Is It Time For The 'C' Word?
Following on from this morning's post about the proposed pedestrianisation of Greenwich, Fat Cat has suggested it could be time to introduce a local congestion charge.
It's been mooted in the past, with mixed reactions. Certainly I don't think it would work if it just joined up with the central London one, but it might be an interesting thing if it were genuinely local.
I'm not sure that we'd ever get away with residents being entirely exempt, but presumably a similar discount to the London scheme would be possible, perhaps with a slightly lower discount for residents in the immediately surrounding towns.
What do we think about this? Maybe it is time to at least talk about such a concept. In the meanwhile, let's have a quick yea-or-nay straw poll.
It's been mooted in the past, with mixed reactions. Certainly I don't think it would work if it just joined up with the central London one, but it might be an interesting thing if it were genuinely local.
I'm not sure that we'd ever get away with residents being entirely exempt, but presumably a similar discount to the London scheme would be possible, perhaps with a slightly lower discount for residents in the immediately surrounding towns.
What do we think about this? Maybe it is time to at least talk about such a concept. In the meanwhile, let's have a quick yea-or-nay straw poll.
Labels: congestion charge Greenwich, Debates, pedestrianisation
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
09:29
18 Comments:
Please don't bring this up.
I own a car. It sits unused outside my house for weeks on end and only ever has the cobwebs blown off it for me to leave London and drive into the countryside where, due to economic and commercial pressures we just don't have public transport.
I would be upset if I am to be charged to drive from my house and out onto the A2 or what have you.
There is no easy answer to "congestion" but it should be acknowledged that the horrendous traffic through Greenwich over the last couple of years is almost entirely down to the persistent and repetitive roadworks along Trafalgar Road and over the Heath. When these major routes are clear we rarely experience problems.
To impose a pedestrianised system on the centre of Greenwich is foolhardy - we have seen that vindictive and bloody-minded policies like this fail (see Ken Livingston and his traffic light rephase idea) and frankly it is not Greenwich residents who represent the majority of the traffic through town.
What is required is a proper joined-up plan of what to do both within the centre and in Kent and the surrounding areas to alleviate the pressure on a grander scale
C of G, I agree with your last paragraph – but you're kidding yourself if you think traffic through Greenwich has only become a problem in the last two years – and that 'we rarely experience problems'.
Also, when Trafalgar Square was part-pedestrianised, people (mainly taxi drivers) complained. But it's great and works well. Whether it works for Greenwich is another thing, and the other blog entry.
I do know, however, that everyone I know who owns a car makes regular journeys that they could make in other ways – like walking ('but I'd have to carry Poppy's scooter otherwise...')
In prosperous West London, there are numerous river crossings but the M25 was still widened to up to 6 lanes from the public purse. In working class East London, we have paid for our own congested River Crossings to be built on the M25 but are still forced to pay to use them. If we go into town to cross the river, we are also forced to pay via the congestion charge. Please don't propose paying yet more for access to our own roads in East London. Instead ask why the Government refuses to put in sufficient infrastructure, and the Mayor has withdrawn the East London River Crossing, to make the Thames Gateway in East London a viable project.
It's a stupid idea, and I'm a Green.
A Greenwich congestion charge would only force the problem elsewhere - Deptford, New Cross, Lewisham and Lee also suffer from hideous traffic, and would bear the brunt of any Greenwich-only scheme, along with the Blackwall Tunnel approach and the A2. It'd have to be a wider scheme involving neighbouring areas to make sense. It has to be tackled London-wide, even region-wide with the Home Counties.
As Scared of Chives says, traffic has been *always* been a big problem in Greenwich. It's easy to say "build more bridges", but the more roads you build, the more traffic you'll encourage.
I do know, however, that everyone I know who owns a car makes regular journeys that they could make in other ways – like walking ('but I'd have to carry Poppy's scooter otherwise...')
... sums it up in a blunter way than I could :-) The solution is a long-term one, to encourage people who don't need to drive a car to find other ways to get about. Revitalising local shops so people have a choice of not using retail parks is one thing we can do locally. (Not building any more retail parks is another...)
*ahem* just a note in my defence - I really don't use the car in town. The 188 runs past the house, the bicycle is primed and ready and anything less than 2 miles gets walked! The only instance I will drive through the centre is to drop it off with the car wash chap behind Up the Creek. If only he did home visits...
Traffic is slow but steady when there are no roadworks, however surely our hands are tied on this? An option could be to widen the A2 on the Heath but this would have to bottleneck back down to descend into Deptford arguably inspiring idiot motorists to create further tailbacks.
Creating further misery does not encourage people not to drive. With the original congestion charge, which in my opinion isn't expensive enough, we were supposed to have improved public transport to compensate but of course this has never emerged. Crossrail won't benefit us and we still only seem to have two carriages on our DLR.
Alas the sort of people who read this blog are unlikely to be the sort of people who insist on driving to work. Rather like climate change with regards industrial China there is not much the enlightened few can do to stop those who have their heart set on wholesale stupidity!
I am in favour of charging to use all roads. Higher charges for urban areas and M ways etc. Roads have a cost that is both fixed and marginal (indeed external) and as a committed capitalist I believe they should be borne in part by the user. (I reailse they are a public good so should attract some sort of public subsidy). Traffic is much much worse in Greenwich when there are roadworks and not too bad at other times in my experience of living here.
SOC, would it make any difference is I needed to take Darren and Mercedes to the park?!
Also doesnt West London have more crossings due to the difference in the width of the river plus the hostorical position of the docks?
In the 80s there were serious plans to tunnel under Blackheath creating just that bottleneck in Deptford.
And another plan was to create a by-pass sunk into the river alongside the Naval College.
The point about west London having more river crossings because of the river traffic is right, I think - Tower Bridge lifts to allow shipping into the upper Pool of London. Beyond London Bridge, there were no tall-masted ships because that'd been there for centuries.
The trouble with proposing river crossings between east and south-east London is the need for extra supporting infrastructure. The second Blackwall Tunnel was followed by the A102 in 1969, which was meant to be part of a huge ring road around London. It only got as far as Hackney before it was canned.
The Thames Gateway Bridge was born out of the old East London River Crossing, which would have ploughed a motorway through Oxleas Woods. While TGB was smaller, the local roads around Abbey Wood simply wouldn't have been able to cope with extra traffic from Bexleyheath/Sidcup, and it'd have condemned west Thamesmead to being even more miserable.
And as for Greenwich Council and Boris Johnson's joint fetish of the Silvertown Link - that'd just create more bottlenecks on the A102/A2, especially as two sets of traffic from east London combined onto one road south of the river (which narrows as it goes through Eltham).
Building more roads simply isn't the answer.
Fat Cat
Road use is already charged for. Petrol use is a reasonable proxy for road use and most of what you pay for petrol is tax.
Which means if we want to tempt people out of their cars, petrol at £1 or more a litre is simply too cheap.
Good luck getting voters to back that one.
I am not bothered whether we charge people to use roads directly or indirectly through higher petrol duties. I dont think people should be forced into any particular behaviour but that they should pay for what they consume. I accept that roads are a public good so would envisage that the large fixed cost of a road is paid for by the Exchequer and its upkeep plus external costs are covered by road users. As you allude to petrol duties are unpopular so a more expediant solution for me would be local road charging schemes. A C charge through Greenwich would basically help internalise the external cost (ie lots of cars near where I live) to the actual consumer.
I think the notion that 'congestion' is people from 'other places' is misplaced. Most traffic is usually fairly short journeys, and I bet that 90% of people driving through Greenwich live within 5 miles.
Certainly, I'm sure most people reading this blog spend 90% of their time behind the wheel within 5 miles of home, and the other 10% on longer journeys.
Trying to 'reserve' local roads for residents won't work, unless you would like to see toll booths set up at the Deptford, New Cross, Charlton borders etc for when you wish to leave Greenwich!
I remember back in the late 1980s, early 1990s there were serious proposals to close Trafalgar Road, and there were residents' meetings about it. A friend of mine went to one of these meetings and one lady stood up when the implication dawned on her. She stood up and said, "Does this mean I won't be able to drive to my Step Class at The Arches?". The irony that she might wish to drive to an exercise class was lost on her!
With my bus user hat on, I wouldn't necessarily agree that the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square has been an unalloyed success.
Trying to get a bus from Westminster or Aldwych to points beyond Trafalgar Square is almost pointless. The Strand and top end of Whitehall are worse than in pre-CC days. I always walk now, which is fine for me, but not everyone.
The Square itself is a nicer spot I agree, but the effect on public transport has not been good.
Concerned of Greenwich, if your only real use for your car is when you go into the country then you should get rid of your car. I did just that several years ago and have never regretted it. I joined a car share club for the rare occasions that I need a car. When I travel outside London I normally use the trains, which are excellent. In London I cycle, walk or use public transport. The health benefits are enormous, the cost benefits are measured in thousands of pounds per year and you get to be environmentally smug. I can't think of a serious downside to it. With very few exceptions, people who live in London don't need a car.
Bit tricky to get 2 kids, buggies etc on the back of the bike though.
Around the world and for most of history people seem to have managed. It's only here and in the USA in the last 30 years that people have lost the ability to move without a 4x4 around them. Put the kids on bikes then you won't need a buggy and your kids won't get obese
Not sure a toddler and a 9 month old will go so well on bikes on London streets.
nec - "Trying to get a bus from Westminster or Aldwych to points beyond Trafalgar Square is almost pointless. The Strand and top end of Whitehall are worse than in pre-CC days. I always walk now, which is fine for me, but not everyone." You'll find that 90% of the congestion are actually buses!!! Long, long lines of 3/4 empty buses blocking junctions, straddling crossings and ignoring red lights!
Concerned of Greenwich - "I own a car. It sits unused outside my house for weeks on end and only ever has the cobwebs blown off it for me to leave London and drive into the countryside" - Why don't you sign up to StreetCar or another car sharing scheme. For the occasional user it is FAR cheaper than the expense of an idol car rusting on your doorstep. Well worth a thought.
Oh, and I'm all for the pedestrianization. I wish Mayor Boris hadn't scrapped the scheme to pave over Parliament Square (similar to T-Square). I also drive to work and drive for work in central London - for the record.
Doh! - idle not idol....derrrrr
Yes of course I understand the argument in favour of not having a car but for the truly minimal expense of having one (for me around £400 for tax and insurance a year for it to lay idle) and the fact that I leave London on a regular basis the streetcar option doesn't add up. If I could take a train to where I go I would, but with a passenger what costs £50 in petrol would cost around £180 in train fares for two plus the cost of going onwards 10-20 miles after the train runs out of track.
Of course yes, if I were entirely London-centric a car is a waste of money; however making me pay to leave Greenwich is spiteful if nothing else.
The realistic answer to our traffic problems is to leave well alone; stop tearing up the road, or installing badly-timed temporary traffic lights, stop putting road cones in for the most minor of road repairs and STOP CLOSING THE ****!* JUBILEE LINE EVERY WEEKEND!! If it wasn't such a headache to get into central every weekend I wouldn't be so compelled to go away!
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