Who Will Pay for Knee-Jerk Reaction to Congestion Charge Vote?Holyrood Commentary: Critics Must Look at the Big Picture, Says Iain Macwhirter

Summary

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THE sorry saga of congestion charging in Edinburgh is like climate change in microcosm. Everyone realises that it can't go on - global warming or city congestion. It's not difficult to understand what needs to be done. But in our consumerist democracy it's becoming increasingly difficult to persuade people that the long term includes them. Electorates prefer to be treated like children and told fairy stories to protect them from uncomfortable realities.

Edinburgh is already close to gridlock, and with a 50-per cent increase in congestion forecast over the next 15 years the city fathers realised they had to do something. Public transport won't work because the roads are choked with cars. The sensible thing to do is to use the price mechanism to discourage casual road usage and provide funds for improving the public transport system.

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Who Will Pay for Knee-Jerk Reaction to Congestion Charge Vote?Holyrood Commentary: Critics Must Look at the Big Picture, Says Iain Macwhirter

It is, as they say in America, a "no brainer". But what do you do when you discover that the people themselves opt to have no brains? What do you do when they would really rather not face up to their responsibilities as citizens, and would rather deceive themselves that somehow the arithmetic is wrong? And what do yo...

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