CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
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Not Scotland, or cycling, but;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25197921
Plans to create the UK's first toll road for a decade are to be dropped, with improvements to the A14 instead funded from general taxation.
That's right, not from "road tax", but from "general taxation", i.e. everyone.
And another potential precedent to set a new financing model for road construction has been missed.
There is no road tax since 1937. infrastructure are always paid by general taxation.
@robyvecchio - Yes, most people on the forum have that info drilled into them, but that's pretty much the first time I've seen a main stream media outlet get the wording right.
@Kappers - What about the m6 toll?
(As an aside, I'm quite fond of the A14 as my driving test took me down a fair few miles of the road many years ago.)
infrastructure are always paid by general taxation.
Indeed - but this is largely lost on the news media and general motoring public. It's nice to see it acknowledged in the BBC who I'd normally have expected to say that the new road was being paid for "out of road tax".
@Kappers - What about the m6 toll?
Assume that's what the "in a decade" was referring to. I think the difference in this situation is that M6 toll was an addition to an existing route, you pay for privelege of taking a shortcut. With the A14 you were paying for the privelege of a new road being built.
The A14 twixt Cambridge and Huntingdon is an awful stretch of road. Far too much traffic. It will be intresting to see whether widening the road will help in the longer term - perhaps there will just be proportionally more traffic.
@kaputnik And another potential precedent to set a new financing model for road construction has been missed.
I'm not certain that I want a new model (although I'm open to hear what you might have in mind), as an hypothecated tax might propagate the sense of entitlement felt by those paying the tax... which is, of course, not a novel thought!
Robert
All motorways & trunk roads should simply be privatised. The owners can then charge whatever the market will bear, make improvements without taxpayer involvement, etc. Job done.
And of course there would be a regulation that they have to build a high quality segregated cycle route alongside any improvements/new bits
We have been using the M6 toll for ten years, started at £3 now £5.50 I think, there are cheaper non peak times. Still empty. The traffic continues on the main M6. The A14 proposal similar but shorter. In this instance as will be free the traffic will all go on it and the old A14 will be quieter? This is for sure the case on the M77 and A77
Language is everything in the news world. would have been nice if the BBC would have said :
"Plans to create the UK's first toll road for a decade are to be dropped, with improvements to the A14 instead funded from general taxation as usual"
Maybe some average folks would have said "oh, i didn't know that" and save me from reminding me 1937 to every motorist that pulls up that argument :)
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