Not Leeds yet, but we're on the list...

[cnosni]

Reginal Perrin wrote: I can see the use for one inside the inner ring road and on certain main arterial roads if you pass through a couple of gateways (not just popping to the supermarket. I mean anyone "popping" to Sainsburys in Colton at rush hour must be nuts.It should only operate from 6:30am to 10:00am and 4pm to 6:30pm, there is no congestion outside of that and therefroe no need for it. I think thats the sort of parameters are that are being banded about for Manchester.

[simong]

The outer ring road in north Leeds is five or six miles from the city centre, (give or take, at Horsforth roundabout) which would enclose a far bigger area than London's CC area, so it's very unlikely. Also, remember that the Manchester scheme only levies a charge in the primary direction of travel at peak periods on the main roads into Manchester, so if you come off the M60 along the M602 for example, you would be charged but if you drove from, say Salford Quays to Regent's Road shopping centre along Ordsall Lane at peak times, you wouldn't be charged (they're examples that I know from being there for the last year). I don't agree with the charge plans in Manchester as there aren't sufficient alternative methods of transport or soon enough, as most of the money is being sunk into the trams, which are operated by Stagecoach, by the way, not by GMPTE. I don't see the referendum being successful to be honest, as it has been presented badly and is only happening because the joint councils of Greater Manchester couldn't agree - hardly any wonder when half of them would be paying out in return for little or no improvement in local services.I don't think that anyone would accept any kind of road pricing in Leeds without major improvements to the road system, which would probably prove to be impossible: how could the ORR be turned into a proper orbital when it has single carriageway sections on the north side of town, for example. The tram and its replacement schemes are for all intents and purposes aimed at the student population rather than benefiting the suburban population, and there simply isn't the capacity or budget to restore any of the old trackbed for rail, light or otherwise. The A65, one of the main arteries into the city, in the most rapidly expanding part of town has been totally ignored by the road plan.I was in Edinburgh around the time of their referendum in 2005, and the reason that it was rejected was remarkably clear cut: apart from the fact that Edinburgh is a far more residential city than Leeds or Manchester there simply wasn't enough alternative capacity for transport in the plan. An obvious idea would have been a park and ride on the north side of the Forth Bridge as a good 11,000 people come into the city from Fife every day but the other side of the bridge is run by a different council.I would suspect that every big city in the country is on a very provisional list, and don't forget that the government has flown the flag of universal road pricing in the past, for which congestion charges could prove to be a fait accompli. Another thing that I'm being reminded of at the moment as I shuffle through the new gates at Leeds station every morning, is that no-one seems to believe that the north has commuters. I remember meeting a London based client at Leeds station early one morning a couple of years ago and he was amazed at the number of people passing through. I think that that has a lot to do with why regional public transport in this country doesn't improve.I got Paul Truswell's newsletter the other day in which he suggested that something is actually being done about buses on a national basis now - he must get his ear bent about the 33 constantly among other things - but we're not alone in suffering from mediocre bus services and finally it appears to have got to someone's ear in Parliament again so we'll see whether anything is going to happen, and if it does, whether the government will try and use it as a reason to implement congestion charges elsewhere.    

[Reginal Perrin]

They do seem to moan about very small inconveniences in London Transport. Whe I lived there I found buses, trains and underground, extremely well run and a service I just don't recognise in Leeds. How much money was diverted away from Leeds to the London Cross Rail link? I really wondered whatthe problem was in crossing London before? I never experienced any problems. Maybe having to change at King sCross to switch to Thamelionk if I was travelling south but it really was no hassle at all, a 200 yard walk up the street.

[simong]

Reginal Perrin wrote: They do seem to moan about very small inconveniences in London Transport. Whe I lived there I found buses, trains and underground, extremely well run and a service I just don't recognise in Leeds. How much money was diverted away from Leeds to the London Cross Rail link? I really wondered whatthe problem was in crossing London before? I never experienced any problems. Maybe having to change at King sCross to switch to Thamelionk if I was travelling south but it really was no hassle at all, a 200 yard walk up the street. CrossRail has been ongoing since the early 90s as a viable project and has been in various transport plans for London possibly since someone noticed that all the railways stopped outside the city. It does fix a big hole in the city's transport infrastructure which you'd notice if you've ever had to try and get from Paddington to Liverpool Street for example but at £14 billion it's a huge chunk out of the rest of the country's infrastructure budget. Thameslink did the same for north-south back in the 80s and you now get into the Thameslink station through St Pancras, by the way, so you can see the lovely improvements they've made for the Eurostar terminal and then find when you get to the entrance that it's closed for the weekend. Hmph.

[Reginal Perrin]

Paddington to Liverpool Street is 25 minutes by tube. Cockneys moan too much.    

[simong]

Reginal Perrin wrote: Paddington to Liverpool Street is 25 minutes by tube. Cockneys moan too much.     Of course they moan, they're stuck in a confined space with seven million other people!

[jonleeds]

As if the government doesnt already [edited for content]-rape us enough everyday with taxes! Are they going to cut the cost of road tax and use this toll-road scheme as an alternative? I doubt it! Plus I thought they were going to try this a few years ago which is why there were these gantries of cameras on the M1 coming into Leeds, on Belle Isle Road and practically any other road coming into the city. These cameras have now gone yet that scheme must have cost millions to no effect. What a joke, as per usual!

[raveydavey]

To clear up a couple of points, the comments about the Outer and Inner Ring Roads being used as "gateway" charging points (ie you will be charged if you "cross") them is a fact.It's only at the planning stage, but it was reported in the YEP as "one option under consideration" a couple of months ago. A charge for crossing the outer ring road with a further higher charge if you dared venture into the city centre.The reason so many people make journeys between 7-9am and 4-6pm is because thats what time thir boss wants them at work. If everyones boss wanted them in at 3am in the morning, it would be busy then. It's ridiculous to suggest that charging people to go to work is going to move them onto public transport. Public tranport barely copes with current peak loadings. I don't call £2.50 to go five miles, much of it standing up, a "service", do you?The fact is we pay a fortune already to use our cars and public transport is a misnomer - it's run for profit by private companies. Look up the annual figures of companies like First or Stagecoach if you want to see just how much profit they make - much of it from public subsidy.The cameras on roads to the south of Leeds were a pre-cursor to charging (a trial run if you like) and one the then ruling labour group had agreed to implement. That is one of the main reasons we now have a Lib-Con coalition as the plan got a lot of Labour voters voting elsewhere. I seem to remember then the leader of the council lost his seat...

[Reginal Perrin]

It will devastate certain shopping venues such as Hunslet Penny Hill, Costco, Tulip Retail Park (well The Range) and Crown Point. You will not pay to go to the shops. Well i will not anyway.

[Reginal Perrin]

With Manchester's resounding "No" vote will this oput an end to proposals for road priicing? Was it always dependent on referenda?