The choice we’re presented with is simple: “Gridlock or Growth”. But if you wade through the report calling for congestion charges in the West Midlands, you discover it’s a lot less straightforward. The report, commissioned by Centro and seven local councils, from Wolverhampton to Coventry, is part of the softening up process before we start paying a fortune for the privilege of using our cars. It raises a few options which do not involve raising and spending £4 billion - and dismisses them.
It admits getting more people to share cars or work from home might cut rush-hour jams by 20 per cent. But it adds the bureaucratic equivalent of “we can’t be bothered to do all that, it’s too much like hard work”.
The statistics are, in any case, unreliable. The report assumes the population of the West Midlands will increase by 150,000 to 2.7 million by 2021.
But the population is actually declining. If it continues at the same rate, the population will fall by 150,000 to 2.4 million in 15 years’ time.
Carrot
Maybe they think the 300,000 population gap will be filled by Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants. In which case, what’s a fiver a day to make sure our roads are no more congested than Bucharest’s or Sofia’s?
Still, on the spurious basis of a population boom, the report claims we’re facing gridlock.
Everything points to a congestion charge - £5 a day to drive across the Black Country, into Birmingham, over to Coventry.
The great compensation is that we get massive spending on public transport as the carrot to go with the stick of congestion charges.
When you look at the shopping list, you despair. The biggest single slice - £1.5 billion - will go on the discredited, loss-making, old-fashioned Metro: Wednesbury to Brierley Hill; Birmingham to Five Ways; Birmingham to the airport - same old same old.
What happened to the grand plans for underground trains beneath central Birmingham? Practical, attractive, plausible - why has that been buried?
Instead of an expensive Metro through the middle of Birmingham, it would be cheaper, quicker and more practical to use those toy-town trains you get at amusement parks and holiday resorts.
And what’s the point of a tram which goes “near to” Dudley’s Russells Hall Hospital but not close enough for staff, visitors or patients to use it?
The report calls for longer station platforms (when did you last avoid the train because the platform was too short?), bicycle routes, buses for businessmen, and a bit of park and ride (think of the fun wondering if your car will still be there when you return?).
This is supposed to get us all on to public transport. Though every five per cent reduction in traffic will bring another 50p increase in the congestion charge for everyone left on the roads.
Amid the false assumptions, sweeping statements and grandiose claims in the report there is one particularly sinister passage.
It says the region’s councils may have to pay 20 per cent of the total cost of £4 billion. Excluding the unquantified cost of setting up the charging system itself.
The report accepts local people might reject extra direct taxes. It coyly admits councils are “heavily influenced by local democratic choice” - ie, the voters won’t stand for it.
So where is this money coming from? As well as a fiver a day to go to work, they think they might add, say, £1 a day extra car parking tax.
Or - worse still - they’re interested in the idea of a new, local tax on jobs. Or should that be new, local attacks on jobs?
The report says “new revenue streams will need to be created to deliver and sustain a modern transport system that is both fit for purpose and enables continued economic growth in urban areas”.
It talks about a car park tax both as a way of raising money and a way of deterring motorists.
It goes on: “Internationally there are examples of individual cities using specific taxes, primarily on employment to fund transport.
“At present there are no legal powers to do this but given the degree of investment required and the clear link between good transport infrastructure and economic vitality, we would be interested to explore with both citizens and businesses, their views on such a system.”
Dangerous
These talks, it reassures us, would be “on the clear understanding that any income raised from such a tax would be used for specific local transport schemes”.
So there we have it. A tax to drive, a tax to park and a tax to work.
Jerry Blackett, chief executive of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, says: “It would be a great shame if these proposals were killed at birth because of an emotional, knee-jerk reaction.”
He’s so right. Emotional, knee-jerk reactions are not needed. Having read this tendentious and tediously one-sided report, I can oppose it with a clear conscience. It’s expensive, dangerous, damaging nonsense.
Just to show how slippery the whole thing is, consider this: The report talks about a pay-as-you-drive congestion charge but prices it in pence per kilometre.
Since when have we measured distances in Britain in kilometres rather than miles? Could it be anything to do with the fact that if you have to pay £1 a kilometre it doesn’t sound as expensive as paying £1.60 a mile?
Or is it just that the people who write reports like this already think and behave as if our country were run by the European Union Socialists in Brussels?
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