Hopelly, this CONcharge will fall through soon.

May I ask why this story does not appear on the main news page?

Something to do with it being an anti congestion charge story perhaps?

More power to the CAP's elbow!

I am a Wigan Councillor and am completely against this TAX. We need a transport system that is free at the point of use and that serves everyone. Not just those that can afford to use it. Privatization has been a disaster for our Public Transport system. If New Labour or what ever they call themselves these days were Labour, things might be different. But, I am not a New Labour Cllr so I can say how I feel and VOTE accordingly.

Give us our REFERENDUM or be voted out your cushy council seats. We have nothing to loose fighting bureaucratic idiots, whereas you sat on your butts have everything to loose by not listening to your constituents. The majority of us, do not want road pricing, we pay enough on fuel charges and road tax's. Why is the cost of fuel only $3 per gallon in the USA(£1:50)???

Yeah more congestion..more fumes..more co2..more gridlock.Yes this New Labour mob have been a neo-Thatcherite failure,but thats no reason to do nothing about congestion,the status quo is not an option.

BluePolarBear, ex of Stockport

Congestion is at its lowest in years. Make yourself a coffee and wake up, youve been brainwashed!

If we remove all the manmade congestion levels will be lower still.

Paul

Congestion is a matter of public policy. Once again a road has been redesigned to engineer congestion. On Manchester Road at Denton where the road runs below the M67 at the lights at Oldham Street the road has been reduced to one lane. Now traffic turning right into Oldham Street has to queue with traffic going straight ahead. Consequently, double the queue. This is clearly a case of engineered congestion. If anyone is in any doubt go and have a look. And this is merely one recent example. The ideological reasoning is to frustrate drivers out of their cars and also create a case for charging.

I concur Fran :)

Fran M, I agree completely with your sentiments, but that junction is part of the new bus lane. The lines are being painted and signs are up.

Not that the bus lane isn't a farce either. It will cause the same congestion and queues you mention, and increased journey times for thousands of workers. The local pollution will probably quadruple, and the politicians and planners will be self-satisfied. There is a local election coming up, and we all can send a message then. Let's all do so.

Good stuff.

The pro-toll loons on here like to crow that motorists are paranoid when we speak of deliberate congestion-causing measures being employed by the powers-that-be but when folk come up with real examples they pipe down & scarper for the hills.

Another example - on Liverpool Road heading out of Irlam towards the M60 almost every morning from 0730H onwards there is a quarter mile of standing traffic caused by free-flowing traffic coming off Cadishead Way effectively cutting Liverpool Road's nose off. This means that locals are effectively blocked from getting out of town by passing traffic. Our local MP has approached the council with a view to finiding a solution to this but they have rejected attempting to sort it out in favour of doing nothing....at the same time they are planning to build a new stadium for Salford RL not half a mile further down the road. Wonderful.

As has already been said use your vote come early May!

You are right PW. This junction is now part of the new bus lane. However, the bus lane could have been included without restricting the road to one lane. On the A57 bus corridor website the following statement appears..."A dedicated bus lane at the junction with Oldham Street to allow buses to pass through the junction more quickly than they do at the moment. This lane will be built on what is currently unused land near the junction". The junction could have been designed to get traffic through efficiently. But that doesn't fit with the need to create congestion and frustrate drivers.If evidence were needed to confirm that congestion is Government policy a look at a booklet from the DfT, the TRL and Institute of Highways and Transportation may help. It is titled,
Urban Safety management Guidelines - Road Safety Strategies for Urban Communities.

Local councils are urged to:

Lengthening journey times on local distributor and residential access roads by reducing the speed of traffic, (mainly through traffic
calming)

Giving less time at traffic signals to traffic on local distributor and residential access roads taking space for car traffic by installing central refuges and hatching, bus and cycle lanes and fitting bus-priority receivers to traffic signals, triggered by transponders on
the buses.

The installation of traffic islands at this junction confirm that the local council are slavishly following the advice, and going further.

And then they want to charge drivers for the congestion they have deliberately created.

Fran. again a good post, and the stated objectives of the Govt and local Councils are quite appalling.

No doubt the answer to this from the pro-toll lobby is "Er, erm, I'll get back to you on that one"

They won't really want to give the game away, nor admit these actions are causing unnecessary damage to the environment and to the economy. They stay silent on these issues.

PW the answer from pro trolls will be

"doing nothing is not an option"

;- >

It is good to see that paul teeque concedes that congestion is engineered into road design. The 'doing nothing is not an option' argument' is intellectually lazy because it does not require examination of the evidence and the available options. It also lets the people who are causing congestion off the hook. In a democratic society these people need to be held to account for their actions. They waste public money and people's time. There are many other cleverer options like, stop removing road space from car drivers for a start. After all we pay for it to the tune of £48bn every year. Better road design and new road building is not a case of 'doing nothing'. The SEMMMS has only been in the planning stage in one way or another for about 50 years. The pro tolls argument is a Luddite argument and is akin to dis-inventing the wheel. Let's not do that.