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# The main thing about this
that has really, really annoyed me is the Arrogance of Lucy Powell. ( Labour, Withington ) Who has decided that the reason the public have voted no on this issue is simply because it was too complicated for us to understand why getting out of our cars and onto council run public transport schemes was for the greater good.

Well forgive me for being too damn stupid to understand why forcing me to pay more to use my car so that I may subsidise a continually failing ( and in the main, privately operated ) public transport system ( failing despite having more and more public money thrown at it despite yearly worsening performance ) is in the greater good.

Here's why the public said no. We'd rather sit on the A57 or the M62 for an extra 10 minutes and pay no more stealth taxes than sit on the roads with no notable change except that we are paying so some chav can drag her brood to the precinct on a bus.

We can only learn from London. Yes it worked to an extent for the city but the reasons were mainly that it became financially impossible for private motorists to continue to drive in congestion charge areas. That of course did have a positive effect on the vehicles on the road. So what did they do? Rest on their laurels at a job well done? No, they made the congestion charge area even greater ( practically outside my front door in my London address ) and stretched it out to the suburbs. Why?
Finance. There has only ever been one reason for congestion charges and that is because it is an unavoidable tax and props up local governments who have been unable to balance books due to them being unable to collect council tax.

I'll tell you who should feel stupid. Whoever thought having a referendum would work in the favour of stealth taxes.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:21, archived)
# Hasn't Boris scrapped plans for an extension to the congestion zone?
(I helped save b3ta! Barbarossa is not my real name, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:26, archived)
# I'm talking about the extension that brought it to
West Ken and Shepherd's Bush road. Not any future plans they might have to see if they can stretch it from Paris to Glasgow without anyone noticing.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:29, archived)
# Subsidise bikes I say!
No VAT on them and instead of scanning cars ,scan bikes and give a bonus per bike, per household for those cycling.
That was not only do you solve, partially, the problem with those on low income but those on low income that suffer from obesity, or the ones with a poor diet not the lazy bastards.
(I helped save b3ta! riverghost servicing your mum since, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:30, archived)
# Fuck that too.
We don't need a congestion charge. We need a baby charge so that people stop churning out sprogs that grow up unable to afford a car and only see the inside of the one they nicked or the one they get transported to jail in.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:35, archived)
# The last car I owned was free.
Had a few technical issues though. Do you mean "unable to afford a Range Rover"?
(sabre-tooth monkey, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:40, archived)
# I didn't say a congestion charge.
I said make it cheaper for people to cycle!
(I helped save b3ta! riverghost servicing your mum since, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 17:00, archived)
# Privately operated, yet enormously regulated so that it isn't under private control in any significant way.
Private roads are what we need, if we're ever going to have perspex tubes in the sky and other pleasing ideas.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:31, archived)
# Your "London address"?
(sabre-tooth monkey, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:32, archived)
# Yes.
We have a flat in Hammersmith because she still works down there during the week.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:33, archived)
# Right. You have a spare London residence.
I hope that £8 to drive a distance it'd be quicker and cheaper to cycle, or to cover by tube, doesn't wipe you out completely.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:39, archived)
# That's fucking ridiculous.
When I was last there I had to be in Mayfair every morning for 8am. I could drive it in 15 minutes or take the lottery of the tube and get from Hammersmith to Green Park in a random 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
Cycling in London is dangerous at the best of times but when you have heavy baggage it is not viable.
Don't talk to my like you know my traffic habits and can assume that all London car journeys are easier by cycle or tube because that's simply not so.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:45, archived)
# I'd take a bus in from Hammersmith.
Or I would if they extended the congestion charge zone and built a few more bus lanes. Otherwise it'd take ages.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:54, archived)
# 2 hours on a bus
I tried it.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:59, archived)
# If it's 15m in a car, how much is it in a taxi?
They're almost public transport, and don't seem to charge you for the C-Charge anyway.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 17:01, archived)
# He needs more than one address
so he's got somewhere to park his ship.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:34, archived)
# His bullship.
(I helped save b3ta! mofaha ┐( ˘_˘)┌ ʅ(́◡◝)ʃ, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:37, archived)
# I miss Zoot
Pasanonic just isn't as ludicrous.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:41, archived)
# Honestly
I just find it depressing.
(I helped save b3ta! mofaha ┐( ˘_˘)┌ ʅ(́◡◝)ʃ, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:48, archived)
# Wow
Complaining about a 'stealth tax' that's about as stealthy as an elephant, painfully snobby ranting about 'chavs', saying the congestion charge worked and still whining about it..


...do you work for the Mail?
(I helped save b3ta! Cassius Kray floats like a butterfly, stings like a trout, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:37, archived)
# You clearly have not comprehended what I said above.
I said that the congestion charge in London had the effect of reducing traffic in certain areas and I qualified that with further statements.
Stealth taxes don't have to be 'hidden' They are designed to be a way of income generation without being a state ratified national taxation.
The term stealth tax refers to a levy that you pay that is a tax in all but name. Not your definition of a payment that is obvious.
fuck you and the Daily Mail.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:41, archived)
# He's right about the chavs bit though
you should do less of that, chavs are people too, I'm almost sure of it.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:44, archived)
# But am I
meant to subsidise their being? I'm happy for all people to do their own thing. Just to have them pay for it themselves.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:47, archived)
# Would it make you happy
If they called it 'congestion tax'?
(I helped save b3ta! Cassius Kray floats like a butterfly, stings like a trout, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:44, archived)
# The name is not an issue.
If it were a tax ratified in parliament then all well and good, but it's not. It is a revenue gaining scheme aimed at the wealthy or business that has done nothing in London for the public transport system ( which I believe was meant to be the big carrot )

If local councils want more money for public transport then ask the government for it as they are supposed to. If the government need more money for it then ask the country as they are supposed to.
I'm not adverse to paying taxes. I'm adverse to being forced to give money to local councils that don't manage things any better with or without the funding.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:53, archived)
# done nothing for public transport? bollocks
10% off bus fares came in very handy.
As did the reduced prices on the Oyster system.

New buses on my route this month too.

You're talking from a standpoint of ignorance I'm afraid.
(I helped save b3ta! chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 17:27, archived)
# Making it cheaper
for those that use it by charging those that don't is not my idea of useful. It has not made it any easier or quicker to travel around london by public transport. We were promised quicker travel. In my experience of London, for the most part travel by bus has grown longer in time on the same routes and I have no idea what the figures for tube travel are but it's clearly now operating way beyond capacity.
The fact is that if I finish work at 6pm in Central London I can leave for home on public transport or I can go to the pub for an hour and a half and still get home at the same time.

I'm not ignorant of public transport. It's simply not an option for me due to the amount of time it takes to get anywhere. Because it is cheaper for you does not in any way mean that the infrastructure has benefited from the congestion charge.
The idea was to free up roads and make journeys quicker. making it cheaper to sit on a bus longer is just taking the piss. Especially for those that don't sit on the bus.
(I helped save b3ta! Pasanonic 's been known to cause insanity in laboratory mice, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 17:39, archived)
# If the congestion charge revenue
had been used produced a cheap, efficient public transport system, then all would be well. But it hasn't, I desperately want to support it but it's such a half-arsed measure
(I helped save b3ta! Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Fri 12 Dec 2008, 16:39, archived)