay for you. Many of us have stopped going to Manchester already, or at least we don't visit anywhere near as often as we did. We visit our parents and occasionally meet friends in Manchester if we can't avoid it. We no longer shop there. We visit the theatre very, very rarely now and no longer go in for a night out and spend the whole night there.

The main reason for our reduced visits is the hostility to cars. Parking is extortionate and road layouts appear designed to cause as much congestion as possible. Bus lanes lie empty for mile after mile while motorists sit in a lane that is crawling at best and often static for minutes at a time. The fewer buses there are the more bus lanes seem to appear.

One thing that the c-charge nutters seem to have missed is the developing housing crisis in the centre of Manchester and other cities. There has been such a huge boom in city centre developments in recent years, and most are studio apartments or one bed apartments, that the market has crashed, supply has exceeded demand. Already developers are going belly up and flats are being left empty. How soon before the city centre is riddled with the kind of slums last seen in the nineteenth century?

Until 25 years ago the city centre had few residents but filled at weekends with shoppers, theatregoers and clubbers, who now go elsewhere. As the slums develop and the shoppers go elsewhere there will be a huge increase in social problems in devastated city centres, aided and abetted by the c-charge.

Then we'll be taxed again to fund clearing up the mess.

Visit:
Stop The Charge
Manchester Against Road Tolls

Manchester Debate

I have been invited to contribute to the debate tonight in Manchester on congestion charging. Obviously I will be speaking against. For full details click here. Why not get along, the more the merrier.

Cause Congestion, Then Bring In A Charge

The following is a press release issued by the Association of British Drivers.

TfL Admits Livingstone Regime Deliberately Obstructed Traffic Flows
The latest report from Transport for London 1 states that despite 70,000 fewer cars a day entering the central zone and 30,000 fewer in the Western Extension, congestion in both of these areas is every bit as bad as it was before the charge was introduced.

Although some of this is down to road works, the report admits that many traffic lights and other road schemes have reduced road and junction capacity, and publicly confirms what previously was only admitted behind closed doors — that obstructing traffic was a deliberate policy.

"This latest report on the London congestion charge demonstrates the fundamental dishonesty of all road pricing proposals," said the ABD's Nigel Humphries. "They claim that by paying even more money to use the roads, drivers will benefit from lower congestion. But London has proved that anti car authorities and pressure groups will simply not allow this to happen. They just increase the number of traffic lights and reduce the road space available until drivers are just paying through the nose to sit in the same jams as before."

The crazy transport schemes of Ken Livingstone and his friends have brought London to a halt — they put in bus lanes to give the bus priority, but then they louse up the junctions with "pedestrian priority" measures which negate all the advantages to buses as well as hitting car drivers with a double whammy of delays. These problems are not confined to London — with or without road pricing they are endemic in every city in the UK.

Boris Johnson has made a start by reviewing the flow implications of all proposed schemes, announcing the death of roadspace eating bendy buses and consulting on the Western Extension, but he needs to go much further.

The ABD would propose the following:

A major programme of investment in trunk roads and junctions to remove conflict between heavy traffic and vulnerable road users by means of underpasses and pedestrian/cyclist bridges/tunnels. All money from the congestion charge should be ringfenced to pay for such schemes which benefit all road users equally and reduce danger and stress for all. Once these schemes are complete the congestion charge should be phased out.

All bus lanes to be reviewed to ensure that they do not restrict overall road capacity. This means no bus lanes through junctions or across pelican crossings, which halve the amount of traffic that can pass when there are no buses or taxis on the road.

Removal of at least 20% of the traffic lights in central London by identifying those which do nothing but obstruct traffic flow.

Removal of constriction points which create danger for cyclists and pedestrians by restricting the maneuvering space for large vehicles.

Redesign of all "forward stop line" schemes for cyclists. These are ill named as they really are "backward" stop lines for motorists and reduce the capacity of light controlled junctions irrespective of whether any cyclists are there. Forward stop lines for bikes should be just that - in front of the normal stop line - and should not place cyclists in front of the traffic.

Reversal of ruinous schemes like Trafalgar Square which reduce road capacity and create huge jams, mostly comprising buses and taxis.

Removal of all 20mph speed limits imposed on main roads.

ENDS

For those concerned about the introduction of a congestion charge in Manchester there is a debate on August 27 in central Manchester. Details on the Manchester Junior Chamber of Commerce website.

Manchester Congestion Charge

The powers that be are moving into extremely sinister propaganda territory here in the wild North West. On TV and radio they are regaling us with ads to try and sell the inevitable congestion charge in Greater Manchester. Theoretically it needs 7 out of 10 of the Greater Manchester authorities to agree before it can be intoduced in 2013. However, I suspect they will use 'EU rules', which means they will introduce it anyway even if only one agreed.

The ads on TV, I have yet to hear the radio ads, show a former Coronation Street actor wandering through a mock traffic jam. He is promising a massive improvement in public transport to ease those awful traffic jams we all hate so much. There will be, by 2013, more trams, more tramways, more buses (and no doubt more bus lanes) and more trains with more carriages. All this just for you and, to show how really nice Big Brother really is, you can assist in this wonderful investment by contributing to it via a congestion charge. Oh, but only during the week and in the morning and evening rush hours. So it's nothing really is it?

The ads are truly totalitarian in nature, Dr Goebbels himself would have been proud of them, but what really worries me is how many muppets will fall for the propaganda. Or am I being cynical again?

Why not visit Manchester Against Toll Tax here?