from Sunday Herald, 30 January 2005
Cars will have to be banned from streets in the centre of Edinburgh if congestion charging is rejected in next month's referendum, council leaders have warned.
New safety limits for air pollution will force councillors to take "draconian" measures to restrict car use in six areas, including Princes Street, George Street Queen Street, Haymarket and North Bridge.
"We'll have to shut roads that don't meet the limits. The implications will be horrendous for the people of Edinburgh," the city council's Labour leader, Councillor Donald Anderson, told the Sunday Herald.
"If we can't find a way of dealing with this by congestion charging, we are going to have to take cars off the streets. I don't think that is in anyone's interest."
Legal limits on levels of nitrogen dioxide and carbon particles in the air are due to come into force in 2010. The pollutants, which come mainly from vehicle exhausts, damage the lungs, blood and immune system.
They are thought to increase the risk of infection and aggravate breathing difficulties for those with asthma. The Institute of Occupational Medicine has said that air pollution kills over 600 people a year in the central belt.
The City of Edinburgh Council predicts that the limits will be breached in six pollution hotspots unless it takes remedial action. Its proposed £2-a-day congestion charging scheme will cut pollution levels in the city centre, it says.
The congestion scheme is to be put to Edinburgh residents in a postal ballot due to run from the 7th to the 21st February. They will be asked to vote 'yes' or 'no' to the council's "preferred" transport strategy.
"If it's a 'no', we will end up having to do something more draconian, and it will be unpalatable," warned the city's executive member for transport, Councillor Andrew Burns.
"Without congestion charging, we will breach the air pollution limits and will have no option but to declare a 'Low Emission Zone' to combat the problem. This can only mean rationing or banning traffic access in parts of the city centre."
The council would look at prohibiting cars on weekdays, or at rush hours, in the six most polluted areas. "People think this is scare-mongering, but it isn't," Burns said. "The air pollution limits will be mandatory in 2010 and we have to meet them."
He also revealed the council's estimate of the contribution that congestion charging could make towards combating climate change. In the first year of the scheme, emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, would be cut by ten per cent - 4,000 tonnes - in the city centre, he said.
But the warnings by Anderson and Burns have been dismissed as signs of "panic" by anti-congestion charging campaigners, who believe that they are on course to win the referendum. They accept, though, that the vote could be close.
"Congestion charging will make nitrogen dioxide emissions in the city centre worse because the use of buses, taxes and lorries will increase," said Tina Woolnough, the spokeswoman for Edinburgh Communities Against Congestion Charging.
"If this was a green scheme, I would support it. But the traffic flow is forecast to increase in 80 streets between the two charging cordons. Air quality will worsen where most schools are."
The scheme consists of one cordon around the city centre and another around the outskirts. Motorists will have to pay £2 a day to enter the inner cordon during working hours and the outer cordon during morning rush hours.
Woolnough welcomed the idea of restricting cars in some areas as preferable to congestion charging. "Pedestrianisation of city centre areas is an obvious solution," she said. "George Street would be lovely if it was pedestrianised."
Transport campaigners, however, backed the council's position. "The council has a legal duty to reduce pollution from traffic," said David Spaven, Chair of TRANSform Scotland.
"The congestion charge proposals will deliver major cuts in emissions in the city. If the plans are not implemented then banning cars from central Edinburgh will be the only feasible method of meeting statutory national air quality standards."
David Begg, the chairman of the government's Commission for Integrated Transport, thought that people were not as worried about air pollution as they should be. "I wish the public were more concerned about the impacts of traffic on pollution," he said.
But the key to the argument over congestion charging was the dramatic benefits it would bring to many thousands of bus users, he argued. "To win the referendum we have got to focus on how it is going to improve journey times, not just for motorists but for bus passengers," he said.
The Sunday Herald reported in October that the congestion charging scheme introduced in London in 2003 by the mayor, Ken Livingstone, had led to a 16% drop in toxic exhaust fumes. Emissions of climate-wrecking carbon dioxide had also fallen by 19%.
Last week we revealed that the Liberal Democrats were split over the Edinburgh scheme. Edinburgh LibDem councillors' vocal opposition was being challenged by LibDems in Edinburgh University and Glasgow.
Edinburgh air pollution hotspots
REFERENDUM ON CONGESTION CHARGINGEdinburgh’s first-ever referendum – on a transport programme which includes congestion charging and increased transport investment – will be held by postal ballot between the 7th and the 21st February. The results are due to be announced on 22 February.
Edinburgh residents will be asked to answer 'yes' or 'no' to the following question:
"The leaflet enclosed with this ballot paper gives information on the Council's transport proposals for Edinburgh. The Council's ‘preferred’ strategy includes congestion charging and increased transport investment funded by it. Do you support the Council's ‘preferred’ strategy?"
