Will Manchester Get A Crossrail-Style Levy?
My Google Alert for Crossrail found this story in Planning Resource, which is entitled Crossrail levy model proposed for Greater Manchester mayoral CIL. This first paragraph sums it up.
A proposed city-regional mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) for Greater Manchester would operate in the same way as the existing pan-London charge to raise funds for the Crossrail project, with councils able to implement their own levies alongside the mayor’s charge, it has emerged.
Will Manchester’s council leaders and voters go for it?
From here in London, where if the Mayor wants to fund something sensible like Crossrail 2, all the Mayoral candidates and the Boroughs seem to back it, I can’t see all ten Manchester boroughs agreeing, as they seem to have a long record of doing things their own way!
The Anonymous Widower 
There already is an agreed substantial increase in precept to pay for Metrolink expansion. Would the local councils go for CIL – well all but one is Labour now and they will support any tax that someone else pays. When the Greater Manchester congestion charge was proposed, things were different and eventually Bury joined three other councils in supporting a referendum. This saw the electorate vote it down by a whopping 4:1 majority and the chair of the transport authority lost his “safe” seat to a ‘Community Action Party’ candidate in the elections on a mega ~25% swing. Just before the vote Ken Livingston had announced several changes to the London Congestion Charge including doubling the area, removing concessions and a 60% increase, so IMO all trust in promises that the charges in Manchester would not be similarly hiked in future evaporated. Ken lost his election as well.
Comment by Mark Clayton | April 4, 2016 |
I think in London, most people in Central London, except the very rich, are in favour of the Congestion Charge, more cycling and better public transport. It’ll be interesting to see what happens after Crossrail opens, as that could take a lot of traffic off the roads in the centre.
With respect to Manchester, I find it one of the worst cities in the UK to be a pedestrian, as traffic rushes everywhere, more so than say Liverpool or Leeds.
So perhaps it needs a Congestion control for vehicles in the centre. Speed cameras, which timed cars in and out and in all sorts of places in between, might be as lucrative in revenue collection as a congestion charge.
Comment by AnonW | April 4, 2016 |
One of the main issues in Manchester is the lack of transport infrastructure. The metro coverage is patchy at best, and there are, what seems to me at least, an inordinate number of breakdowns, and cars getting stuck on the rails! In the city centre they suddenly appear out of tunnels, I am genuinely concerned that one may appear as I am crossing the rails near Piccadilly. I don’t walk well as you know, and I use a scooter in the city centre. I plan routes to avoid tram lines. And I can’t take my scooter on the tram until I go and pass some sort of assessment of the scooter – not apparently a test of my skills using it.
As a disabled driver can park pretty much wherever I want for as long as I want. and I have been known to go shopping and take my car from shop to shop if the one way system and hatched yellow lines allow this. I volunteer sometimes on a Friday, and I can park on a nearby carpark free, and use my scooter to get where I need to go. I would prefer to take a tram, but there isn’t one near my home, I have to drive for 15 – 20 minutes to get to a tram, but I have the test to sort first!
Comment by nosnikrapzil | April 4, 2016 |
Manchester isn’t a low floor tram, which makes it easier for the disabled and wheelchairs. I also think, you could probably take your scooter on buses in London, as scooters and wheelchairs use the second entrance.It would certainly help if all new buses were to the London standard of an entrance and exit and a flat ramp for wheelchairs etc, straight into the disabled bay.
Comment by AnonW | April 4, 2016 |
I would be fine on the buses, most of them have some sort of hydraulic thingy which brings the bus entrance down to pavement height for prams, wheelchairs, scooters etc.
However, until 18 months or so ago there was a blanket ban on all scooters on all trams, and I think all wheelchairs. It has been a hot topic since the trams started running, and the ruling now is that most scooters are still banned on all trams, but there are a small number of models which are allowable, if the person using them passes a test, at which point they will be given a pass for themselves the scooter – has to be the same scooter and the same person on it. When I last looked, my model of scooter wasn’t on the list of allowable ones, but it is a new model, and the earlier ones are allowed, so I think mine will be in due course.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | April 4, 2016 |