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Leader: Let's not rush into road charging
'No taxation without public transportation'

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 01 December 2006

Chris Rea's song Road to Hell was famously inspired by his experiences on the M25. But in the fifteen or so years since he wrote it congestion has gotten so much worse that the comparison doesn't quite hold anymore.

These days the M25 - and many other motorways - are worse than the road to Hell. After all, if you are on the road to Hell at least you might actually get there, whereas these days on the M25 you may well just give up and go home instead.

Few people would disagree that something needs to be done about road congestion. And building more roads is not a popular - or in many cases realistic option.

The main culprit in congestion is, of course, the daily commute, a practice bound to a strange, twentieth century idea of what the working day is about, and one that many workers and businesses are trying to shake off. After all, it's never been easier to work from home or on the move, so there's less and less reason to be clogging up roads at 8am.

The technology will soon be in place to allow the government to introduce - probably via satellite - different charges depending on when people use their cars.

This means gas-guzzling rush-hour roadhogs will get busted in the wallet for using up the limited road resources, while mid-morning country drivers get to pay less because they are using the roads less travelled.

So far so good. But any change to the way we pay for the use of roads must be matched with more investment in public transport - and perhaps tax cuts for people willing to work from home.

If drivers are being charged more to use the roads but given no chance to take a bus or train because they are already overcrowded or don't go to their destination, then they will - rightly - complain. As such the cash generated from such a road charge should be used to improve the UK's infrastructure, through better public transport and communications networks - like fibre to the door for every home, perhaps.

Before rushing headlong into the implementation of road-pricing technology, politicians need to act on the wider issues of transport policy, and not simply crack down on motorists without giving them an option to change their travel choices.

'No taxation without representation' was the cry leading up to the American Revolution. Soon perhaps you might hear Mondeo man shouting, 'No taxation without public transportion'.