The Manhattan Institute (and others) may approve of the idea of the tax increases known as “congestion charges” or “road pricing” (choose your euphemism), and believe that London’s has been a success (quite why, escapes me), but many Brits are not so sure. The Daily Telegraph has details:

A petition against Government plans to force motorists to pay as they drive has amassed more than 180,000 signatures. The protest appeared to be gathering steam with thousands of people adding their names to the Downing Street website every day. The number of signatories, collected at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/, has almost doubled in a week and at the current rate of progress the total will be in excess of 500,000 when the petition is taken down on February 20. As a result Downing Street’s exercise in internet democracy was threatening to rebound on the Government, with opposition to road-pricing dwarfing any other issue on the Prime Minister’s website. The grass roots revolt comes as the Government draws up plans to identify where the first road pricing trials will take place, in readiness for a planned national scheme in the middle of the next decade. Although the protest is backed by the Association of British Drivers, a small group representing motorists, the initiative is the work of one man, Peter Roberts, 46, an account manager from Telford, Shropshire. It will send a signal to the political parties, who have all supported the principle of “demand management” as a way of easing congestion.

Interesting to see that Cameron’s Tories are, as so often, on the wrong side of the debate.