http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/motorists-to-be-diverted-away-from-tram-routes-1-3341519
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Motorists to be diverted away from tram routes"
(10 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
-
Motoring groups remain wary this is “the thin end of the wedge” in regards to banning cars from the city centre.
Whooop! Let's hope so. :)
Posted 11 years ago # -
[My phone is so excited at the prospect that it posted twice.]
Posted 11 years ago # -
Yeah, I hope so too.
Interesting snippet:
[iBrian McDowall of the Alliance of British Drivers said: “My worry is that this is a further step towards banning cars from city centres. The UK motorist provides the Treasury with £586 billion a year but is expected to give up more and more road space to public transport.”
City centre councillor Joanna Mowat has meanwhile welcomed the plan to “simplify and make it easier to navigate through the city”.[/i]
Alliance of British Drivers More Reactionary Than Conservative Councillor Shock.
Posted 11 years ago # -
This is another readjustment, following the new love affair with trams, political parties looking to gain from supporting trams and paving the way for them and yes, restricting car access. The same as many decent European cities. See the BMW parked on tram track story in EEN and bystanders trying to clear route for trams. I am looking forward to more
Posted 11 years ago # -
£586 billion?
That can't be right can it? Is that not roughly total government spending?Posted 11 years ago # -
As usual with the Johnstone press releases, it's not right. According to Wikipedia...okay, blind leading the blind...for the year 2011/12 motoring taxes raised £38 billion...7% of total taxation. It's still quite a lot
Posted 11 years ago # -
£586 billion?
That can't be right can it? Is that not roughly total government spending?According to a recent BBC article (decrying the state of the Scottish economy), in 2012-3, Scotland contributed £53.1bn in tax, which represented 9.1% of tax collected.
That means total UK tax revenue for that year was £583.5bn.
So either McDowall is either
(A) getting, "UK motorist provides the Treasury with £586 billion", from an assumption that almost everyone who contributes tax is a motorist.
(Which is daft because a lot of the money comes from business tax.)
or
(B) He's pulling numbers out his rear end.
Either way, I don't think it would be inappropriate to regard anything he says as laughable nonsense.
(Laughable nonsense that, nevertheless, suckered the Evening News, who apparently don't fact check.)
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Gibbo, ah, but businesses need vehicles and customers need vehicles to get to businesses so therefore business tax is ALSO paid by the UK Motorist.
... http://www.naden.de/blog/bbvideo-bbpress-video-plugin -->[+] Embed the video | "Indian"" target="_blank">Video Download Get the Flash Videos Posted 11 years ago # -
It's a bit sad in my opinion that we have to go to such drastic measures because its clearly a case of not trusting drivers being able to drive with due care and attention. If we only had a more positive attitude to dealing with such unselfish behaviour then it would happen less often and perhaps this ban would not have had to happen.
Posted 11 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
