Posted on 06/05/2005 2:36:22 PM PDT by echoBoomer
The mayor of London told dozens of world mayors that they could unclog city streets and fight global warming by charging hefty fees for driving in congested areas of their communities.
Mayor Ken Livingstone said making drivers pay a "congestion charge" to drive in central London has improved traffic flow and reduced the emission of "greenhouse gases" blamed for raising temperatures and changing weather patterns. The $9 fee has forced people out of their cars and filled city buses, subways and sidewalks, he told mayors assembled here Friday for the U.N. World Environment Day Conference.
"We are the only city in the Western world where there's a notable shift from car use to public transport...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"I think the Brithish are considering implementing a more intrusive and controversial toll system in all cars containing a GPS receiver to record distance time of day and location of all travel."
Details on the UK driving tax:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1416734/posts
LOL!
LOL....git-er-done!
Traffic engineers are either incompetent or sadistic. I'm not sure which. Maybe a mixture of both.
Traffic engineers are neither incompetent nor sadistic; the incompetent, sadistic politicians hamstring any reasonable efforts.
When I lived in Houston, I wouldn't drive on the loops at all unless it was at least a couple of hours before or after rush hour. On the other hand, the access roads were wonderful highway substitutes. I preferred waiting at the occasional red lights on the parallel access roads to parking on the inner or outer loop.
Thank goodness now Houston has mass transit. /sarc
Yeah it is a bad idea.
I prefer the solution of accommodating business to move from these congested areas, leaving behind the tax consumers. Result, the quick relief of congestion and the long term unintended consequences appear at the same time. Instant ghetto and urban decay.
You are a kook.
I agree. As far as the cities are concerned, let them tax themselves out of existance. Giant ghettos is what will become of them.
I have noticed that in a lot of places across the Fruited Plain... There is an agenda behind it too... I am glad I moved to Southern Oregon...
San Franfreako won't be far behind London I read somewhere. Problem is, I think their over inflated real estate market is about to be hit by a major collapse.
Rail system? Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is plagued by scandal, budget overruns, and crime. I don't live in Houston, but I'll bet you will see a lot of the same in the coming years...
Why a tax? stop immigation, and congestion disappears.
The unavoidable result of taxing the producers and payers, and paying the non producers.
The truth is that you can only tax producers, as they are the only ones that can pay. The secret to success is to not give away the revenue to the non producers, but to use it wisely and conservatively to build and maintain the infrastructure that all the producers use as a foundation to their production. This also encourages the non producers to go to work (or starve) as there is infrastructure to support a producing job for them.
Roads and bridges are one of the most ancient forms of economic infrastructure, and the lower the toll (or use cost) the larger the overall economic benefit.
... consequently providing the city with the revenues from public transportation fares.
"We're going to get the money one way or the other," states the Communist Mayor of London.
The problem with your simplistic analyses is that we are paying through the nose for politicians to represent us.
They should have been anticipating these psoblems years ago and spending highway money addordingly.
The fact that they have been using highway money for countless other social problems to make them look good and get reelected is, I believe, the heart of the matter.
They have recieved far more money needed to take care of their constitutients.
Now they want to charge more because they failed so far.
What we need is to clean house and elect people that will respect their oath of office.
Just about everything we do is taxed and they still want more.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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