Friday, December 15, 2006

Transported logic

The government is talking about expanding Heathrow -if the airport meets its pollution targets. To achieve this, they've started leaking the idea of creating a congestion charge around the airport... to remove some ground transportation CO2 (powered by taxed petrol/diesel).

The alternative of taxing aviation fuel (kerosene) and invest in new high-speed rail has not been investigated by the Edington report: the ex-BA boss who was asked to work on the "future of transportation", which he did by totally ignoring indirect costs such as environment, health, etc...
For instance, it is claimed that delaying the airport expansion could cost £5bn. The flight path to Heathrow alone is impacting over 1 million Londoners. Who has factored in those costs in the equation?

No comments: