National Transport Strategy

[Biospace]

In theory, it should be possible to extract a map of divided carriageways from OpenStreetMap using Overpass Turbo or similar, but doing that in a reasonable time is beyond me.

I challenged my 9yo with this, not through a line of code or clever tweaking of a website but by graphically tracing the network - it didn't take so long. The brief was not to create a perfect geographical or schematic rendition (especially within large cities) but to do their best in a limited time, so that when reduced in size it would give a reasonable idea of the network of motorways and connected dual carriageways. Isolated sections of dual carriageway are not highlighted.

motorways are in blue

[mattsccm]

Pointless although interesting discussion. Nothing is going to change unless Putin lobs a few nasty missiles this way.
Covid had potential and if it had been serious (like Ebola would have been) then things would have changed. However nothing short of disaster is going to have any effect. We all rely on the transport system too much to go back and see no point in changing* anything anyway. ******************

[Jdsk]

"Owners of the most polluting cars to pay double for parking across England":
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ng-england

Jonathan

[Bmblbzzz]

"Owners of the most polluting cars to pay double for parking across England":
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ng-england

Jonathan

Interesting approach. It does seem slightly back to front to make charges for parking, rather than driving, dependent on dirtiness, but I suppose it's easier to implement than a CAZ/ULEZ.

[gbnz]

Interesting approach. It does seem slightly back to front to make charges for parking, rather than driving,

Seem's perfectly rational. A person who chooses to create more pollution by running a more heavily polluting vehicle, doesn't arrive at a destination to park on a non polluting basis. It'd be beneficial if it encourages some of them to create less pollution, but given that's unlikely, at least they'll have to pay more for the pollution and harm they've chosen to create

[Bmblbzzz]

Yes but it would be more logical to charge for the pollution while they were creating it, ie while driving, rather than parking and not emitting. It would, as I said above, require some sort of road pricing really, or at the least toll gates!

[Biospace]

While of course if this sort of control did spread around the country, those with more disposable income would simply take whichever means they have to avoid unnecessary taxation and quietly rejoice they're not one of the unfortunate masses living in high population density areas, having space for several vehicles and driving several times further from their country residence - and so likely creating more pollution in a BEV than someone with an elderly, economical, little-used lightweight Yaris driving half the distance.

Should the owner of the shiny, massive and powerful new BEV pay more than others, until sufficient miles have been racked up that notionally their vehicle is less of a polluter than an old Yaris? Or should it simply be on tailpipe emissions, as with every other government car taxation policy?

How is this any more accurately targeted than the Blair government slashing annually-recurring taxation on diesel cars?

Technology enables these decisions, it may not be long before scanners dotted around public places note what sort of food you've been eating and other aspects of your life - I wouldn't entrust many councils to behave in the most intelligent way with the data.

Given we've discovered BEVs are not yet an environmentally sound approach to our future and offer only a marginal improvement on what they replace, do they really deserve such fiscal benefits? Many of our carparks are going to need structural reinforcement so perhaps it would be a little less presumptive (the emissions from a BEV can vary enormously, depending on a variety of factors) to tax according to mass?

[mjr]

Why isn't this going to lead to councils trying to attract the most-polluting highest-paying cars to their car parks in order to maximise income?

We already have a bit of a problem in much of England where generally-lefter-leaning towns are governed by borough-level councils run by those elected by their generally-righter-leaning surrounding villages, resulting in the council leadership not seeing the benefit of relocating or selling off oversized town centre car parks (because the areas affected by the pollution, anti-social behaviour and wasted space solidly elect opposition councillors) but very definitely seeing the revenue from that car parking. The councillors from the villages don't seem to care enough to reduce the current levels of pollution in the towns, so I don't expect they will care enough not to increase pollution if it increases income.

Meanwhile, the current responsibility for transport targets including active travel is with the county-level councils, who get undermined by over-provision of town centre car parking. Those two responsibilities (car parking and transport) should be moved to the same council so that they stop pulling in opposite directions... and if the national government is doing some council reforms, bin collections, flytipping and tips (sorry, household waste recycling centres) should be at one council. The main function I can see a good argument for keeping split between borough and county is planning control, where the split should even be increased by forbidding councils from sitting in judgment on their own applications.

Anyway, I don't see why this is a good thing. The pollution class tends to be a minor concern when buying a car in the UK unless you're using a LEZ or ULEZ often. What's to stop this being an incentive to encourage bigger vehicles into towns to earn more?

[Bmblbzzz]

That's the conundrum of any taxation applied to things you want to discourage, be it driving, smoking or gambling; you can come to rely on the income from the "sin tax" and therefore on the sin itself.

[Bmblbzzz]

We already have a bit of a problem in much of England where generally-lefter-leaning towns are governed by borough-level councils run by those elected by their generally-righter-leaning surrounding villages, resulting in the council leadership not seeing the benefit of relocating or selling off oversized town centre car parks (because the areas affected by the pollution, anti-social behaviour and wasted space solidly elect opposition councillors) but very definitely seeing the revenue from that car parking. The councillors from the villages don't seem to care enough to reduce the current levels of pollution in the towns, so I don't expect they will care enough not to increase pollution if it increases income.

To an extent this is true, but it doesn't always work like that. I know someone whose mother was a (Labour) councillor on Bristol city council, then Avon county council, before later becoming an MP. Avon was created in the 1970s, taking Bristol, Bath and Weston-super-Mare along with their surrounding areas of Somerset and Gloucestershire, before being abolished in 1996. According to Wikipedia it spent most of its life NOC but there was a widespread perception that it was dominated by largely Labour-voting Bristol to the detriment of Bath, villages, etc. I haven't heard such accusations against WECA, which covers largely the same area, but it notably has a Labour leader.

The other point is that Labour leaders of cities can be every bit as pro-car as their Tory rural counterparts.

[Jdsk]

Of course a national transport strategy should be consistent with an international transport strategy...

"Adieu Mickey Mouse: Eurostar’s shrinking ambitions seven years on from the Brexit vote":
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -amsterdam

Jonathan

[Stevek76]

That's the conundrum of any taxation applied to things you want to discourage, be it driving, smoking or gambling; you can come to rely on the income from the "sin tax" and therefore on the sin itself.

If the sin tax is primarily a matter of redistributing externalities that's not really an issue.

[Stevek76]

Why isn't this going to lead to councils trying to attract the most-polluting highest-paying cars to their car parks in order to maximise income?

If the council is charging the most polluting more then it won't be attracting them? If they have the option they'll go to an alternative councils park that doesn't use emissions based charging?

Obviously there's a wider general coordination issue for the non unitary setups but Lambeth is effectively a unitary.

[Biospace]

Of course a national transport strategy should be consistent with an international transport strategy...

"Adieu Mickey Mouse: Eurostar’s shrinking ambitions seven years on from the Brexit vote":
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -amsterdam
Jonathan

It's clear that many companies will try to claw back some of the lost revenues from our reaction to Covid19, Eurostar lost over £700m of fare revenues in 2020 alone and I would expect SNCF (as the major shareholder) is upset the UK didn't help their Eurostar service out through the pandemic. With the higher costs of accessing HS1 over French rail, I appreciate their frustration with the British and their attitude to everything rail.

Internet pages are full of woes of high price tickets and note they're cheaper from the other side, it seems Eurostar are prioritising business travellers and have decided to accept a third fewer customers rather than speed up post-Brexit check in.

As usual, things aren't quite so bad as newspaper headlines try to suggest. Online discussions suggest people have been transferring to/from the TGV at Lille for years, rather than using the direct Eurostar service.

[Bmblbzzz]

That's the conundrum of any taxation applied to things you want to discourage, be it driving, smoking or gambling; you can come to rely on the income from the "sin tax" and therefore on the sin itself.

If the sin tax is primarily a matter of redistributing externalities that's not really an issue.

The primary purpose of a sin tax is or should be to discourage the sin.