"Road charging gets MPs' backing"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4380413.stm
Which links, via the Commons Transport Committee's website, to
their Report:
or, if you like pdfs:
which includes, under "Soft factors", the slightly worrying suggestion
that among the sensible and desirable measures the Committee would like
to see adopted without delay to reduce congestion are more "cycling
facilities" and "cycle networks".
I can see the arguments for road charging, but what worries me
particularly is the combination of doubtless appallingly-designed and
unmaintained farcilities with a brand new "Road Tax" to confer ownership
of the road on the motorist - at least, in their own minds.
I suppose that the levels of cycling would be likely to rise in the event
of road pricing actually happening (and it wouldn't be for years yet, in
any case), but still I can't help suspecting that road pricing would have
the effect of making individual cyclists even *more* unwelcome on the
roads than now.
Or am I worrying about nothing?
--
Mark, UK.
"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in
almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from
authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue
but have taken them at second-hand from others."