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Tuesday, 19th August 2008

Motorists should pay more to park in town centres to force them to walk more and reduce traffic congestion, according to a Government minister.

Well, maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong. But here's what happens when politicians throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into their arguments.

In a clear sign that he believes motorists should be targeted, Mr Healey said that charging more would result in "reducing congestion, improving levels of health and exercise, encouraging the use of local shops".

Ah, no. Parking meters were first used in Ohio (Cincinnatti? Cleveland? Not that it makes much difference, even to those who live there.) and shopkeepers were very much against them. They thought that people having to pay for parking would reduce their trade. What actually happened is that trade went up.

For people who were parking all day were replaced by people who only parked for 30 minutes or an hour: just long enough to pop into the shops in fact.

If we really wanted to encourage the use of local shops (although quite why we'd want to I'm not sure) then we'd take that little insight further. We would cut, to zero, the cost of parking for 15 or 20 minutes: the time necessary to pop in for the milk and the newspapers, and raise it substantially for longer periods. For if we want to increase traffic through the shops then we want to increase, not the number of parking spaces, but their turnover.

Of course that also increases congestion, reduces the levels of health and exercise and quite probably contributes to boiling the oceans. Which is perhaps why Ministers shouldn't try throwing every argument they can think of into their justifications for their pet schemes.