Edinburgh Congestion Charge vote

[CraigAlsop]

For those of you that are eligible to vote, don't forget to make sure you don't lose the opportunity to vote.
Download the form here, print it out, fill it in & post it ASAP.

[davefiddes]

Thanks for the heads up Craig! I know I opted out from the edited register to try to reduce the amount of junk mail I get...would have been puzzled as to why I was never got anything through the post come February if you hadn't pointed it out.

Worth pointing out that the deadline is the 14th of January.

[RedTeg]

Had a dispute about this at a works Christmas lunch with my ultimate boss. He is a cyclist pro charge, I'm obviously a PH anti charge.
General office opinion is that this is coming regardless of a token vote. I feel I'm stuck with a group of defeatists who quietly accept these charges (and probably won't even vote), increasing greenways and re phased traffic lights.

Edinburgh Council are about to spend a least the first half of 2005 screwing up a traffic system that wasn't all that bad to take cars off Princes St and George St.
If they do actually come up with something that works then fine, but I fell they'll spend all this time pointing out the terrible congestion (they're creating) and use it to hammer us more.

[tvrolet]

CraigAlsop said:

For those of you that are eligible to vote, don't forget to make sure you don't lose the opportunity to vote. Download the form here, print it out, fill it in & post it ASAP.

I was talking with a bloke from Edinburgh Cooncil (or whatever), moderately senior, some time back. From what I gathered, all this vote milarky was a whitewash, and whatever anyone anywhere said, thought or voted, the charge would happen

I remember when you used to be able to drive both ways on Princes Street, navigate right round St Andrews and Charlotte Square, and get up and wown ann the streets to Queen Street. Seemed to be significently easier to make progress...

WB

[Nicholas Blair]

Thank god I don't have to go into Edinburgh all that often!

PS Craig - it was me who passed you on the A9 the other week.

Cheers

[CraigAlsop]

tvrolet said:

I was talking with a bloke from Edinburgh Cooncil (or whatever), moderately senior, some time back. From what I gathered, all this vote milarky was a whitewash, and whatever anyone anywhere said, thought or voted, the charge would happen I remember when you used to be able to drive both ways on Princes Street, navigate right round St Andrews and Charlotte Square, and get up and wown ann the streets to Queen Street. Seemed to be significently easier to make progress... WB

Oh it was - I believe it was deliberately screwed up by Begg - when the original changes were being proposed, I heard that a local company called Quadstone, who are/were a company that models traffic flow for all sorts of countries, offered to do the traffic modelling for free. This was turned down.
Despite this, I believe Quadstone went ahead & modelled the changes anyway & showed why they would screw up the traffic flow & what should be done instead.
They were completely ignored. In case there are any legal issues with this - I should say that this is all to the best of my knowledge...(which is reasonably informed on this particular matter)

A few years later, I was on holiday abroad & was chatting to the bloke who was in the villa next to hours - he mentioned that he was from Edinburgh, & I "went off on one" about how crap the traffic planning & road design was in Edinburgh & how some of the modifications were causing accidents (traffic islands that mean buses need to mount pavements etc)
At the time he just said that he didn't drive & was a cyclist & that he thought that it was getting better for cyclists. I didn't think much of this at the time, but later on in the week, when we were all having a drink, we were all saying what we did as jobs, & this blokes girlfriend mentions that he is one of the traffic planners for Edinburgh.
I mean FFS! - the guy doesn't even hold a driving license. Give him his due though - a couple of the traffic islands that I had been so vociferous about disappeared a few weeks later

[CraigAlsop]

Nicholas Blair said:

Thank god I don't have to go into Edinburgh all that often! PS Craig - it was me who passed you on the A9 the other week. Cheers

Ahhh, that'll explain it then. I was trying to make progress, but with a sleeping babe in the back & a dozing wife in the front

[mad jock]

I'm in two minds over this charge. Granted that the council has progressively cacked up the system over the years, but traffic levels have grown as well. Of course, this has not been helped by planners allowing out of town developments in areas of little or no local employment, which means that all the new home owners will, more than likely, commute to Edinburgh, thus exacerbating the problem. The idea of 4500 new houses in East Lothian would mean funneling +/- 4000 extra cars a day onto the A1 and city bypass. The local roads in East Lothian can barely cope at the moment! The new houses and flats being built at Granton will add more cars to a road that will have no capacity for them. Little or no improvements to the Lanark Road and Calder Road means massive bottlenecks every day, both ways. Badly phased traffic lights at the Sherriffhall roundabout, the Portobello roundabout is too small, no crawler lane on the city bypass at the Sighthill to Dreghorn stretch, the list is endless.
Thankfully, my job means that I don't have to commute, and can choose my time to enter Edinburgh (from East Lothian). After 10:00 am, there are no jams, the traffic is usually very light, ie the congestion has gone. I wrote to the council to suggest that if they mean it about this being a congestion charge, then charge for congestion only, ie rush hour traffic only. As they have already agreed that the outer cordon will be so phased, it is technically possible to phase the inner cordon the same way.
As for the idiotic scheme to exempt people from Balerno, Currie, and other outlying suburbs, FFS, they are the ones contributing to the congestion in the first place.
Equally, some people were whining that they left Edinburgh in the morning to work outside the city, and that they should also be exempt. I sympathised initially until I got caught out trying to reach the Maybury roundabout from Newbridge at about 5:30 pm, and found myself seething at all the traffic coming into the city at that time.
So. As a spirited driver who likes cars and the open road, having to pay extra to use roads that are already paid for is anathema to me. However, something has to be done, and some kind of stick needs to be applied to curb the use of the car into the city centre. Of course, the Council really needs to have the alternative Public Transport system in place before the charge starts, but that ain't going to happen. The trams are a joke, in pure cost terms if not in their lack of flexibility. The Park and Ride schemes need to understand just what integrated transport really means. Perhaps some of the revenue raised might be spent on the roads, which are falling apart. Perhaps they should reconsider building an underground car park in George Street! The New Town is a World Heritage site FFS! They can't seem to make up their minds about this whole issue. On the one hand they are saying that they don't want cars, so charge them to enter the city. Then, because retailers have justifiably complained about loss of revenue, they are suggesting that a reduction in parking costs would be considered. So, pay £2 to get in, get it back in reduced parking fees, and who has gained, and what incentive/ disincentive has actually applied? In the crudest terms, it's a Cluster.

[travelsveryrapid]

Personally I think that it's immoral to charge people for entering their own cites - They belong to all of us not the politicians.

Steve.

[tvrgit]

I don't know if Quadstone did end up modelling the congestion charge - if they did, they certainly didn't appear at the Public Inquiry earlier this year so the results were kept very quiet.

The modelling that was done for the Council isn't very conclusive IMHO - they admited at the Inquiry that the anticipated effects could be plus/minus up to 30% due to modelling limitations - but the costs / revenues don't reflect that.

Also, if you look carefully, their aim is not to eliminate congestion, apparently - it's to reduce it to "school holiday levels" or something - ie about 5% to 10% less than it is now. Obviously, if they reduce traffic too much, they don't make enough money to pay for public transport improvements - If everybody decided to switch to public transport (say) then they get no revenue but a huge demand for public transport - result, ruin (as Mr Micawber would say) but they have to show a measurable reduction to justify the scheme.

This, plus the exemption for west edinburgh residents, makes its title of "congestion charge" ever so slightly misleading.

Latest I heard is that one of the pro-cycling lobbyists in West Lothian has asked the Audit Office to investigate West Lothian's campaign against the congestion charge, in the hope that they find it an illegal use of public funds.

[davefiddes]

tvrgit said:

This, plus the exemption for west edinburgh residents, makes its title of "congestion charge" ever so slightly misleading.

Perhaps it would be more honest to call it an Entrance Fee for the outer cordon and Backstage Pass for the inner one? If you have something hot that everyone wants why not charge for it? If you don't like it then take your patronage elsewhere.

Edinburgh residents are paying enough in extra council tax and property prices to be given free entry IMHO...for now.

Something has to be done otherwise we're just going to end up with the same sort of automotive armageddon that the US suffers from...assuming there's actually any fuel left to power the endless stream of cars over the three forth road bridges and down the 5 lane M8.

tvrgit said:

Latest I heard is that one of the pro-cycling lobbyists in West Lothian has asked the Audit Office to investigate West Lothian's campaign against the congestion charge, in the hope that they find it an illegal use of public funds.

Great. Set another bunch of bureaucrats against another and arm both sides with viciously expensive lawyers. Fantastic.

Wouldn't it be brilliant if all that energy could be put into building more sustainable jobs in West Lothian for the people of West Lothian to work at.

[Size Nine Elm]

My thoughts all along have been that the council are going to push this through regardless of opinion, lawyers, surveys, and anything else - they're just going to do it, and fiddle whatever they have to to get there. Accountability? Bollocks.

I know Quadstone did various traffic scenario simulations, including traffic waves on motorways, and why buses come in threes, didn't know they'd simulated Edinburgh - I know some folks who work/worked there.

Being E Lothian based, don't suppose I can fill in a form and borrow an address? Craig, can I officially live in your house?

[tvrgit]

davefiddes said:

Something has to be done otherwise we're just going to end up with the same sort of automotive armageddon that the US suffers from...assuming there's actually any fuel left to power the endless stream of cars over the three forth road bridges and down the 5 lane M8.

Quite correct.

But consider the economics. The money from the charge is to be put into public transport, to move the people who are "discouraged" from using their cars. So the more people you discourage, the less money you raise, and the more public transport you need. Doesn't make sense.

In other words, a £10 a day charge would put everybody off. Congestion problem solved. Environmentalists happy. Edinburgh returns to the pedestrian-safe bus-network nirvanha that the pro-lobby say they are aiming for - but they can't be, because that just doesn't pay for the administration and the bus improvements you need, to move those people about.

On the other hand, a £1 a day charge would make no difference to drivers. No congestion reduction at all. That's no use either, politically.

£2 has obviously been modelled as the optimum balance between measurable deterrence, and revenue raised. The results apparently show a 5% to 10% reduction in traffic entering Edinburgh. Even their promotional leaflets talk about a reduction "to school holiday levels" - the same 5% to 10%.

Hardly the road safety pedestrian precinct that the pro-lobby are preaching in their material.

AND while I'm at it, don't forget that this reduction on the routes INTO Edinburgh is offset, in a lot of places, by much bigger increases in traffic AROUND the inside edge of the city, by people who live and work within the outer cordon. Residents in those areas (and there are a lot of them) will be WORSE off.

Don't see any mention of that in the referendum leaflet. Doesn't fit the spin, I suppose.

(Don't know why I care, I don't live or work in the place so it makes no difference to me!)

[tvrgit]

tvrolet said:

I was talking with a bloke from Edinburgh Cooncil (or whatever), moderately senior, some time back. From what I gathered, all this vote milarky was a whitewash, and whatever anyone anywhere said, thought or voted, the charge would happen

As evidenced by their response to the Reporters' findings from the Inquiry.

Inquiry Report said:

We consider that the proposed exemption for West Edinburgh Residents is probably unlawful and open to legal challenge

Edinburgh Council said:

Too bad we're doing it anyway - we've already designed the leaflets and vote forms

West Lothian Council then said:

Right, we're going to have our own referendum and mount a legal challenge

green resident then said:

Right, I'm going to ask the Audit office to find West Lothian's referendum and legal challenge to be a waste of taxpayers' money

And so it drags on...

[davefiddes]

tvrgit said:

But consider the economics. The money from the charge is to be put into public transport, to move the people who are "discouraged" from using their cars. So the more people you discourage, the less money you raise, and the more public transport you need. Doesn't make sense.

I'm not sure that discouraging people from using their cars is necessarily the aim. Discouraging people from travelling to Edinburgh at all is probably more desirable. Edinburgh has become too successful at getting people to come from outside the city limits to work within. I think that the council is, sensibly, trying to gently put the brakes on the notion of endless commuter fuelled expansion (by any means, bus, car, train, etc) while still trying to keep the city sucessful.

mad jock said:

The new houses and flats being built at Granton will add more cars to a road that will have no capacity for them.

I have to take issue with this. I think the planners and developers who are working like mad to build all over Leith and Granton are actually heading in a reasonably sane direction. There is going to be a reasonable mix of housing of all different costs *and* a decent number of places to work and shop. It is naive to assume that it will be possible to live entirely without a car (how do you drive at trackdays after all... ) but for many it will be possible to walk to work and not absolutely *require* a car to commute.

[tvrgit]

davefiddes said:

I'm not sure that discouraging people from using their cars is necessarily the aim.

Of course it's not - see my point above. If it was, the charge would be £10 or something.

[mad jock]

mad jock said:

The new houses and flats being built at Granton will add more cars to a road that will have no capacity for them.

I have to take issue with this. I think the planners and developers who are working like mad to build all over Leith and Granton are actually heading in a reasonably sane direction. There is going to be a reasonable mix of housing of all different costs *and* a decent number of places to work and shop. It is naive to assume that it will be possible to live entirely without a car (how do you drive at trackdays after all... ) but for many it will be possible to walk to work and not absolutely *require* a car to commute.



[/quote]

I only used the Granton case as an example. These developments are going on all around Edinburgh, and more are planned, and hardly any of them have jobs
locally that will suit the incomes of people who can afford the new houses. Chances are that they will commute to where the money is, ie the city centre, be it from Granton, Fife, East or West Lothian, or even the Borders.
There is neither the road or rail capacity to cope with this increase in commuter traffic. But that's OK, because we'll just charge them anyway.
The only people who have serious jobs local to Granton are the jobsworth at the Scottish Executive in Leith, and I bet they get subsidised transport anyway!