11 February 2011

Vote with your wheels

Someone has suggested a protest against the new Gauteng freeway tolling system -- a #votewithyourwheels campaign. Tweet and retweet #votewithyourwheels

Here's what to do:

  • On the day tolling starts, every taxi, bus, truck and car should make for an onramp to one of the tolled freeways and stop. Block it. Have a taxi strike, bus strike, whatever.
  • In the coming municipal elections, find where candidates stand on the tolled freeways, and don't vote for any candidate or party that supports tolling. Vote for those who oppose it.
Back in the bad old days the National Party government stole money from the Road Fund (paid for by a fuel levy) to finance its wars and destablisation in Angola, Mocambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They then introduced toll roads to cover the deficit -- on some of the roads.

What's the ANC's excuse?

The fairest way of paying for roads is a fuel levy -- the more you use the roads, the more fuel you use, and the more you pay. The new Gauteng toll system places an unneccessarily heavy burden on those who have to travel to work, whether they travel by car, bus or taxi.

Vote with your wheels - tweet and retweet #votewithyourwheels

Don't take it lying down. At the other end of the continent, the people of Egypt are not letting the fat cats get away with it. Why should we let them get away with it here?

2 comments:

Cori said...

I may be one of the few people who support the tolling system. If the public transport system comes into place between PTA and JHB, then I hope it will discourage people from driving between the two cities and encourage them to use public transport.

In London, the 'congestion charge' toll in London has been quite succesful in getting people off the road and into public transport and car pooling.

South Africans are much like Americans in their attitude towards transport. Like them, we tend to hop in our car for every little trip and prefer to drive our own car than car pool with others.

The London congestion charge has descreased the number of cars on the road significantly, decreased traffic accidents (by being able to monitor road activity more closely, amongst other things), and decreased pollution significantly. On the other hand, delivery costs into the congestion charge zone has increased as has number plate falsification. Still, the benefits seem to outweight the costs.

I'd like to wait and see how this unfolds before taking action against it. Anything that gets cars off the road seems a benefit to me.

Steve Hayes said...

Cori,

If there were a decent public transport system, I would agree. I would avoid driving in London even if there weren't a congestion charge, because the public transport system is good, though expensive.

Here we have minibus taxis, which will also be affected by the toll fees.

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