Sir, – John FitzGerald (“Congestion charges vital to get people out of cars and on to public transport”, Business, Opinion, January 13th) makes the not unreasonable claim that allocation of space in urban areas should be done on the basis of data rather than ideology. He follows this statement with some facts and figures, but then proceeds with some fairly subjective statements about who can cycle, which journeys it can replace, and finally, that congestion charging is better than removing parking or taking other space away from cars.
Any analysis of places with comprehensive cycling infrastructure shows that it is by far the most cost-effective way of moving people around cities, and that it complements, rather than detracts from, the public transport network. If we’re talking about ideology, the elephant in the room continues to be the huge amount of space that we allocate towards private cars, and the large “hidden” subsidies (health, climate, congestion, pollution and crashes) that we all pay towards their use.
Congestion charging may well form part of the solution towards reducing car use, but apart from the obvious wealth inequality flaws, it needs to be accompanied by a big space reallocation towards all three of the more efficient transport modes: buses, walking and cycling. – Yours, etc,
DAVE MATHIESON,
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