On 11th December Manchester votes on the proposed peak time congestion charge. The basic being that there is an inner and outer boundary and each time you cross the boundaries going towards the city centre in the morning rush hour and away from the city centre in the evening rush hour period you'll be charged. £3 billion will be invested in public transport before the charge comes in. So we the people of Manchester have the opportunity to vote on this...so what will you do?
There are pressure groups out there for both sides: Vote Yes or Stop the Charge
What am I going to do? For me there is no choice, I will vote yes and it will either cost me money or it will make my life less convenient. It will force me to consider my options when thinking about driving to the city centre and will therefore encourage me to use public transport more. This can only be a good thing globally. I'm a left of centre, socially liberal, theologically eclectic person and so i recognise that I was always going to say yes to this. In my mind the equation goes:
Cars create pollution-pollution cause global warming-global warming is causing the death of the planet.
But maybe I'm being naive, maybe I'm not seeing the complexity of the congestion charge, maybe I'm missing something? I've heard concerns about the poor being discriminated against most, about the arbitrary position of the boundary, of it not being enough to bring about a change it attitudes to our cars, all valid points but the argument I've heard the most is it will make my life less convenient...
