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23rd January 2003.
Dear Sir,
Your feature "High Price Of Tunnel" and your Editorial, 23.1.03.
You write in your front page article today (23.1.03): "Motorists are already paying through the nose for their cars........... Now it looks as though they are going to get another hammer blow.......".
In fact the cost of motoring has steadily declined for years in terms of average income, whereas the cost of public transport has increased. Cars are so cheap now relative to income that many families have two. Some have three or even more.
Vehicles trundle past people's front doors day and night and the drivers don't pay for the noise and vibration they cause. Neither do they pay for the accidents, loss of earnings, and damage to the health of local residents due to pollution, which are caused by cars and lorries. Most drivers don't pay for parking on the road or pavement, in residential estates. They don't pay for the loss of countryside, beauty, tranquility and amenity which roads and the vehicles using them destroy. They don't compensate those who lose their jobs due to car-based bulk retailing, in place of local shops.
The Tyne crossings Alliance opposes the construction of a new Tyne road tunnel on the basis that it would increase all these nuisances and add nothing to the employment prospects or wellbeing of residents. If the tunnel were built congestion due to the extra traffic in the region would increase.
The bill for the new tunnel would be nothing like £138 million claimed by the promoters. Not only are the costs which you identify excluded from this amount , but the cost of necessary and consequent enlargements of local roads to accommodate the extra traffic is excluded, and so are some unscheduled costs for reimbursing local residents. We have suggested £200 million. Probably, now, it's more.
Together with local residents we are holding a public meeting on Wednesday 5th February, at Jarrow Community Centre, to explain why we will oppose the scheme at the Inquiry. The doors will be open at 7.45 and we will welcome a discussion of these issues.
Yours faithfully,
Paul Winch, Co-ordinator, Tyne Crossings Alliance.
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