CONGESTION CHARGING

Congestion usually results when a local authority decides to tamper with traffic management and/or road maintenance schemes by introducing lower speed limits, ill-conceived road narrowing and traffic-calming measures. Collectively these actions slow traffic flow, thus creating congestion where once there was none. All existing roads carry increasing numbers of vehicles and, instead of slowing things down, speeding up the flow of traffic safely through known busy areas must be the prime consideration in order to reduce congestion.

"Congestion Charging" is the latest high-tech weapon under development and is the favoured term for plans to impose tolls on roads into cities and towns. Anyone who drives in a city or town will know that there is an ongoing policy of closing roads, reducing road space with bus and cycle lanes, removing parking spaces, making roads one-way for no good reason, tinkering with traffic light timings, covering the road in coloured paint, and numerous other dirty tricks. Every week another malicious obstruction of the public highway is orchestrated by those who have power to abuse. This is a determined attempt to create congestion in order to justify a charge to remove it.

Councillor Sara Bolton, said reports that Derby was considering introducing congestion charging were "nonsense" and "totally untrue". The denial came despite the fact that Derby is on a Government list of 35 local authorities outside London to have considered introducing a toll for city centre motorists. Ms Bolton also claimed the council had never registered any interest in congestion charges with the Government's Department for Transport. But a spokesman for the department confirmed the council had expressed an interest through its 2000 local transport plan.

"There is nothing in place to introduce congestion charges in Derby," Ms Bolton said. "In fact, we have categorically ruled it out as an option. Congestion charging is not part of Derby City Council's current transport policy. I don't think it would be practical here." The mixed messages came hours after the Greater London Authority started charging motorists to drive through the capital's centre.

Derby City Centre Management Team chairman Mike Matthews is vigorously opposed to the idea of such charges in Derby. "I think they would deter casual visitors to the city centre, and so sound a death knell for many small businesses," he explained. "The public transport infrastructure here is just not adequate to cope if people were deterred from taking their cars."

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The RAC Foundation said local authorities outside London would have to make "massive improvements" in public transport to cope with a charging system. It also warned that without a charter to protect motorist's rights, the charge could become a "poll tax on wheels." In London the congestion charging began on 17 February and has resulted in a fall in traffic levels of about 20%. The foundation, the campaigning arm of the RAC, describes London's transport set-up as very different to other areas where people are far more dependent on the car for their work and lifestyle.

The RAC Foundation's executive director, Edmund King, said there would be a great temptation among many local authorities to try to jump on the London charging scheme bandwagon. "We advise them to hold their horses," he said. "The London scheme is working well but central London is unique in that 86% of commuters used public transport before congestion charging was introduced. In every other city, the majority commute by car." Mr King said most UK cities relied on the bus as the main means of public transport whereas London had an extensive underground and overground rail network.

He said public transport was struggling to cope with extra passengers in London so other cities would have to make massive improvements before there was a viable alternative to the car. Speaking at an Institution of Electrical Engineers' conference in London, Mr King added that in central London congestion charging did not directly affect the majority of commuters as they used public transport, but that in other cities it will hit them financially. "In order to convince motorists to accept charging outside London they will have to be offered viable alternatives up front," he said.