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Congestion charge is a tax for road users
4:00pm Thursday 17th July 2008
THROUGH your letters page may I register my opposition to the congestion charge.
The first thing to understand is that it is not a charge but a tax, as many people who rely on thbeir cars for work will have no choice but to pay it.
As a company car driver, whilst I do find the roads a lot busier than when I first started driving, I do not find it so busy that I cannot get around and do my work.
And of course as the country heads into a largely ‘government created’ recession, leading undoubtedly to unemployment, people will be using their cars a lot less.
In this regard more room could be found on the roads, if for example truck drivers were encouraged (via a reduction in say excise duty) to use their vehicles at night and perhaps over the weekends. Likewise motorists who do need their vehicles for essential purposes might also be encouraged to lay them up for certain days of the week if they were to be offered tax breaks, say by perhaps being allowed to purchase fuel at a reduced cost. Very useful to a pensioner struggling to meet ends meet.
Yours Ian Thompson, Alder Grove, Stretford.
Your Say YourTrafford
mms98, Sale says...
3:29pm Sun 20 Jul 08
Commuters travelling to work know how long it takes them to get into work on any given day and will continue to do so even if it means leaving 30 mins earlier in 10 years time.
I do have a couple of solutions to help the councillors who want this.
(1) Stop messing about with the traffic light timings and set them to let the traffic flow - not stop.. start..stop, as that is happening now - Have you noticed? That when there is a power cut or the lights are out..The result is that the traffic FLOWS.
simple to do and doesnt charge the car owner a penny extra.
(2) Put ticket collectors on every tram station- Not on the trams but in the stations.
This will stop people travelling without paying.
It increases security and will help cut vandalism.
It also employs people-who pay taxes.
This will give more revenue to metrolink ,and they can stop moaning to local/national government about asking for more money all the time!!
An example of this is any friday night at dane road station in Sale.The police and metrolink guards walk on and throw 40/60 people off 1 tram alone....wow,thats a lot of cash!!!
Multiply it by the number of trams that run every week.
(3)Take out the ticket machines that are so unreliable or are out of change or wont accept notes anymore and give the job to reliable collectors/guards (see point 2)
(4) Put the tram tickets prices up.
Why should the motorist have to pay another tax/charge after paying for road tax/ fuel duty/ Insurance / mot?
To pay for alternative transport.If the motorist wanted to do that , he/she would invest in their own Push bike.
Your sayYourTrafford
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MattSleight, Altrincham says...
12:47pm Fri 18 Jul 08
If you travel in the opposite direction you will pay nothing.
However I agree that a consistant approach with incentives to do good as opposed to punishments for doing wrong, would be much better than a congestion charge, which I oppose.