"Green groups write to Chancellor on fuel duty"
"In a letter to the Chancellor, the leaders of Transport 2000, Green Alliance, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace UK, WWF-UK and RSPB urge him to stand firm against protesters and implement the planned rise in petrol and diesel duty."
"On behalf of the group, Stephen Joseph, Director of Transport 2000, said: “Increasing current supply and freezing duty may reduce fuel prices in the short term and take the heat off the situation but will not address the pressing issue of climate change and the need to reduce our dependence on oil. The Government should make the need to tackle climate change the focus of its response to any protests.”
In terms of solutions, the organisations argue the Government should:
... Actively communicate to motorists and hauliers the link between road transport and climate change.
... Explain that the high cost of petrol and diesel partially reflects the damage they do in terms of climate change and make the link real by using a higher percentage of fuel duty revenues to support sustainable transport.
... Increase investment generally in giving people real alternatives to car use such as improved public transport and safer streets for cycling and walking. The review of the Ten Year Transport Plan should provide opportunities to invest in decent travel alternatives for everyone, particularly the millions of people without access to a car.
... Introduce incentives or regulations, including mandatory labelling, to encourage manufacturers to make cars much more efficient.
... Encourage the use of biofuels as a substitute for conventional petrol and diesel.
... Give tax breaks for low carbon fuels by rating fuel duty in direct proportion to their ‘well to wheel’ (full life cycle) carbon emissions"
All very worthy ideas, except for the fact that the current Government policy does not re-invest the Fuel Duty and VAT or Vehicle Excise Duty revenue in any of these measures, except in a tokenistic way. Changing the patterns of vehicle use by regulation or the building of public transport infrastructure does not happen by magic simply by tinkering with the crude mechanism of fuel tax policy.
Exactly what rate of Fuel Duty will spontaneously cause the creation of a decent public transport service serving any particular location in the UK ?
What evidence is there that the slightly "green" tax differenctials on low sulpher fuel or Liquified Petroleum Gas have made any significant difference to the take up of these fuels in preference to the more polluting ones ?
Hmmm! Seems to me that the Government mentioned congestion charging to scare people, as this has been followed sharply by the Environment Audit Committee's, urge to increase fuel duty again!
Haven’t MPs forgot that we already tried to encourage less car use and more use of fuel-efficient engines by introducing the fuel duty escalator, when environmental propaganda made it fashionable to be become eco-conscious?
Well for a start it was an option that would raise money quite nicely. After it was introduced in 1992, it isn’t hard to work out that fuel tax rose cumulatively by over 75% above inflation.
However, since then there is more traffic on the roads than ever. Although some cars have reduced by engine size, they often perform less efficiently, as they have to turn over at a much faster engine speed to keep all that weight moving, especially on the longer and faster journeys. For example, a 1 litre underpowered small car normally needs to spin over at 4,000 to 5,000 rpm at 70 mph. For this reason, you would be lucky to get up to 40 miles to the gallon. I had an Audi 80 once, which had a 1.8 litre engine that would tick over at a much quieter 2,500 rpm and returned a healthy 40 miles to the gallon. For long journeys, this is where the car should play its true role and for this reason, should be recognised as an essential part of a truly integrated transport system. In essence we should discourage smaller cars
Furthermore, I remember that diesel used to be much cheaper. It is also much more efficient, yet the Government decided to find something wrong with that too, so hiked up the price. But where did all this money go? Public transport?
Try telling me that spending £45 on a tank of fuel is too cheap!
Why hasn’t it been effective?
The irony is, the overall increase hasn’t made much difference to the cost of short un-necessary runs in cities. School runs That is the very type of journey we should be reducing. Yet for people in rural areas that depend on their cars to travel much further for the basic necessities, the extra cost is crippling! This is the exact reason why congestion charging, combined with the abolition of fuel duty would be a much fairer approach.
The commuting curse:
As an aside, it’s not fuel prices that have encouraged people to travel more. The increase in house prices, especially in rural areas, caused by the commuting rich, have displaced people who work in rural areas, forcing them to live further from their jobs. An increase in fuel tax would add insult to injury to these people who already struggle to afford a car, as it is not possible, nor practicable to use public transport.
Had it not been for increased fuel tax, more people would have replaced more older, polluting cars with something much more modern and perhaps efficient and thus less damaging to the environment.
Another benefit of reduced duty is that the money saved from not having to pay so much tax could have made more local housing, close to work, more affordable, thereby reducing distances travelled and reducing emissions.
Public Transport: Is this our saviour from global catastrophe?
Not really. Transport 2000, Friends of the Earth and the like seem to think we can just do away with the car and go everywhere by bus (and all will be happy ever after!!)
Lifestyle changes
As I have stated above, lifestyles have altered dramatically since the days when the working class used to work together, but also lived together, typically, just round the corner from work, their friends, and also all the local facilities they wanted for day to day basics.
Since then these very people have had to become more mobile to have access to jobs that replaced those that went with the demise of industry. Jobs become more mobile so people had to follow suit, not by choice but by force, with ever more complex travel patterns that cannot be met by walking, cycling, or with public transport. Social patterns have also changed greatly. People have friends and family that live further distances away than ever before.
People also have to work at different times. Try telling a night shift worker on a low wage to get a bus at 4am to get home. He/she has to rely on a car, but still has to pay almost £4 per gallon to pay for the cost of congestion that other people cause in the peak period. Is that really fair? Or is it simply the case that they should be put on benefits, as they cannot afford to travel. This just proves that increasing fuel duty will be ineffective and evil!
Town Planning
Furthermore Thatcherism did much to generate traffic. Given the unpopularity of urban road building and the image of public transport (which was further degraded and made useless by bus deregulation) she saw development dispersal as the solution and relaxed town planning rules to allow out of town retailing, office space and leisure, all of which is difficult to get to by modes other than the car.
If everything was more centralised, public transport would today remain more viable and attractive, especially if investment was made in first class light rail systems and underground networks. However, if we were more imaginative bit the bullet about urban roads and motorways and really thought about how we designed new urban roads, not just in terms of scale, but in terms of tunnelling and mitigating potential impacts would go a long way, to ease traffic.
I've been to Atlanta recenltly. Interstate 285 forms the city's M25, but in addition there are routes cutting across the city. I chose to drive through, on the 7-lane I85 at a peak time, and everything was moving quite nicely. As I was passing through, I decided to pull off and pay a visit to the city. I managed to park (very easily) in a multi storey. When I got onto street level, I was surprised that despite the fact that urban development is largely car based, it is very walkable.
Also, wide boulevards to carry larger volumes of traffic would have been a huge benefit, not only to traffic, but by presenting a greener image of cities. Have you ever noticed how boulevard-type dual carriageways with grass verges and tree planting looks so much better than, a tarmac dual carriageway separated by a strip of concrete or empty grass? Its also a more natural way of calming traffic and giving space to buses, cycles and pedestrians on wide footpaths. Central Milton Keynes is a good example. Even, Team Vally, a Gateshead Industrial estate, looks good with its central boulevard known as the Kingsway! Much better than streets which are over-decorated to attempt to calm traffic.
If we had decent urban areas, perhaps the rich wouldn’t be so desperate to flee from the cities. Perhaps the people who need to live close to their jobs in rural areas would be able to afford a home where they work. That way there would be no need to travel or any need at all to increase fuel taxes.
Fuel technology
We could also do more to put in place regulations to get car manufacturers produce cars to target that can run on alternative fuels, the most obvious being LPG. However, we all know that this would not generate the tax revenue to waste on everything else but on transport!
Road user charging – a fairer deal
For these very reasons, I see road user charging as being a better solution. But this must only be considered after we have put major investment in ALL forms of transport. Better roads, railways, buses, cycle links and stations.
What about public transport
Well, at the minute i'd rather cut my left leg off than travel on a long distance train. Grotty old stations, dingy waiting rooms and overpriced food and drink off and on board doesn't appeal to me.
Have you ever noticed how different an Airport experience is? You don't have to lug suitcases around for a start, you're dry and warm and have a whole range of facilities to pass the time. When you get on board (with the exception of budget airlines) you get free drinks and food, have a magazine to read and maybe a film to watch. If rail operators had these ideas, i'm sure that rail travel would take off (no pun intended!).
Even on buses, better information, more coach-like build quality and comfort and a choice between express and short hop routes would be more appealing.
In short its all about making the experience something in itself to enjoy, rather than dread!
Summary
Up until now, we have had promises to improve transport, but so far, I have seen nothing imaginative delivered. All political parties and pressure groups are too busy arguing the toss over promoting single forms of transport, rather than getting more realistic.
The conception of an integrated transport system is a farce, as it fails to take on board all forms of transport. If you want to get people out of their cars, its more than putting a few extra buses on the roads and slapping a extra tax on fuel. It’s about improving all aspects, and integrating it more with planning and looking at how we work, live and play. We need to think wider, further and with imagination!
Best regards