The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
There is a separate forum for Street Furniture (traffic lights, street lights, road signs etc).
Registered users get access to other forums including discussions about other forms of transport, driving, fantasy roads and wishlists, and roads quizzes.
Bryn666 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 11:49
The Congestion Charge is a difficult one, because this does fall into the "what happens when you reduce congestion to the point it's not worth having the scheme" question. The answer is apparently raise the charges and shorten its operating hours.
It's reasonable to assume that, whilst a CAZ charge might result in a permanent change so levels stay changed after its removal the removal of a congestion charge is likely to result in the return of congestion.
That is a reasonable assumption - it's also why many mental gymnastics were applied to not remove the tolls at Dartford. The demand there is already overwhelming without it being a free crossing. Perhaps the revenue raised from the traffic could be used to reintroduce frequent cycle and pedestrian shuttles so the connection across the river is free if you're not driving a car. Induced demand works both ways.
When the DART tunnel opened there was just such a service, with even special buses to convey bikes with their riders, but was withdrawn after a short time as the lack of traffic made it uneconomic. However, things have moved on and there is currently a bus for pedestrians and also a service for bike riders https://www.ensignbus.com/route-x80.html https://www.gov.uk/dartford-crossing-bike
Looking into emissions based parking further there seems to be a similar Work-based Parking Levy (WPL) scheme in Nottingham. This allows a workplace etc., to make an extra charge to discourage driving. As mentioned by several other people in this thread it must be a fine line between raising revenue and pushing away potential business.
