imlach

Did you also notice the survey was biased in colour schemes?

Red = no change
Amber = 1 zone
Green = 2 zones

Hmm...pshychological colouring being used to influence their preferred choice......

ozzy

Father-Jack,

A hill would be "Arthurs Seat", so unless you've got that in between you and work, get on your bike ya layabout

Stefan

father_jack

There's a feckin great hill down the side of the Pentland Land Rover garage which I would have to navigate
You need something capable of doing a 1:1 hill to get up that!

imlach

Father jack - the road in question is Craiglockhart Avenue.

You can avoid most of the steepness by taking a short cut down my road (as it avoids going up to the top at "Napier" crossroads and back down hill to Happyvalley/sports centre).

No excuse now eh!!! :-)))
Hehehehe.

imlach

PS - how much is a typical 2nd hand E55? Sounds nice.......

father_jack

I'm looking at 22-23k for a 98-S with about 40k on it.
Like my big saloons.

As I say, contract renewal permitting. Need something to keep up with workmates M5 and to really p1ss him off too cos his was £50k

Excellent thunderstorm at the moment btw ........

imlach

[another counter argument from someone at work]

> In summary, this is a dumbed down attempt to bias people to
> vote in favour of the "big green improvement" option without
> a fair consideration of the alternatives or of the impact
> that charging would have on city centre businesses.

You're right, but probably wrong to expect a 'public consultation' to be anything otherwise. I would support the right of the executive to consult in the manner they see fit, then proceed with their plans and see what happens at the next local election. If the right to free road use is as close to everyone's heart as the 'poor overtaxed motorist' lobby make out then it'll be an easy vote winner for the opposition.

Off the top of my head I can think of three alternative ideas, all less desirable:

1. Business as usual. With world oil production now at peak [1] and terminal decline maybe a decade away, an ever-increasing demand is likely to yield a repeating cycle of oil price shocks and recessions. How will city centre businesses like that?

2. Fund public transport improvements some other way, either privately or from council or income tax. Also known as 'subsidise the motorist even more' [2]

3. Revive the Tories' 1970s plans to build a big motorway on stilts across the Meadows. It was a bad idea then and they're not getting many local votes even now.

Congestion charging isn't without its problems but is the only realistic idea I've heard so far which acts as both carrot and stick. For all the whinging there are very few constructive alternative proposals. And the world oil picture indicates that like it or not, we have no option but to reduce fuel consumption in the coming decades anyway. (Why else would Bush have a big solar-powered ranch in Texas?)

As for a 'city devoid of facilities', other places around the world have experienced just the opposite by restricting car use; we'll have to see what happens here. If the people of Bogotá can see that all but banning cars from the city [3] will reduce social exclusion and improve their quality of life, then surely we in relatively safe and comfortable Edinburgh can afford a teensy bit of vision as well?


[1] http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/domino/html/research.nsf/DocID/B82535700D9B379786256B1F004CD51E/$File/196.pdf
[2] http://www.flora.org/afo/cc0.html
[3] http://ecoplan.org/votebogota2000/vb2_index.htm

father_jack

I'm working at the Executive btw - was just talking to someone having a *** outside, they're already looking for people to fill the new post of "Traffic Tsar" or whatever - so I'm afraid it's already been decided.
Oh and the disaster room in Glasgow is being readied - so global war is probably on the way, so no need to worry about all this traffic nonsense anyway.

imlach

disaster room for what?

father_jack

Dunno - I'm guessing for war against Iraq. It's just a bunker where all the top people go to surf the net and eat tinned food while the rest of us die from smallpox. Nothing to worry about

RB5-Black

Corner :P SORRY couldn't resist

Pay roads are a V bad idea

[Edited by RB5-Black - 7/30/2002 5:50:12 PM]

Gordo

The survey is outrageously biased - effectively 'vote no to the charging and get diminished spend on public transport' as opposed to 'vote no to another tax and deliver the services you robbing socialist *******s already overtax us for!'

Private sector funding initatives are the way foward but NOT road tolls. A good example would be the Manchester tram system.

Gordo

H7

LOL @ imlach "However, once a Borders rail route is resurrected ...." Not in our lifetime, matey It won't happen, I'd put money on it.

kart_man

Survey - what survey ??!!??

Did anyone actually receive the survey ?? I called to get one and did receive it, but were any actually distributed ? I would have thought to gain the real opinion of the people, it should have been distrubted. I only heard because of an advert on Radio Forth !!

boomer

See also the top (27th July) article at http://www.abd.org.uk/news.htm

If there was ever any doubt about so called 'consultation exercises' there isn't now. The Scottish Executive have advertised a civil service job for dealing with road tolls in Edinburgh. This job advert appeared before the so-called public consultation about the road tolls had finished. Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie said the advert proved that the consultation exercise was a "sham".

[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

mb