It is cheaper and quicker for me to take the bike and trailer to do the weekly shop than the car. I cope quite happily with small kids by bike. In fact, given the choice they prefer to go by bike than by car.
As for time on my hands.. I cycle to work because it is far quicker than driving and I am too lazy to walk (which is still quicker than driving). I live approximately the median urban journey distance away from my place of work.
Because people are too mean to pay for the facilities they want to use.. I find it remarkable that people will spend more on the fuel and time to find a 'free' parking space when they would be better off just parking and paying the appropriate fee.
Why should we pay for you to park your car? When will you start subsidising taxi fares and rail fares for the rest of us. We already pay through the nose for other public goods which are not expected to be subsidised.
And in the process you make the roads that are supposed to be usable by all, a no go area for large proportions of the population who, quite frankly, are terrified to set foot out of their front door.
What you describe is not a *public* good but a *selfish* good, one which is detrimental to the fabric of society.
Dream on.. though in Norway they found it cheaper to provide free ferries than to build a bridge or tunnel between certain islands. And who wants to go to that ridiculous expense when they could just walk across the road, if it wasn't for all those people feeling better by driving in their own cars at their own pace who make it impossible for other people to use the roads for pbutting and repbutting.
It is a car tax, not a road tax. You do not tax the roads, you tax the cars.
Would you claim it is a tax on shopping malls?
VED is as much a road tax as VAT is a shop tax.
..d
-- ---------------------------------- David Martin PhD Bioinformatics Scientific Officer Wellcome Trust Biocentre, Dundee +44 1382 348704 ----------------------------------
