TRANSPORT CRISIS

Commuters face a £350 tax on workplace parking spaces in an attempt to encourage them out of their cars and on to public transport. The tax is being planned as an alternative to congestion charging because it is thought to be much cheaper and easier to collect. Nottingham City Council is the first local authority planning to introduce the tax. Eight other councils, including Devon County Council, are understood to be considering similar schemes.

Under the Nottingham initiative, employers with more than ten parking spaces will have to pay the tax and most are expected to pass the cost on to staff. The scheme is widely thought to be more politically acceptable. Unlike the Central London congestion charge, shoppers and other drivers who are not travelling to work will not have to pay. However, the 1.8 million-signature petition against congestion charging on the Downing Street website this year has prompted many authorities to reconsider.

Nottingham is also opting for the tax, known as the workplace parking levy (WPL) because the cost of collecting it would only amount to 10% of total revenues. By comparison, more than 40% of the revenue from the London congestion charge scheme is spent on running costs. Nottingham City Council believes that the WPL would be less intrusive than congestion charging because the council would not need to know drivers’ details or movements.

It is planning to spend most of the estimated £12 million annual revenue on funding two more tram lines to complement the highly successful tram line that opened in the city in 2004. Barry Horne, the council’s director for city development, said that its staff and councillors would also be liable for the charge. “If you have to pay to park at work it will make you think twice about whether you should be commuting by car.” (Source: Times Online, Sep/07)

An apocalyptic vision of choking roads, collapsing bridges and 'unimaginable' rail overcrowding is unveiled in a report into a looming transport crisis in London that has repercussions for all of Britain. Predicting that it will 'be difficult to describe how unpleasant' travelling in the capital will be, the report spells out in the bleakest possible terms what will happen to Tube, bus and road trips without a huge cash injection into the transport system. The report, compiled for Transport for London (TfL), the body in charge of the capital's roads, railways and buses, warns that the crisis will have a huge impact on the UK economy, stifling investment and leading to job losses.

Exel, one of the world's biggest logistics companies, claimed businesses were not investing in the UK because of transport problems. The Confederation of British Industry has also warned that London's crisis is a national problem. "Our members across the country are screaming out for more investment in transport ... London is the engine of the country and it generates a significant proportion of (national wealth)," said Lucinda Turner, the CBI's head of infrastructure. The report states: 'Inadequate transport will limit office development, job creation, house-building and the efficiency of the labour market.' The report also warns that within a decade:

* There will be the equivalent of another 19 passengers on every Tube carriage during rush-hour, and an almost unimaginable burden on trains, some of which already have no seating left when they leave their first station.

* The proportion of the network officially considered 'crowded', more people standing than sitting, would nearly double to almost one third during rush hours. Unreliability would also increase.

* Station improvements would have to be delayed or axed, leading to the closure of more stations for safety reasons in the rush hour.

* Improvements in bus services would be reversed, leading to rising delays and overcrowding.

* Funds for road and bridge maintenance would 'barely keep the roads in their current poor condition', leading to weight restrictions to prevent bridges collapsing, and thus more congestion.

The briefing was drawn up as part of TfL's campaign to put political pressure on the Government ahead of a comprehensive spending review. TfL claims that, for each year from 2005 to 2010, it needs another £200 million to £250 million just to ensure that the system runs smoothly; another £440m to £620m to 'accommodate London's growth' and nearly £1 billion a year extra to complete all the above and the improvements it would like to make.

Peter Hendy, managing director of surface transport for TfL, said the crisis was looming simply because of the laws of supply and demand, "What you face is inadequate public transport because there's no volume increase when the population is exploding." TfL gets about half its £4.5bn budget from central government, which has warned that the grant will drop by £200m in two years' time, continuing at that lower level. The problems will be compounded as London's population grows, by 2016 an extra 800,000 people and 62,000 more jobs are expected to generate another two million trips a day, according to the report.

"All substantial new capital projects would be unfunded," the report says, including the West London and Cross River tram proposals and extensions to the Croydon Tramlink and Docklands Light Railway. CrossRail, a £15bn scheme for a line from east to west London, is being considered separately by the Government. Passenger and business groups backed the report's predictions. "It's painted in graphic terms, but we have had decades of gradual deterioration, and as systems get closer to capacity, so they become more unstable, so it takes less for the whole thing to unravel," said John Cartledge, deputy director of the London Transport Users Committee. (Source: The Observer)