Road congestion is falling fast

Reporter: Alan Salter
Date online: 12 February 2009

THE people of Oldham were right to vote against congestion charging, the Government’s own figures suggest.

For at the height of the road pricing debate last summer — which led to an overwhelming referendum No vote — congestion in Greater Manchester was falling faster than any other major conurbation in the country.

The speed of the area’s traffic fell below four minutes a mile for the first time in years.

Only two areas saw an increase in congestion — London where charging is already in place and West Midlands which rejected the idea last year.

The startling results come in the Government’s latest Transport Statistics Bulletin which also shows that nationally, car traffic in 2008 as a whole was estimated to be 1.7 per cent lower than in 2007. For journeys between major towns, delays on the slowest journeys fell from almost four minutes to 3.52 minutes for every 10 miles.

Greater Manchester lost the chance of £3bn of transport improvements — including Metrolink trams in Oldham town centre — from the Government’s Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) when all of its 10 boroughs voted overwhelmingly to reject the idea of congestion charging.

Transport ministers have since insisted that there will be no TIF money without it.

Sean Corker, of Manchester Against Road Tolls said: “Had this been known at the time, it would have reinforced our case which was that traffic hadn’t increased in Greater Manchester in a decade. But the councils were telling us the complete opposite.”

Congestion charge champion Roger Jones, the former Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority chairman, said: “Could it be that one of the reasons is that people were making more use of public transport?

“We are all driving less during this credit crunch. There will be another two years when congestion will be static. But once we are out of this recession, traffic will increase again.

“The good news is that the number of rail passengers has gone up by 40 per cent over the last five years — partly because of the improvements which Northern Rail have made but also because congestion has gone up.”