[UK][Article] Multi-billion pound congestion charge proposed

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http://home.eircom.net/content/reuters/uNews/3614614?view=Standard

Multi-billion pound congestion charge proposed
From:Reuters
Sunday, 18 July, 2004

LONDON (Reuters) - A national road congestion charging scheme in England could raise 16 billion sterling a year, a think-tank says.

Money raised should be used to scrap road tax and pay for public transport improvements, the report from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) said.

Rural drivers would pay less in a model scheme put forward by the institute, while those in urban areas and business drivers would pay more.

"Motorists should pay for the costs of congestion and pollution they cause but motorists on low incomes should not be unfairly penalised," the report's author, IPPR associate director Tony Grayling, said in a statement on Sunday.

A high-use business driver in London could pay as much as 141 pounds more a month, the report said.

The institute said it would be a bad idea to use the money raised to cut fuel duty as this would lead to a 5 percent increase in traffic and more carbon emissions.

The report comes ahead of this week's publication of a government-commissioned independent report on the feasibility of road pricing.

Grayling said Britain's drivers were not the most heavily taxed in Europe but paid similar levels of tax overall to drivers in France, Italy, Ireland, Finland and Denmark.

It would take at least a decade to develop a national congestion charging scheme for cars based on global positioning satellite technology, Grayling said.

In the meantime, the government should introduce tolls on motorways when they are widened and promote more urban congestion charging, like a current scheme in central London, the IPPR said.