Not enough evidence on which to base a decision
WHAT with family crises, trips to Yorkshire and other distractions, there wasn't much time to pick flaws in the transport strategy. Then, it didn't take long. It is, of course, a bit rich taking emissions lectures from a former airline pilot and someone who keeps jetting off to Australia. Not to mention accepting wide-vehicle and pavement-surfing admonitions from the sponsors of the giant bus fleet.
And if you're going to tax width, let's start with the Smart cars that park at right angles in parallel spaces, rendering themselves 8ft 10in-wide, and the drivers of small hatchbacks who cannot keep within the white line below Le Mont Saint Garage.
It's not the size, it's what you do with it – an argument deployed, admittedly, more frequently in the opposite direction.
Anyway, cheap laughs out of the way, let's get down to the evidence.
That's the problem.
There really isn't that much.
Look at the yo-yo school travel figures (Billet page 599).
Look at the inconclusive Town-commuter statistics from the obsolete traffic-monitoring equipment (Billet page 687).
Take the 118 million car journeys in the island annually (page 784)
And see that even at the 60p peak of the Island Coachways heyday, the bus service provided just under 1.6 million rides.
As I'll keep saying until someone takes notice, provide an alternative and only then can it become fair to tax-incentivise people to use that alternative.
Fail to provide that alternative and all you are doing is taxing a group of people who, in this case, have been milked half to death over the past nine years.
Given that we seem to struggle to provide the current scheduled bus service reliably – not helped by the over-frequent closure of main routes (ask any Route de Pleinmont resident, though doubtless there are others) – can we really trust the Powers that Be to provide a service that offers a viable alternative to more than a minuscule fraction of those 118 million journeys?
And if the 118 million figure is wrong, can we trust any of the other 'statistics'?
If any groups are going to be properly served, they will be school pupils and Town nine-to-fivers.
So we end up with the States having to pick up the tab for the bus service because it continues to provide the alternative, long-term parking, free.
To give some idea of the generosity, in the Guernseybus days of the tatty old Bristols, it cost £1.70 to get from the Imperial to Town. That must be the thick end of 30 years ago.
At least the States is always interesting when discussing paid parking. It has committed to it, then failed to set a rate and then there was the Brouard amendment, which, rather than levying a charge that did not reflect use of car parks (annually renewable parking clocks) instead levied a charge that reflected the use of something else altogether, the roads. (1.2p on fuel).
The danger this time is that in rejecting the (paid parking) minority report, the States will feel the need to 'do something' and instead plump for 5p on fuel.
With or without the width tax, that is anti-family.
When we acquired our '26' phone number and four children – doing our bit to defuse the demographic time bomb, we thought – we didn't realise that our need for six/seven seater transport we would see us demonised, victimised and getting repeatedly stiffed at the pumps.
A fuel hike and width levy will also be anti-equestrian, maybe even anti-Civil Protection.
And, more importantly, it is inflationary and anti-business.
Yet there is no firm evidence that it will significantly reduce vehicle use.
Vehicles have got more efficient over the nine years during which the levy on the motorist has been hiked annually by between 3.3% and 29.8%.
Yes, there is a correlation between duty increasing and fuel imports reducing.
But there is a world of difference between correlation and causation.
Of course we should promote car sharing, protect vulnerable road users, include people with disabilities and make alternatives to the car more attractive and that does come with a cost.
Not fuel tax again, though.
Factoring in road tax at 14p a litre (the rate at which it was transferred onto fuel in 2007), the States levied the equivalent of 20.8p a litre from the motorist at the time of the 2005/2006 Budget.
Inflating at RPI (+26.4%) to the time of the 2013/14 Budget produces a figure of 26.28ppl.
Take RPIX (+27.3%) and the figure is 26.48ppl.
Instead, the States milks us for 48.8ppl – an increase of 134.6%.
Even our anti-smoking policy has seen fags tax rise by only 80.3% over the same period.
Another 5p?
No, sorry, you've already taken more than you should from us and spent it on something else. Tough.
And a sursis would allow the newly-commissioned traffic-counting equipment to supply at least some of the missing data on which to make an informed decision.
There's not enough on which to base one this time.
Pete Burnard,
GY8 0QP.
