Manchester votes down proposed C-Charges
Apparently, charging a toll for drivers to enter a city center to reduce congestion was not appealing to the most residents of Manchester, England. Supporters of the congestion charge were unable to convince the majority of residents and drivers in the city that the C-Charge was a good idea. In fact, an overwhelming 79 percent of those who participated in a recent vote rejected the proposal. Over 53 percent of the 2 million people who received ballots participated in the vote. In order to pass the new rule would have had to get a majority of the vote in 7 out 10 Manchester boroughs, but it didn't win even a single one. This latest setback follows on the recent decision of London Mayor Boris Johnson to cancel his city's congestion zone expansion.
[Source: AutoCar]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
vfx 11:36AM (12/15/2008)
Well there your problem. You don't ask people if the would like to be inconvenienced in order to save the planet. They will always choose the straightest line between two points.
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whodo 2:13PM (12/15/2008)
history is not your your strong suit is it? Germany tried it in the thirties! U libs never learn, are U a.d.d. or just algore stupid!
RJN 4:12AM (12/16/2008)
Having lived in London and now planning to move to Manchester I welcome this wise decision by the people of Manchester. You can not force lasting change. You must provide incentives to people to adopt less polluting and smarter ways to commute. I absolutely hate the idea that I would be forced to pay a congestion charge to go to work or alternatively pay for the ridiculously expensive and poor public transport on offer in major cities in the UK. My current commute is 15 mins each way in my Smart at 60mpg or 10 mins by motorcycle at 55mpg. Alternatively I could take a train and a bus which would take me 1 hour and cost over 5 pounds for the return ticket. I don't feel that this is be feasible financially, ecologically and I don't even want to think about the inconvenience... A large part of the UK city congestion is due to uncoordinated roadworks (a.k.a. you set up safety barriers and temporary traffic lights and don't do jack s**t for 2 months), traffic lights that don't have pressure or light sensors and do not take into account the time of day and huge number of roundabouts in place of proper junctions with turning lanes and/or traffic lights.
So if you want to sort out the congestion please provide tax breaks for small city cars lets say no VAT on cars under 3.5m long/1.60 wide and below 100g/km CO2. Decent amount of underground parking with EV-charging stations.
Balance the bugdet by charging a higher road tax for cars above 200g/km CO2 because, emissions above that are unnecessary with modern technology, and by fining any truck caught overtaking on A-roads and motorways and thus being the root cause for most of the motorway congestion!
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