As an ecosocialist non-driver I am predisposed to see road pricing as a good thing. After all, British drivers do not pay anything like the full social cost of private car use. Indeed, real motoring costs have fallen by 8% since New Labour came to office in1997.
Meanwhile, British public transport is the most expensive in Europe, and fares have risen far faster than inflation. Why should environmentally friendly public transport users subsidise middle managers pumping out exhaust fumes from their company cars?
Then again, I am well aware of the socialist case for the defence. It’s often said that road pricing would disproportionately hurt the less well off, especially the rural poor. In other words, it would be a socially regressive poll tax on wheels. Can 1,000,000 email petitioners all be wrong?
Well, according to a number of transport professionals quoted in the Financial Times yesterday, that’s certainly possible:
’Experts also expect that any new pay-per-use charge would replace some other form of taxation - possibly replacing the existing fuel duty. Since fuel duty is currently charged at a flat rate, road pricing based on congestion levels would charge drivers in the most congested parts of the country far more. Rural drivers would pay less.
‘… [T]he poorest 25 per cent of the population are four times as likely as the average person to rely on public transport, and hence benefit from road-user charging. The rural poor, meanwhile, suffer from the present system's high fuel duty levels.’
And it seems all but the most inveterate petrolhead eventually tends to get the message:
’Evidence from both Stockholm - which recently introduced a congestion charge - and London suggests charging for road use becomes more popular once the public can see the benefits.’
All of these points, then, seem to boost the case for road pricing. But I admit to not having a firmly formulated position on this one. If you’ve got any counter-arguments, the comments box is open.
Posted at 10:06, 14 February 2007
Comments (12)
I've got no fixed position on this except to say I'm wary of any regressive taxation. Like most leftists I'm for a decent publicly owned and democratically controlled public transport system. I want to see less roads and more railways.
I am puzzled by one technical aspect of the government's proposals. They wish to splash out billions on complicated tracking systems and dash-top boxes. Yet surely the best way to do pay-as-you-drive would be to top up the tax on petrol. Anyone know why this seemingly simple means of implementing the policy has been overlooked?
My problem is the implications for freedom of movement, it seems odd, in principle, to charge for use of the public highway.
taxing the vehicles seems a much better option, with a more facetted taxation scheme to encourage use fo small vehicles strikes me as a better option.
as has been pointed out during the debate on congestion charging in Manchester, how many places actually have public transport that is up to the extra strains of road pricing?
Certainly not de-regulated Manchester, with its oversubscribed trams and one decent bus route.
Dear Dave
Ideologically, I'm disposed to a needs based approach. Working on the assumption that class/income/wealth are not a reliable indicators of where anyone lives for traffic management purposes, there are two considerations - choice of transport and time of travel. Public transport is relatively poor in rural areas. Therefore, I do not favour the fuel tax route, as proposed by 'very public sociologist', similarly it is impossible to influence transport usage at peak periods by fuel tax variations either. Taxing vehicles to encourage small car usage as proposed by 'Red Deathy' is also insensitive to needs in terms of family size. So, road pricing definitely has merits. Pity that the prat who put up the petition did not invest in a questionnaire designed to illustrate the merits of road pricing based on individual/family transport need. Labour probably needs to court the Countryside Alliance to get the debate back on track.
I think we've got to get beyond left vs. right on the environment. Either our grandchildren will suffer horribly or not. If reactionaries and capitalists line up to ignore reality, it simply helps our argument that they are anti-people, as Ngugi wa Thíongo puts it. However, when I see coal miners demonstrating to save their industry (as in Germany recently), it makes me wonder what consciousness working people have - is it too blinkered? Why would anyone want to continue coal mining if it didn't need to be done? But obviously they do not trust society (much less socialism) to help them find other employment.
The fact that any road-pricing scheme would have to involve tracking of cars and this data being stored and processed, leading to all movement in cars ending up on a government (or outsourced, but ultimately controlled by the government or one of its agencies) database is for me the strongest argument against this system.
Would not a cheap, reliable, comfortable - and 'integrated' - public transport system automatically reduce the number of cars on the road? I think it would. And lanes for vehicles with more than one occupant would probably increase car-sharing.
Why would anyone want to continue coal mining if it didn't need to be done?
The particular issue of German coal mining in the Ruhr valley involves state subsidies and the privatisation of the company running the mines. i.e. the company is to be split up, so that the profitable parts get sold off, and the state gets lumbered with the coal mining bit, which will be very loss making indeed when the subsidies stop in around a decade (according to this deal). Why would these workers demonstrate against their industry being smashed up? Probably because they - rightly - don't trust the state to provide any other employment for them once the mines are destroyed/flooded/the equipment sold to China. And aren't particuarly looking forward to their communities being destroyed at the same time. Look at the social results of the destruction of the British mining industry post-1984/5. And the political colour of the government getting the subsidies stopped (the regional government is CDU ('Tory' in SW-speak)).
And the alternative to coal power in Germany as peddled by those close to government? Nuclear, of course. I'd prefer coal for a bit longer than another nuclear power station or older ones being allowed to stay open for a minute longer than already planned - until regenerative energy production methods are far enough to enable both to end for once and for all.
Call me cynical, but I've noticed that NuLabour's 'innocative' ideas often involve billions of pounds from the public purse being spent on fancy new computing equipment or construction companies. They don't want to do things simply, that's not the Third Way of doing things.
"Should the left back road pricing?"
This is far too abstract. Until there are concrete proposals about this, if there are, how can anybody comment?
But I will.
My guess is that road pricing will be selectively used where roads are congested. If so, why should road users pay more for that? Why not charge for the 'luxury' of using uncongested roads?
What should be backed is extensive, cheap and reliable public transport - both local, for immediate needs, and national for commuting and other more distant needs. (Setting aside the 'need' to commute distances for work.)
People travel for a variety of reasons, roughly: from necessity (eg to get to work) and pleasure (eg going somewhere they choose to go, but are not obliged to go).
Road pricing is incapable of distinguishing between different needs to travel - and I'm not sure that it should. A tax on movement?
If our transport systems are incapable of carrying the traffic we should address that issue, not price people out of transport.
"Should the left back road pricing?"
yes.
It seems to me that there are two central reasons to oppose road pricing.
The first is that it involves a highly centralised and hugely expensive, intrusive and potentially dangerous vehicle tracking system. Britain has become increasingly centralised and authoritarian under NuLab and our civil rights and personal privacy have already been significantly eroded. The proposed tracking system would place another powerful weapon for the control of undesirables (and that will always include us) into the hands of the state. It would be a secret policeman's wet dream.
The second reason is that the road pricing system would not be centrally about reducing total vehicle flows, but about reducing congestion in specific areas. The effect of the system would be to shift increasing amounts of traffic onto cheaper (and less crowded) roads. Therefore, people living in currently fairly quiet rural communities would experience more traffic rather than less. And given that minor country roads are already more dangerous than motorways, road casualties would almost certainly rise.
The real problem is that there are too many motor vehicles, not that too too many of them want to drive round the North Circular at 5.30pm. The whole point of any car control policy has to be to reduce the total number of cars on the roads and to reduce their mileage.
It seems to me that if road pricing is too Orwellian and fuel taxation is regressive then the only answer is some form of rationing - either the carbon rationing advocated by Meyer Hillman or a variation on the theme of fuel rationing. The average motorist does around 12000 miles a year, so a fuel ration could start at limiting a small/medium car to say 10000 miles a year initially, reducing by perhaps 1000miles annually for five or six years.
This bloke blogged interestingly on road pricing.
He thinks it is a restriction on the freedom of movement of the poor.
Click his name to read it.