Taxi Driver Online

EDINBURGH City Council took a brave decision in asking for an independent (but non-binding) report by Scottish Executive planning reporters into its scheme for road-congestion charging. The reporters have now found in favour of the scheme in principle, but suggested major modifications. The most important is that the 16,000 Edinburgh citizens with cars living outside the charging zone should not be exempt from paying, as the council initially proposed: their exemption was a political ploy to help the council win the forthcoming referendum on congestion charging. The reporters have a point on equity grounds and because the exemption drives a coach and horses (not to mention 16,000 cars) through the ostensible purpose of the congestion charge. But the reporters’ suggestion that buses and taxis pay the levy is absurd. Their logic - that every vehicle uses up road space - ignores the fact that public transport makes the most efficient use of that space. However, the reporters do point out sensibly that if licensed taxis are to be exempt, so should private-hire cars.

There is theoretical merit in charging for the use of a scarce resource such as roads, but there has always been the suspicion that Edinburgh Council is more interested in the cash-raising advantages of the scheme than in reducing congestion. Fortunately, the last say will be with Edinburgh’s citizens in a binding referendum.

What !!!!

Treating PH the same way as taxis in Scotland, surely not.

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IDFIMH

Very confusing.

The English Transport Minister who happens to be an Edinburgh MP, rejects what the Scots Executive suggests, but can't do anything about it.

Yet he can mess up all our lives, and our roads, and not pay the consequences at the English ballot box.

http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1222942004

Alex

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ʎɐqǝ uo pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ɐ ʎnq ı ǝɯıʇ ʇsɐן ǝɥʇ sı sıɥʇ

Simply the best taxi forum in the whole wide world. www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Well I suspect you voted for them.

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IDFIMH