Drivers to face national congestion charge
Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has reportedly told the Observer that the effort to cut congestion on Britain’s roads must be increased.
As a result, drivers could face a range of new charges. According to Mr Darling these revolve around the creation of satellite tracking technology which could be used to clock journeys.
Drivers would then face a bill for their journey.
The most likely targets other than overly congested motorways would be those who travel during rush hour and school-run parents.
Speaking to the paper, he made it clear that action must be taken very soon.
‘If we don’t start thinking about it now, we are going to face a situation where we will have very, very severe traffic problems.’
He then continued to reaffirm his belief that the situation cannot be resolved by simply building more roads:
‘You can’t build yourself out of the problem that we face. We have a choice in the next 25 to 30 years; either we build more and more motorways, which would be astronomically expensive, environmentally damaging, and I doubt if we could actually do it, or we take a radically different look at how we manage the system.’
‘I am convinced that unless we look at the possibility of road pricing, then future generations will not forgive us.’
Mr Darling also reportedly commented that he was surprised the successful London Congestion charge had not been introduced by more authorities – especially during rush hour.
If these schemes are introduced, it has been suggested that the Government could reduce car or petrol tax as a compensatory measure.
