Dispatches – Bottleneck Britain

On British television tonight on Channel 4 was an interesting documentary on the state of British roads. Are we headed for gridlock and what can be done about it? Because my viewing was interrupted by a telephone call and because the program was so interesting I watched it twice thanks to the Channel 4 +1 service on digital television.

The message appeared to be that road pricing is necessary to both encourage people to modify their behaviour and to pay for improvements in public transport, which is hailed as the cure for all our ills. Now I may be mistaken but there if the revenue from road pricing is necessary to pay for improvements in infrastructure then isn’t there a danger that if it actually succeeds in reducing the number of people driving at peak times it will fail to raise enough money to make the necessary changes.