Manchester Congestion Charge Vote D-Day Looming
December 1, 2008 Posted by: Richard Lawton
All eyes will be on the city of Manchester in a few days times when results of the referendum on whether the city and the surrounding area will accept a peak time only congestion charge in return for substantial investment in public transport will be announced.
What is more, TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk, is based on the edge of this scheme so is paying particular attention to the vote.
The result will be seen as vital for not only residents of Manchester but for other UK cities that have plans on the drawing board for congestion charge zones. Furthermore, other countries, including if reports are to be believed some of Barack Obama’s aides, are watching closely, deciding when and how their own plans on tackling congestion in their busy cities can be formulated.
The Manchester Plan
In its most basic format the premise is simple. The UK Government has a centrally allocated fund for innovative transport solutions available to UK regions the TIF (Transport Innovation Fund.) This money is available to councils/regions to upgrade public transport. On top of this money, Greater Manchester would also borrow an addition sum of money in the form of a loan, payable back to the government over a long-term loan (something in the region of 30 years.) In all, almost £3bn would be allocated to the ‘Greater Manchester Future Transport’.
The proposals include investment in the city’s tram system, including new routes to outlying districts – although by no means is the tram system comprehensive in its coverage across the city, a London Underground it is not. Train stations and stock would also benefit from the scheme, with improvements to most of the main stations and extra carriages made available. An upgrade to the city’s buses is also promised, including extra school buses, and new buses and lanes to cover the busiest routes. Interestingly Manchester suffers from having the busiest bus route in Europe, between the large University campus and the city centre. Finally, an integrated ticketing system would be implemented, including a smartcard system similar to London’s Oystercard, to make fare structures simpler and easier to use.
So far, so good; however that is not the whole picture, the reason why this is such a hot topic is the inclusion in the plans of a peak-time only congestion charge to help pay back the investment in public transport. If successful this would create the world’s largest congestion charge zone – covering some 80 sq miles. In comparison, London’s zone is 8 sq miles, Stockholm’s 18 sq miles, and Singapore’s 2 sq miles. Unlike London’s congestion charge, Manchester would have two zones, inner and outer rings, where drivers would be charged when passing through either ring.
Both sides of the argument
Bickering, spin, and myths have been key features of the consultation period and seen regularly in the run up to the public referendum. Both sides have been accused of spinning certain aspects of the proposals to the benefit of their argument, recently the Greater Manchester Future Transport had a number of complaints upheld by OFCOM regarding an adverted shown on regional television.
Meanwhile, the NO vote campaigners are seemingly trying to turn the vote into a one issue cause by almost exclusively focusing on the maximum cost a driver could accrue with the congestion charge of £1200 per annum – playing on people’s fears without exploring the whole proposal.
What appears to be happening is the vote is turning into a purely political argument, with significant campaigning similar to what you would expect to see with an approaching general election. But is it really that important? Well, to the hundreds of thousands of people living in Greater Manchester it certainly is, and for the many thousands more than work within Greater Manchester and yet do not have a voice or opinion in the vote, yes it undoubtedly is, but other conurbations in Britain and further a field will also be looking with interest at the outcome. The future of congestion charging in their current guise is inevitably tied into the Manchester proposals.
Distilling fact from fiction
The original TIF document weights in at a large 315 pages, which will not have been read by 99% of those voting which has to be worrying when something so important is being considered, so what are the facts of the scheme? Researching this article has been difficult, while information has been easy to come across removing the spin has been less easy.
The headline figures that have often been used are that Manchester’s public transport infrastructure will benefit from £3bn in public spending, this is not strictly true. Up to £3bn will be spent however between £325m - £1bn will be required to build, install and implement the congestion charge – that is between 11% - 33% of the total budget set aside for the whole scheme. The congestion charge will be implemented only when 80% of the scheme is on line, however what this 80% consists of has yet to be decided.
Misinformation also would appear to be the order of the day when looking at what is paid for by TIF money. The Metrolink tram has become an emotive point for both sides but much of the planned additional track is independent of the vote yet has been included in the Yes campaigns literature and advertising – why include this unless the GMFT are looking to mislead?
Congestion in certain areas of the city is chronic and growing yet other parts of the city have actually seen a reduction in congestion which begs the question why such a large scheme needs to be implemented in the first place – perhaps localised traffic reduction measures and public transport measures would have been preferable to the current “one solution for all” scheme.
The environmental angle of the scheme is also flawed; while reducing congestion coming into the city would be an obvious environmental benefit there has been no provision for environmentally friendly exemptions to paying the charge; in stark contrast to the London charge, owners of Hybrids and electric vehicles would still have to pay the full amount -hardly an endorsement to helping push people into choosing a cleaner, greener vehicles. Furthermore, all delivery vehicles over 3.5 tonnes will have 100% reductions in the charge, good for haulage but bad for the environment!
One area where TIF could have made a substantial change to many Mancunian train commuters would be to ease the ‘Manchester Train Bottleneck’ which is currently restricting the number and frequency of trains in and out of the two main train stations in the city centre. Trains on the whole are running at capacity and until the bottleneck is relieved there cannot be a real increase in train frequency. A real opportunity lost, when substantial investment will be made on the stations and trains but not in the amount of journeys.
What is clear that the final few days will see an escalation in lobbying the public by both sides.
With the outcome in Manchester drawing close, other schemes in other cities will follow in the next few years as congestion threatens the economic survival of many city centres.
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