We can have our road-pricing cake and eat it by building more roads and improving the existing stock. The trouble is that the likes of Ken Livingstone has got only one half of the equation right, that is the regulation of demand. However, the revenue that comes from congestion charging goes not into the betterment of the road users lot but instead into providing better public transport. Why? Surely public transport should use its profits to reinvest in itself. Another point -- why are buses exempt from London's congestion charges. As they contribute a bigger "footprint" and are used throughout the working day (about 30% in the congestion zone), surely a charge of something like £50 / bus at the current rate would be in order

Steven Roberts, Waltham Cross, England

Building more roads. Forcing them off the roads. There is a third option.

The main problem is the ever increasing number of motor vehicles in the UK (as also on Corfu!). It is this ever increasing number of vehicles in a limited space that is the fundamental cause of the problem.

Suggestion that it should be illegal / impossible to register or import a new vehicle unless you can demonstrate that another (similar) vehicle has been legally scrapped or exported. That would at least keep the numbers stable.

As a side effect it would create a market for scrapped vehicles and thus would effectively prevent dumping. It would also encourage the removal of dirty older vehicles from the roads.

Brian Vallance, LEFKIMMI, Greece

Your link between road building and progress lacks logic. You say that society needs to get moving but, without specifying what it should be moving towards, there is no rationale in your argument that more roads is the appropriate solution. You have decided upon the answer before the question (“where society is heading”) has been defined. You also ignore the evidence of the last 40 years: road building has never reduced congestion for anything other than the short term; an improved road system encourages more drivers and more road freight and we end up with equally bad congestion, just spread over a wider area. I remain sceptical about the causes of global warming but the government’s responsibilities under the Kyoto Protocol are indisputable and on this basis alone the remedy to congestion must be to reduce traffic rather than increase roads.

Jon, Guildford,

Of course we can build our way out of congestion- there is only a finite number of cars, or people willing or able to drive them. The whole thing about 'latent demand' being released by roadbuilding just doesn't apply in most areas outside of London, where car ownership and use has already peaked, with most people of driving age owning and using cars.

Martin, Tamworth,

The Romans worked out 2000yrs ago that people are prepared to travel on average 1 hour to commute to work (this was walking).The problem with building new roads is induced demand. Journeys that once took too long to contemplate are shortened by new roads, thus making them popular and therefore again congested. The government needs to take a step back and ask why are so many people making journeys. In my opinion a more holistic approach is needed, town planners need to encorage development so to limit the demand for road travel, focusing high demand development in well connected centres, rather than out of town complexes which rely on road transport. Employers also need to be more flexible so that people can work closer to where they live, for most office based roles this could even be home working. I know its easier to say and harder to do but where is our ambition?

David Bishop, Birmingham, UK

It seems that everyone's forgotten the environmental implications of all this, let alone the fact that the dominance of the car had a disastrous effect on urban planning and the design of British cities and towns in general. Motorways are much less efficient than railways in transporting people. I have lived in Australia where driving is essential because public transport is very patchy. I have also commuted on the M6 daily and I have survived the crush of passengers on Virgin Voyagers coming out of Birmingham New Street. I now live in a rural area and choose to use public transport because I have a conscience about the effect my transport choices have on climate change.
A war council is needed to stop the unquestioned subsidy of roads, to reduce the myriad barriers to pedestrians and cyclists, to stop building car-centric housing developments with no architectural merit and start funding public transport projects so that roads aren't needed anyway.

Stuart Foster, Insch, Aberdeenshire

Sorry Mick, it's not possible to expand capacity on roads to meet demand. Successive Governments tried it for some decades - while running down/pricing up public transport and building car-based development so entrenching car dependence. The "freedom" and "choice" to use a car is often no choice at all - all other options for getting to the places and people we want to access are difficult, expensive or even dangerous. Newbury, with its bypass aimed at "solving" traffic congestion, is now as congested and dangerous as before. Building more roads will simply add another twist to car dependence. Oh - and Government has not stopped building roads - the M1, M25 and M6 are all being widened, at the cost of billions. No-one, including the Government, pretends this widening will buy more than a few years relief from congestion.

Stephen Joseph, London,

"Even without road pricing the Government already takes about £45 billion a year in taxes from road users, and spends no more than £7 billion of it on roads"

Surely this is enough justification for us to demand (via e-petitions or some other method) that road pricing be scrapped at the very least until all the revenue paid by motorists is used on investment on the roads?

Pete, Cov,

Traffic is good - it denotes economic activity: lots = good, less = moribund. The term "congestion" simply denotes YOUR displeasure at the lack of road capacity - your problem surely. New roads will fill up; that's what they're for. New regulation displaces, never removes the stream of public activity: road pricing will simply mean that in time we will certainly all join the growing minority who refuse to register our vehicles. There isn't planning space, political will nor public finance to build whole new public transport infrastucture where we need it: there is also a legacy of public mistrust of a committed treasury refusal to support the national passion for driving cars - and now we are all drivers. Road pricing will always be seen as punitive and arbitrary. Nothing in history supports the Govt's ability to deliver an IT-led solution here; and even if it were to succeed, no Englishman would accept a variable (and unforseeable) charge without unaffordable challenge.

mark shorten, havant, Hants,uk

Got it in one Mick!
However, as an interrim measure, while waiting decisions, objections, delays while anti-motoring folk chain themselves to things, one suggestion:
A "war council" is set up whose sole task is to get the traffic moving as well as possible in what we've got, to maximise the efficiency of our current roads: clear minor accidents/breakdowns in minutes not hours, clear the cones, sort the traffic lights, remove the bus-only lanes, rip out the speed bumps except those with a clear safety function at schools etc, ditto speed cameras, ditto road calming measures that aren't around a school safety need etc, clear the "out of bounds" white-lining that has reduced so much of existing road space, sort the nanny state white lining that has converted many previously legal overtaking areas into no go zones etc etc
I could go on, but you get the drift: if we were at war it would be done, and we are at war: with often deliberate congestion!
Read J J Leeming: "Accidental Expert"

Peter Jones, Caernarfon, Wales