Stuffed Up

London is to replace the Congestion Charge with a charge on polluting vehicles. Sounds fine except that according to News reports not only will the new charge not do anything to achieve the original objective - to reduce the terrible congestion in London - but will also do little to reduce Carbon emissions either. The cars to be targeted by the charge apparently account for only a tiny percentage of the total CO2emissions from London's traffic. But of course, Environmentalism is the latest fad that the petit-bourgeois Left have caught on to, and elections are coming up. What better populist measure then than a token gesture in the direction of reducing Carbon Emissions, whilst appearing to tax the Chelsea Tractor brigade.

According to Ken Livingstone, responding to the criticisms that the measure will do little to reduce CO2 emissions, the money raised through the new tax will be used to invest in cycling etc., and this if succesful would reduce emissions considerably. The operative words here are "if succesful". There is an old proverb about horses and water. I doubt many people are fit enough to do much cycling let alone can be persuaded in sufficient numbers, in Britain's inclement weather, and on Britain's dangerous roads to do much cycling.

Some years ago I used to cycle to work and back - a round trip of 15 miles - every day. I lost count of the number of times that car drivers tried - and sometimes succeeded - in deliberately trying to knock me off, largely because they were obviously pissed about being overtaken while they sat in traffic jams. If you think Britain's roads are bad when you drive over potholes in a car try riding over them on a road bike with 3/4 inch rims, which cost you £25 every time you have to repalce them. Not to mention the drainage grids which still have slats in that your front wheel drops into. But oh yes cycle paths are being introduced. Yes and they are complete death traps. The people that introduce them should be made to ride on them for several months. A cycle path alongside the road made up of just a painted line is less than useless - its dangerous. Cars park in them, pull into them when they need to squeeze past etc. Then these lanes cut across the lines of traffic. Its no wonder that in the last year or so even experienced professional cyclists have been badly injured and killed on British roads. In Europe they have physically separated cycle paths, and that is what should be introduced in Britain. A few years ago I went as a Councillor to Chester where the Council has introduced such paths. They have fewer than in many other areas, but they are good physically separated paths, lit, and designed to go from housing estates to major workplaces and the town centre.

When I used to cycle to work I encountered other problems. Firstly, nowhere to change or shower - which is a definite requirement when you have cycled up some significant hills. Then I was told by the Council's Health and Safety Officer that I could not use my bike to travel to other venues in the Borough where I needed to go during work hours, because although the Council had a Green Policy of encouraging cycling, the Council itself couldn't insure its staff to do so, because it was too dangerous a mode of transport compared to driving!!!!

The reality is that most of these policies are a sham. There are real measures that could be taken to reduce the amount of trafic on the roads. In place of huge centralised public facilities such as hospitals and schools it would be far more sustainable,and far better for users of such facilities in terms of environment, to have smaller units located within local communties. The majority of workers now work in service industries rather than manufacturing,a nd much of this work does not require people to go to a physical place of work. A considerable amount of work can be done from home on a computer. For socialists and Trade Unionists this is problematic, because of questions of solidarity and organisation, but an increasing amount of social contact now is now virtual, and there is no reason why this cannot be the case in relation to workers. In fact it might increase contact and discussion.

All the evidence is that trying to price people off the roads does not work. Those that can afford to pay will pay. Those that cannot will probably still pay anyway, and cut back on something else, or else some will join the rest of the small percentage of the population that are socially excluded due to lack of adequate transport. What will not happen if history is anything to go by is that adequate replacements in the form of Public Transport will meet the gap. In fact, a far more effective method of getting people to move away from their cars appears to be when it becomes inconvenient. But it has to become very inconvenient. Ask any Headteacher of a school who will tell you that many parents would drive their cars into the Hall to drop offf their kids if they could. I have even seen people get into their cars with kids, drive 100 yards to the closest parking space they could get, and then walk 150-200 yds to the school!!! Recently, protesting parents at one school in Stoke - they were protesting about their school closing and the kids being moved to a nearby school, drove their cars slowly to the new school saying this is what it would be like if we had to take the kids to this school. Though I have sympathy with the parents over the school closure for the reasons given above, the fact is the alterbative school wasn't that far away, and it was a secondary school. The question is why were parents taking secondary school kids to school in a car in the first place!!!!

The fact is that a far better solution would be to let all the overgrown boils like London to just become totally congested. Then people would do the rational thing, and move to somehwere that did not have thse problems. Businesses would find it too expensive to stay there, workers would be able to find jobs in more pleasant locations, the over inflated housing bubble in London would collapse reducing the problems for those that can't buy property. Britain has vast swathes of land that could be used. Only 10% of the land is used for housing. A rational society as Marx said in the Communist Manifesto would abolish the distinction between town and country giving those in the country access to the facilities of the towns, and the towns the benefits of the environment of the Country. It is ridiculous to have so much economic activity concentrated into huge unhealthy cities. Yet the Country landowners etc. have conned people into the idea of preserving the Green Belt, and hog-tied into their petit-bouregois environmentalism the Left go along with it. Go to any Council Planning meeting where something unpleasnat is going to be built. Could it go in the Countryside miles from anywhere so it doesn't affect anyone. No, no, no that would spoil the environment. Shove it in the town after all the people there are used to living with shit around them.

A rational socialist society would make such changes to improve the environment, but for now we live under the irrationality of capitalism. TRying to make that system rational by tinkering with this or that measure will never work. In fact past experience suggests it will make matters worse. There is a certain rationality to the market, but one that only operates through contradiction and crisis. The best solution to City congestion is to let that mechanism operate.