Nottingham is introducing a tax on workplace parking if a firm has more than ten parking places for employees. The aim is to provide a further disincentive to using private transport and reduce congestion.
The fee for a parking place is £288 a year and employers can pay it or charge their employees. Presumably if the employer pays the fee then employees will need to declare it as a 'benefit in kind' for tax.
Will £288 be enough to reduce congestion very much? Well probably not. But the scheme should raise £14 million and that is going to fund two new tram lines and provide a cheap and efficient improvement to public transport.
Trams are incredibly cheap to provide compared to other types of public infrastructure and if they have good routes will be very fast (but not if they head down crowded streets and compete with cars of course). They are also very environmentally friendly and fit into a sustainable transport policy very well.
We know from places like Singapore that congestion policy needs a series of supporting measures. This increases the effectiveness of each (making the cross price elasticity of demand more elastic). So Nottingham are also introducing parking restrictions to avoid people avoiding the charge by parking on the street. With the investment in trams they are probably doing all a local authority can.
Many people object to this move but it really does seem to be a policy informed by our understanding of transport economics.
I actually think that this is a good idea. Obviously if I could drive and I worked in Nottingham I would be upset because £288 a year is enough for me to stop using my nice car and use public transport more. It looks like they have thought of everything especially the sneaky people that would just park on other streets. I think that even though it may cause some inconvenience, in the long run it is definately a good thing, reducing pollution and congestion and receiving possibly £14 million which would be used with the public in mind. Hopefully the routes are good and the majority of people find it is a good change.
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