Driving forces behind road tolls plan

EVEN in the 1950s, Edinburgh’s narrow cobbled streets - most of which were built to accommodate the slow plodding of the horse and cart - were beginning to feel the strain of increasing congestion.

In November 1956, the last tram was withdrawn from service, scrapped to make way for the rising popularity of the private car, and the modern flexibility of the bus.

And six years later, the city’s South Suburban Railway fell under the axe of Beeching’s infamous closures, and for most people, the only travel choice left was to walk or otherwise take the corporation double-decker.

In the past half-century, Edinburgh has changed dramatically, blossoming from a small, parochial city to a booming international destination, but its transport infrastructure has barely changed.

While other local authorities, including Glasgow, built their way out of transport problems in the 1960s with huge motorways through their centres, Edinburgh’s heritage lobby scuppered council plans for a six-lane inner ring road, which would have cut a swathe through the heart of the city.

So long as a minority of residents owned cars, congestion was largely kept under control.

But, by the late 1980s, Professor David Begg - who was to gain notoriety as the city’s "anti-car" transport convener - had already made up his mind that congestion charging would be needed to tackle the problem.

"I reached a conclusion that we weren’t going to tackle congestion, no matter how good the public transport was," he says.

"The growth in traffic in Edinburgh has been pretty continuous since the Second World War.

"Trams were taken off the roads because they were taking up too much space and had to make way for the car.

"The growth of the car means there is a reduction in the number of people who want to travel by public transport, so trams and railways became uneconomic. But it is only now we are beginning to see the growth in car use and congestion which is not sustainable. We have to try to persuade people to travel differently."

City council leaders agree: they have drafted controversial plans to charge motorists a 2 road toll, payable for crossing one of two cordons, one around the city centre and another just inside the bypass.

Subject to the result of a public referendum - voting commences next Monday - the council says the toll could fund 760 million in transport improvements over 20 years.

EDINBURGH already has the highest ratio of bus use in the UK, partly because of a lack of public transport alternatives, but also because of the often over-looked fact that four out of ten residents don’t have access to a car.

But this statistic is changing fast: increasing affluence, higher house prices and a growing population are leading to a sharp increase in car ownership in the city and the surrounding region.

Only 46 per cent of households had a car in 1981: that had risen to 60 per cent by 2001. As a result, congestion levels have increased by 60 per cent in the last 20 years, and are forecast to rise by another 50 per cent by 2020.

Prof Begg, who now chairs the Commission for Integrated Transport and is one of the Government’s key advisers, says decades of under-investment in Edinburgh’s infrastructure have not helped, but insists that improving public transport alone will not be enough to reverse the congestion trend.

"The city has suffered from a lack of investment - Edinburgh is the biggest conurbation in Britain that does not have passenger transport executive status, and this has affected the city’s ability to get more revenue."

He adds that without congestion charging, the council will be faced with trying to raise additional money through taxation or simply continue with small, "incremental" changes.

Prof Begg believes the council is right to pursue the more radical strategy - and he reveals he wishes he had gone further during his time as city transport leader. "I would point to two mistakes on my watch: the first was not taking cars off Princes Street altogether, and the second was not to develop a ring of park-and-rides."

And while he has no regrets about Greenways - "it was an attempt to make the most of public transport with a limited budget" - he says it was unhelpful that he became "pigeon-holed" as being anti-car.

"I felt I was hypocritical by driving to work every day and using my free parking space at the council, so I decided to give up my car. But I was criticised for not understanding motorists’ problems."

Prof Begg left Edinburgh politics in 1999, but it is partly thanks to his legacy that the council still has a reputation for being anti-car.

The man now in the transport hot-seat is Andrew Burns, and as the tolls debate has become increasingly polarised, he has been taking great pains to point out he likes using his car - and that road tolls would make life "easier" for motorists.

"I was never an automatic convert to the possible use of congestion charging," he insists. "I am a driver - I use my car frequently at weekends and in the evenings, I have a young family. I don’t use it for my main commuting journey because I am fortunate enough to live on a good bus route, but I thought long and hard about whether we should use the powers to introduce congestion charging or not."

So what convinced him that he should pursue a policy which would split the city down the middle?

"On the evidence side of things, we have had 60 per cent traffic growth in the last 20 years, and we have another 50 per cent coming in the next 20 years, and I don’t think I have heard anybody contest that," he says.

"We are going to have another 50,000 people living in Edinburgh and the Lothians by 2015 and another 25,000 jobs by 2015. It is fantastic - Edinburgh is the economic powerhouse of Scotland and the south-east region is the only region where the population and economy are growing - but it creates huge challenges.

"Looking at all the evidence from across the world it strikes me that there is no city with a population of 500,000 that over a long period of time, say ten to 15 years, has decreased congestion just by improving public transport.

"This is all really about dissuading unnecessary or non-essential journeys, it is not about stopping all traffic coming into the city - quite the opposite, it is about making essential car journeys easier."

HE adds: "I have never been one to declare that London and Edinburgh can be directly compared, but courier companies in London have been saving a fortune and taxi drivers love the damn thing because they can make more journeys. A lot of businesses have profited."

In February 2003, London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone, introduced a 5 congestion charge to enter a 22 square kilometre zone of central London. According to Transport for London, congestion has dropped by 30 per cent.

"London has seen a bigger shift in public transport than any other city in the world in the last three or four years," says Prof Begg. "The cynics have been proven wrong in London."

However he concedes that many Edinburgh people remain to be convinced congestion levels are anything like as bad as they were in London before road tolls were deemed necessary.

"If you were benchmarking Edinburgh with other cities, it is one of the worst in Scotland and has one of the most acute problems in northern Britain, comparable to Leeds or Manchester, but when you compare it to the south-east and London it is not as bad.

"But if car use continues to grow, it will become more difficult to develop public transport.

"A good example of this is in Munich - it has everything you could want: an urban rail system, trams, buses which integrate with trams and integrated ticketing. But every year they are losing passengers because there is no car restraint. It is BMW territory; one in six jobs is tied up with manufacturing cars."

In other words, he argues, the carrot won’t work without the stick.

Prof Begg concedes people would rather not pay the 2 toll, but hopes they take a longer term view of the problem.

"It may be that people in Edinburgh think that the illness is not worth the medicine. But if it does not seem so now, then it very soon will be."

Tomorrow: Don’t miss our detailed report on the council’s road toll proposals and what they could mean for the city.

Tory brands city car ban warning as scare tactics

CITY leaders have been accused of mounting desperation after claiming cars would have to be banned from the Capital’s streets unless the city votes for road tolls.

Senior Labour councillors said cars would have to be banned from pollution hot spots in order to meet air-quality standards.

But opposition politicians have accused them of scare tactics as such a car ban would have an extremely limited effect on the city’s air pollution. The council’s own research has found that buses release up to eight times more nitrogen oxide than cars.

Heavy diesel engines fitted to buses are responsible for more than two-thirds of polluting emissions in Princes Street.

Residents will register their support or rejection of congestion charging when they go to the polls next Monday.

City leaders have suggested areas such as Princes Street, North Bridge, Haymarket and George Street could be earmarked for a car ban if the public votes no to tolls.

City leader Donald Anderson has claimed that cutting the number of cars travelling in the city is the only way to meet strict European air quality laws by 2010.

Opponents to the plans today accused him of telling "scare stories".

Allan Jackson, Tory transport spokesman on the council, said: "The whole thing is ridiculous, cars are not causing that amount of a problem.

"Cars are the least producers of pollution, but they will not be able to ban buses and taxis, the argument from the council is that buses carry more people.

"There is nothing left for them to come up with. Now they are coming out with these scare stories.

"Cars are already being taken off Princes Street. In George Street, the council executive are doing their best to take cars off, and in Queen Street it was their policies which would put them all there in the first place.

"They are panicking and painting themselves into a corner. I’ve never seen an administration in such a state in all my years as a councillor. It’s unbelievable."

Councillor Donald Anderson said: "The position is that air quality targets become mandatory in 2010 and local authorities will have to take steps to meet them. Congestion charging is the only way to do this.

"The last thing we want to do is take extreme measures in Edinburgh like taking cars off the roads but it would become necessary. We have to reduce to traffic."

Cllr Anderson denied the claims were intended to influence the result of the upcoming referendum. He said: "We are not going to take accusations of scare-mongering from the groups opposing road tolls. It’s a simple statement of fact. Congestion charging is the only way to meet these targets."

Friday Exclusive

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