2:23pm Tuesday 29th April 2008
I WRITE in response to the front page banner headline Council unites to scrap tolls' (Globe, April 23).
What sort of encouragement to use public transport is this? Absolutely no encouragement at all! I have written before on this subject and I will emphasise again, scrapping the tunnel tolls will cause untold damage to the environment through car and commercial vehicle exhaust fumes, untold traffic congestion and, more than anything, uncontrolled loss of passengers and revenue to the Mersey Railway which will lead to job losses to station staff and train crews.
Merseyrail has an excellent five minute train service from Hamilton Square under the river into Liverpool formed of the 15-minute departures from New Brighton, West Kirby and Hooton (the Hooton departures formed of the half-hourly services from Chester and Ellesmere Port).
Surely this campaign by Wirral councillors and the Mersey Tunnel Users' Association is misguided in the fact that the tolls on the Scottish bridges were instigated because the bridges concerned are the only links to the relevant places? (the Skye Bridge and the Erskine Bridge to name two).
And where do these people think that the money to maintain the tunnels is coming from? It will finish up coming from the taxpayers' pockets!
I urge Wirral Council and the other campaigners to think again or I'm afraid I will be one person who will reconsider who I will be voting for.
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