The Government has started to consider ideas for generating money to invest in the road network. One of these seems to be road privatisation. Various ideas have been floated, including shadow tolls paid by (presumably) the Highways Agency to road-owning companies. Others include tolling some roads and using that to cut fuel duty ( bad idea, put fuel duty up and abolish VED).
Not sure if privatisation is a good idea or not, but if it gives us continuous A1(M) from London to Newcastle or fixes the A14 problem, then I won't complain. Still, I'd rather see money from the roads pay for rail improvements, since the best way to deal with congestion is to get cars off the roads rather than building more. Demand will rise to meet capacity, just as it always does.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17423693
<EDIT> They've said that there won't be any tolls on existing roads, but one MP went on the BBC lunchtime news and disagreed. That would almost certainly dump traffic from motorways onto parallel A-roads, what fun! :roll:
Not sure if privatisation is a good idea or not, but if it gives us continuous A1(M) from London to Newcastle or fixes the A14 problem, then I won't complain. Still, I'd rather see money from the roads pay for rail improvements, since the best way to deal with congestion is to get cars off the roads rather than building more. Demand will rise to meet capacity, just as it always does.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17423693
<EDIT> They've said that there won't be any tolls on existing roads, but one MP went on the BBC lunchtime news and disagreed. That would almost certainly dump traffic from motorways onto parallel A-roads, what fun! :roll:
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