Date published: 2009/05/16
The Cambridge News says:
Claims that a congestion charge is needed to curb soaring traffic levels in Cambridge have been branded "completely unsupportable" by a drivers' organisation.
Car traffic has actually fallen in the past 10 years on bridges crossing the River Cam, a county council report has revealed, and on radial roads as a whole, the number of cars has stabilised.
The council statistics, in a document called the Traffic Monitoring Report 2008, show a big drop in motor vehicles crossing the Cam bridges.
In 1998, a survey found that close to 75,000 vehicles were using those roads, but by 2008 this had plummeted to below 65,000. On the radial roads, a council table shows that peak period car traffic is at the same level as it was in 1998.
The reduction in bridge traffic has followed the introduction of bollards barring cars from several major routes.
...
A county council spokesman said figures for vehicles crossing the Cam did not account for all trips into Cambridge, and so were not "a true reflection of congestion".
The "county council spokesman" is of course correct. But needless to say the council bureaucrats have in the past used the reduction in traffic over the Cam to prove that they were doing a jolly good job "reducing" Cambridge traffic. As the Cambridge News points out, the main reason the traffic across the river has decreased is that various roads have been closed. Needless to say the traffic has just gone elsewhere (some of it out of Cambridge completely, as ordinary people get fed up being treated like scum).
The main transport policy of the Cambridge ruling elite is to screw car drivers as much as possible. Closing roads is one example. Making a complete mess of roads (e.g. Newmarket Road) is another. Not offering enough parking and extorting customers in council-owned car garages is another. The so-called congestion charge (i.e. access tax) is another. The best thing that could happen to Cambridge is if all the transport "planners" were just sacked.
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