Date published: 2007/05/23
The Cambridge Evening News says:
City leaders have officially come out in favour of charging motorists for driving into Cambridge.
Liberal Democrats have put road pricing on the agenda for the coming year but want to use it to tackle climate change rather than just reducing congestion.
The move comes as the Government published its Draft Local Transport Bill - Cambridgeshire County Council is one of 10 local authorities considering running congestion charging trials.
At the city council's annual meeting tomorrow Lib Dems will set out their vision, including a pledge to "advocate to the county council that they introduce a road pricing scheme which discounts the price of road use for low emission vehicles".
Coun Sian Reid, executive councillor for planning and transport, said Cambridge could not deal with thousands of new homes unless something was done to reduce the number of cars coming into the city.
Lib Dems want to reward drivers who choose environmentally friendly cars with lower charges - just as owners of low emission cars pay less for season tickets in the city's car parks.
Yes, the Cambridge ruling elite hate drivers. (Excepting themselves of course, since obviously the Cambridge ruling elite needs to be able to get around.) The national government has always pretended that road pricing is about reducing congestion (i.e. kicking poor people off the roads), not carbon emissions. Indeed, there is already a perfectly good carbon tax on cars called the petrol tax. So adding another one (which is not even as good a proxy for carbon emissions) is not very bright. But nobody expects Lib Dems to be very bright, and certainly not the ones who lord over Cambridge. Nationally the Lib Dems have claimed that "the government must be open and honest with people about its intentions to push forward with road pricing", so hopefully the local Lib Dems will tell the voters loud and clear what they want to charge for people to drive around Cambridge. Reid lives in a mansion on Millington Road, so of course a tax of five or ten pounds a day to drive around Cambridge would mean nothing to her.
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