Congestion tax in Portugal

Yesterday there was a sentence in an article about the recent statements from the Portugese governments on plans to become more sustainable that hinted that the government is not only positive towards congestion tax at least in the larger cities in Portugal but also started to talk with the mayors about it. Probably Lissabon and Porto.

Today came the reply in an article in Metro (national edition). On the front page it said that the municipalities do not want congestion tax. If you read the article the mayor in Porto basically says that congestion taxes are out of the question because their public transport system is lousy. His counterpart says that it is not a new question but cannot be discussed on its own. In short, they do not say no, but certainly not a strong support of the idea.

Quercus on the other hand says that congestion taxes are a bad idea as long there are cheaper ideas available such as making sure there are parking fees everywhere in the city or higher road tolls for people are alone in their cars. Putting parking meters all over Porto does not sound like a cheap deal, also Portugal has road tolls with a transponder, how do the propose to handle single drivers? In the US you can already buy inflatable "commuter buddies".

I think there is some kind of road toll for inner city traffic in Lissabon already, or at least part of the inner circular road (CRIL?). Should not be difficult to expand that.

In both cases the congestion tax could or rather should be used to improve the public transport system in the respective city!

Btw
Today I became a happy owner of two new books
State of the World 2007 Our Urban Future from the Worldwatch Institute and
100 000 000 Guinea Pigs Dangers in everyday foods, drugs and cosmetics by Arthur Kallet and F.J. Schlink writtein in 1932 printed in 1933.

The latter I managed to get hold thanks to amazon market place, but I do not understand why there are water tight sections between countries. I didn't find it on either .co.uk nor .de only on .com ...

36 11 66

Some clips from Jornal de Negocios 2007-01-29:

The numbers above are the percental increase in wind, hydro and biomass power the Portuguese government aims at for 2010. Now that probably seems little especially (wind and biomass) since wind power is considered one of largest potential in Portugal. But one of the dams are planned to be on a World Heritage Site! Also, biomass energy probably could increase multiple times its current use if all rest products from agriculture, and energy crops where introduced.

Also, the government foresees plenty (50000 til 2010) of microgeneration installations! That is also part of distributed energy generation system that will be studied (and developed) by FEUP and MIT.

Even so, talk about congestion taxes for Lissabon and Porto has surfaced at government level! See the previous post.

Portugal just started to get interesting!

Btw:
University of Minho has to pay a fine of 700 000€ because some century old cork oaks (sobreiros centenarios) were cut down during a recent construction on one the campi. The story is not improved by the severe budget cuts from the state (ca 10% or is 20%), now the principal is soaking up all reserves that the departments have to manage this year. If nothing drastic happens until next, such as a large increase in students, the axe will probably swing next year ...