COMMENTARY: Congestion charge? Not on my street!

print this

By Matti Huhta
     
      “They’re going to put a road toll on our home street!” my neighbour declared indignantly. He had studied proposed models for congestion charges for the Helsinki region, as drawn up by the Ministry of Transport, and a map where the border for the congestion fee had been drawn south of the Kehä III outer ring road. Those who cross the line would have to pay a daily congestion charge of up to six euros.
      Indeed. The zone boundary seemed to go right past my own house in the Martinlaakso district of Vantaa. This means that every time I drive out of my front yard, I would have to pay the fee, and again when I come back.
      My car and I are being cut off simply because some car fanatics are clogging up the access roads to Helsinki during their daily commute. Why am I being punished, even though I have travelled to work by bus or train for nearly 40 years?
     
It is clear that something needs to be done to ease congestion and to promote the use of public transport. Setting up road toll borders on roadsides seems a bit antiquated, however - a return to the time when Mannerheimintie still had a couple of boulders reminding us of the ancient Töölö entry toll.
      Helsinki could start its own anti-congestion activity by finally desisting from building new parking facilities in the centre of the city. The less parking space in the centre, the less cars will be seeking to go there.
      According to studies, the biggest problem in commuting to work today is cross-town traffic congestion. To reduce this problem, congestion fees would have to apply to bypass roads, as the ministry has proposed in one of its models. And to keep traffic from moving from the main arteries to residential streets, the charges must be extended there as well.
      “How can we then guarantee fair treatment of residents whose home is in the border zone, right on the line of payment?” my neighbour asks.
     
The problem is a familiar one for those travelling on commuter trains. A person living in the same zone can travel to a destination as far as seven stations away with a local ticket, while someone on the municipal boundary between Vantaa and Helsinki or Espoo and Helsinki has to pay for a regional ticket for travelling just to the next station.
      In public transport, the boundaries are still the same as municipal borders. The congestion charge zones, for their part, chop up the city from inside.
      Driving from the park & ride car park of a commuter train station to pick up a child from daycare on the way home could cost six euros for someone crossing the congestion charge line in the morning and evening.
      Driving a few kilometres to a store or taking a child to a sports activity could virtually lead to penury.
      The Ministry of Transport has also looked into other options for payment. A much fairer option would be a billing system envisioned by the ministry that is based on the distance travelled. This system would nevertheless require the installation of a satellite positioning device in the car.
     
But suppose we forget all about antediluvian toll zones and silly satellites?
      If no other way can be found for financing road construction in the Helsinki region, supporting public transport, and averting unnecessary driving, then why can’t the Helsinki region impose a special petrol tax?
      It is unfair that motorists in rural Kilpisjärvi, in the remote far north of the country, have to pay the country’s highest fuel prices in order to drive on their bumpy rutted roads, even though nearly all of the big highway investments that require the financial support of Finnish motorists are made in the Helsinki region.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.3.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  No shortage of opinions about congestion charges (18.3.2008)
  Helsinki to study introduction of congestion charge (25.1.2008)

MATTI HUHTA / Helsingin Sanomat
matti.huhta@hs.fi