RUPP reclaiming e-petition

Well I've signed it, but the link below rather underlines Smiling Tony's attitiude to... well, everything really.

On or around Sun, 11 Feb 2007 12:02:11 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

pity they can't spell.

Unfortunately all the comment has been directed at the financial aspects. Those are probably inescapable but the loss of personal freedom is not. Don't let Bliar get away with yet another assault on our freedom hidden once more behind an 'innocent' outer cover that too many people will not look beyond.

Do you want - do you trust - the Government to know where you are, what speed you're doing, in which direction you're travelling and when

- and this 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Do you trust it only to use that information for road pricing purposes? Do you mind to whom it passes it on? If you have experienced 'proper' GPS you'll know the risks.

Yes, the whole thing was rather poorly worded, but it does have a fair few votes behind it already, so might as well add a few more, I doubt it's going to have even the slightest effect.

"But No 10 has insisted that doing nothing would lead to a 25% increase in congestion "in less than a decade"." Where as going with roadcharging would lead to a 25% increase in congestion and 25% incread in revenue.

Whilst I really don't think these on-line petitions will ever be taken seriously, I've signed it 'just in case'!!!

;)

What's the maximum possible number of cars on the road ? How many people can ever be driving at the same time ?

Steve

As many as there is room for. But when we get to that, they will bring in a congestion levy to pay for roads, on top of road charging, road tax, and fuel duty.

See only one actual tax there, so the government can't actually understand what we are all moaning about.

In message Elder wrote:

For what it's worth, I think the governments problem is that they have got the whole thing arse-about-face, in terms of congestion, though I have no doubt that the currrent plans are about raising tax rather than actually reducing road problems. You'll never price people off the road - the car is just to convenient. So the only alternative is to provide better public transport. That's not just putting more busses on, that's basically undoing Beeching and integrating busses, and taxis, with the re-vamped network. And the structure of the rail network needs re-thinking. In Beechings time trains essentially ran to London, via the nearest big city. Cross country services were always a make-do affair - The Pines Express bieng the classic example, with an average speed of 30mph as it followed a convoluted route along lines that headed toward London, turning off along glorified branch lines at frequent intervals to get further north or south. What's needed is to mimic the motorway network with new, high speed (100mph will do, nothing fancy required) lines forming a proper, non-London centric, UK network. It would cost billions, and would be a constant fight against the NIBY's, but until it exists no one is going to get out of their car, whatever the cost. It would also have to forget the tradiation fare structures and become based on the relative costs of motoring, i.e. passenger No. 1 pays x quid, adding the wife and kids only attracts a nominal extra fee. Possibly the addition of cheap, easy car hire for the other end of the journey too, maybe electric cars with limited range or some such scheme. Also, being a believer in the £1 Battleship line of thought, if all the plant and equipment was UK sourced, it wouldn't do the economy any harm. How to pay for it? Freeze road building. Even the Americans have realised that bulding more roads just attracts more traffic and in the end achieves nothing, and have invested in rapid transport systems, and even their railways. It won't pay for it all, by any means, but if the government is really serious about the environment (which I have no doubt it isn't) that that's the way to go - and there is no threat to privacy at all (except the odd NIMBY, of course). More controverisaly, the cost of the Trident replacement would go along way to paying the bill!

Will/could it happen? No. For a number of reasons: Tax - it won't raise any directly - but quite a lot indirectly through Corporation Tax (if the plant is UK sourced), PAYE etc etc, which is the goal of the current proposals. Cost - the UK governement is fanous for not realising that often the best way to cut costs is to spend money making the things efficient (Beeching - his report never considered the savings to be mage by Track Circuit Block signalling - colour lights instead of semaphore -, diesel and electric traction, more modern track construction methods, leasing etc etc). Joe Public - the public don't actually want to give up ther cars - which is fully understandable for personal reasons, and for life-style reasons (yes - including playing off-road), yet the current proposal will, to a large extent, force those on lower incomes off the road if they happen to live near some trunk road, but not give them a realistic alternative. Building the alternative first gives then the choice, *and* allows them to keep their car for when they want it, and allows them to keep their privacy. Joe Public2 - we'd all have to alter our attitude as to how long it takes to get somewhere, and when we want to go - that is a major stumbling block to any scheme to reduce congestion. The car is just too dammed convinient! Just my 2p

Richard