'Cash cow' cameras
Deputy Mayor Rory Palmer claims bus lane cameras are not cash cows, even though almost 10,000 motorists were caught and fined in three months on Charles Street, where one camera alone has raked in £190,000.
These sort of schemes are no doubt intended to benefit the bus passenger, but consequently drive the motorist (and businesses) away from our city centre, towards the out-of-town shopping centres such as Fosse Park, where there are no parking charges.
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Keeping clear: Charles Street, Leicester, where cameras are used to detect people driving in bus lanes
This strikes me as a city council campaign against the motorist, which continues with experimental lane closures such as the one on Newarke Street, causing unnecessary congestion and delaying all traffic including the emergency services which frequently use this route.
Our mayor and deputy mayor have joint responsibility for climate change and transport, so perhaps they feel they cannot promote one without damaging the other.
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You could come to the conclusion they might want to create a car-free zone in Leicester to save us from climate change.
If this is their priority, as I suspect it is, perhaps that is our council's ultimate intention, a complete ban on private cars in our city.
Who knows what plans our city leaders may have, after all Rory Palmer was recently promoting votes for under-16s who can't drive anyway.
As a nation with more than 30 million cars, our city council needs to acknowledge this reality, but in its idealistic world it appears to be opposed to cars.
If vehicles are indeed the main culprit of climate change, there is little our city council can do tackle this issue as it will take governmental policy to implement significant change.
The problem with our idealistic council's policy of restricting cars in favour of busses, is it severely damages city trade and this will inevitably lead to further decline.
The fact of the matter is, given a choice of bus or car, most of us would choose the car and travel in comfort to Fosse Park, with its free parking outside the shops.
This is the reality of the situation and our city council needs to acknowledge this and accept that to generate more prosperity in the city, it needs to adopt a more pro-motorist policy and provide plenty of free (or at least cheap) parking to bring back much needed customers to our city centre.
Perhaps a rethink on spending £4 million on Jubilee Square. Instead, why not invest this money in some additional parking, it might be money better spent.
Our young, fast-tracked and over-promoted deputy mayor really needs to think this one through a bit more thoroughly.
Nigel Richardson, Rearsby.
2 Comments
by LikeItaLot
Wednesday, March 06 2013, 1:29PM
“Get no money off me, I stay out of the lanes, easy if you have half a brain”
by roundthehorne
Wednesday, March 06 2013, 12:41PM
“The usual whinging from the "Oo, the Council are ant-car" brigade.
Here's a newsflash: yes, the Council are anti-car. So are many other people, including many car drivers. What makes a city pleasant? Is it lots of cars sitting in queues belching out fumes, or is it somewhere that famiies can walk and sit and breathe fresh air.
Provision for cars creates gridlock, parking problems (as well as public health problems). What car drivers can never see is that all their problems are caused by other car drivers. You want to drive into town? So do hundreds of other people and guess what, you won't all fit.
If you don't like it, go to your out-of-town stuff and leave the rest of us to enjoy the city centre.”