Britain is a long way short of adopting a national system of charging for road use, the transport secretary said in a downbeat assessment of the policy’s prospects.
Geoff Hoon said in an interview with the Financial Times that he wanted to see evidence of the practicality of road-charging schemes, which have been government policy since 2004, before pressing ahead.
Ministers have become more reticent about road-pricing policy since 1.7m people signed a petition opposing the plan on the Downing Street website in early 2007. There has been still less discussion of the policy since December, when plans for a local congestion charge in greater Manchester were defeated in a referendum by a margin of nearly four to one.
However, transport policy experts and even the RAC Foundation continue to support the idea of congestion-based pricing as the best way of making efficient use of limited road space.
The Institution of Civil Engineer's (ICE) view of current highways and transport topics.
Latest traffic management jobs on ICEhighwaysjobs.com.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
An iteresting debate.
ReplyDelete