Comments on: Think-tank’s Head of Transport says cyclists are “low-value”, don’t pay for roads and “delay traffic”

By: 3rdWorldCyclingintheUK

3rdWorldCyclingintheUK — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 06:37:00 +0000

Yep, that’s why places like Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portland, etc etc are such economic failures and Britain is such a success. Er, hang on….

By: LoveloBicycles

LoveloBicycles — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 23:08:00 +0000

Like I say, he doesn’t seem to be much of a libertarian, just a quack. Follow his tax hypothecation to its logical conclusion and we should be charging pedestrians for their pavement use, a fee for any person to enter the public highway. Then you get into the realms of externalities of transport choices, at which point you probably decide that you want to charge drivers even more and that cycling is a benefit to society by reducing healthcare costs so cyclists and pedestrians should be given tax credits. As I say, not a libertarian or at least only one type of libertarian, just an idiot.

By: JD

JD — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:17:00 +0000

And many cyclists (me being one of them) also pay VED anyway. Given that my car is 16 years old, I am still paying £200+ per year, which will be more than many of the complainers in their super-efficient, BlueMotion machines on reduced VED due to reduced emissions.

The whole argument is broken at a fundamental level, even if we accept the absurd notion that motoring taxes pay for the roads.

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 21:36:00 +0000

When he said “a tiny minority of (often low-value) users.” was he talking about cyclist such as Allan Sugar? Or does Lord Sugars “value” change depending on which mode of transport he is using?

By: carltonreid

carltonreid — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:41:00 +0000

It seems to me that libertarians want the sort of liberties that are great for a wealthy minority but not so good for the majority. Road pricing would likely be great for fat guys in BMWs and Audis who will be able to afford to travel at peak times on peak routes.

And the stuff about being able to speed everywhere, with no restrictions whatsoever, may be liberating for a few motorists, but incredibly dangerous and restrictive for any other road users. Except, of course, if the only road users in mind are motorists. Not so much liberty for all, liberty for a sub-set. Libertarianism doesn’t seem very egalitarian.

But then again I like Soviet bread queues.

By: LoveloBicycles

LoveloBicycles — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:37:00 +0000

He doesn’t look like a libertarian to me, he looks like an anti-biker. A libertarian would recognise that the bicycle is one of the most libertarian of machines, unregulated, untaxed, unlicenced. Frankly with all his talk about low value and cyclists holding up motorists I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. Does a bicycle courier in London think ‘I could get there quicker by car if only it wasn’t for all the other cyclists holding me up.’?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:57:00 +0000

Think-tanks are notorious for employing experts to lend credence to deceitful and misleading piffle. One has to remember that the very raison d’etre of think-tanks is to separate vested interests from their opinions and to promote those opinions as sanitised and authoritative ‘policy’ to governments.

It may be useful to remember what Upton Sinclair famously noted:
‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’

By: carltonreid

carltonreid — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:42:00 +0000

Induced demand is pretty much mainstream. And the guy who first mentioned it – in 1960s – was a rampant petrol head not a tree hugger.

By: bazzargh

bazzargh — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:54:00 +0000

Wellings is supposed to be a transport economist so should have heard of the Downs-Thomson paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox
This is the paradox that building more roads doesn’t decrease congestion, and holds wherever the large majority of peak time commuter traffic is via mass transit (as in London, where the figure is over *85%* – see http://londontransportdata.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/long-run-trend-in-commuting-into-central-london/ ). What happens instead is that changes in capacity leads to mode change – train users shift to cars and vice versa, and reaches equilibrium when the rate of travel is the same via each mode.

The paradox isn’t just a myth, or an artifact of mathematical models; studies have observed the predicted reduction in rail passengers and increase in traffic in, for example, in the creation of new motorway routes into Sydney. (http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/zeibotspetocz2005motorwaycapacity.pdf)

Wellings argues that regulations should be removed and ‘the market should decide’ – but he seems to ignore this very pertinent example of the way the market decides in his own speciality.

Also of note: he argues for ending rail subsidies (no doubt making more attractive the toll roads espoused in his book – sponsored by toll road provider Serco). This would price more people onto the roads. That figure again: 85+%. The congestion in London now is caused by under 15% of commuters. Does he think that pushing more of them onto congested roads is sensible? He’s ignoring not just the elephant in the room, but the herd of them on the train.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:15:00 +0000

I bet Mr Dwellings lives on the M25, and likes nothing better than a Sunday morning walk along the hard shoulder. Personally, I’d gladly pay a cycling tax if it meant we got better facilities. The present system treats cyclists like second-class citizens where some paint on the road is seen as provision enough.