Edinburgh Congestion Charge - Aftermath

Aftermath

The council accepted the results of the referendum and did not implement their proposals. A final bill of £9million was put on the development of the proposals.

The House of Commons select committee on transport suggested that the rejection of the scheme would delay plans to introduce other schemes in the United Kingdom.

Although the costs of the public transport schemes are still politically contentious at a local and Scottish level, the council continued to spend money on the Edinburgh tram network, buses, and new park and ride schemes.

In retrospect, Transport Initiatives Edinburgh noted that, although there was agreement that congestion needed to be contained, there had been clear public opposition to the concept of road pricing as a direct traffic restraint measure. The failure to achieve support they attributed to a range of factors:

• lack of consistent political will
• a distrust of the motives of the authority
• an absence of a powerful champion for the scheme
• significant stakeholder opposition
• a commitment to a popular referendum
• a difference in perception between the 'transport professionals' and the stakeholders. Edinburgh's scheme designers were attempting to introduce a road pricing mechanism as a proxy for making road users pay the full marginal cost for their journeys, while public opinion was that congestion came about because the alternatives to car travel were not viable, yet the schemes showed no commitments to investment in alternatives before road pricing would start.