That was a stupid thing to put forward to be honest. People don't want to pay more money - this kind of thing has to be imposed, like it was in London.

How many cyclists are out there in Manchester anyway? 4000 or 5000? Compared to which number of drivers? .... enough said.

The government's typical bribery. The congestion charge scheme is worse than London's. When such a small amount of money generated by the motorist is put back into transport and the infrastructure, this just looks like another insidious tax from a despicable government. The government must stop punishing the motorist. Put good alternative means in place first - so people are persuaded to leave the car at home. It is obviously a money grabbing scheme.

Now they have an excuse for why public transport isn't going to improve. Did they have a plan for what they were actually going to do with the revenue raised?

Ballot the masses if they want more money taken off them and what will they say ?

It was a joke .... and so were the 'promised' improvements in cycle amenities, it wouldn't have happened.

Just ban private motor vehicles from the city .. the only way we are going to change car culture is when we force the lazy and the fatties out of their vehicles.

aye - stupid idea to make it a referendum. Selfishness will always win. Yes, the plan was full of holes, but anything is better than the status quo.

Ah well, I'll keep on enjoying whizzing past the drivers in the queues.

The congestion charge was always doomed. I live and cycle in Manchester, and the campaign was, frankly, ridiculous. Most of the advertising ran with the tag line "I won;t have to pay." I forget the number it said wouldn;t pay - 80/90%. If so many wouldn't pay, what was the point in introducing it, and where would the funding come from to pay for it. It was no secret that councils would have to take out a loan to implement the system, and if revenues weren't there to pay back the loans, it would go on the council tax. Ridiculous. Even me, who voted, forlornly, yes, could drive a coach and horses through the yes campaign. Better perhaps to focus on the lives saved, maybe.

Where I live, in Stockport, we also had the prospect of paying for it, but not really getting that much in return. A new bus station, some extra trains, some spruced up station, but no Metrolink (kyboshed by the Government a few years ago).

And then there was the believability of it. Apparently they'd actually been taking trains off the line, rumour has it, so that it wouldn;t cost them more to put "extra" trains off.

Shocking.

Also, the scale of it and the seemingly stupid way it would be implemented: Two bands, which, if you passed through them you paid, if you moved inbetween the bands but didn;t cross them, you didn;t pay. How does that affect congestion?

Better, as my friend, a devout driver said, if they want to address congestion, simply pedestrianise the entire centre of Manchester, or, as another friend said, take away all the parking. So much easier, so much cheaper to implement.

And don;t vote on it, just do it.

Like I said, I voted yes, but I can understand why so many voted no.

Sorry, that should have read "wouldn't cost them to put "extra" trains on."

I come from Greater Manchester and was able to vote and even though I am a keen cyclist, I voted NO.

The Area that they were proposing was rediculous...literally driving anywhere inside of the M60 Motorway would mean a charge, so you would be charged an amount for driving where there isn't any congestion.

I come from oldham, which, unlike Gotte and stockport, IS getting the metrolink...but it has supposedly been getting it for 10 years now! The government repeadidly pulls the plug on funding to fund other project that are down south, and anything up here gets put off for so long that I think a lot of people in Oldham have almost forgotten about it! I agree that public transport should be made a lot better, and a lot of the changes that they were wanting to introduce would be very good, but I dont see why they have to balckmail the public by saying "you'll get all this, but only if you pay." I'm sure a lot of people would use public transport if it was a lot better and a lot more convenient, but as it is, it's hopeless!

It was clear that this vote would be lost. Look at the consultation from London on the WEZ. of the Congestion Charge 67% of those motivated to write in opposed the scheme, and 41% in a telephone poll opposed the WEZ and 45% supported it!

Sadly, a significant number of those using p-t, or without cars... are the socially excluded and these people do not respond to letters - and some don't even have land line phones, thus respondents do not reflect the data revealed in each census.

The opponents of the Charge, gave laughable reasons. I received a reply from Kellogg, with their reasons for opposition, based on OPINION and not FACT.

As said above, the focus of the YES campaign should have been on the benefits and the short-time scale, and the objections of the NO, were given more hearing as the yes campaign responded.

A 20 minute bus service is not good enough, so the council do need to go away and look at what public transport services are really needed.

[i]saying "you'll get all this, but only if you pay.[/i]

but that's not what was said. it was 'you'll get all this. If you don't, we can't impose the charge. And if you're using the improved public transport services, you won't pay the charge.'

seems people missed that crucial bit..

Cyclists haven't "lost out". I am a cyclist. I voted "No". The plans were rubbish and nothing to do with reducing congestion. They were about making city centre pretty for visitors and making money for the local councils. It was going to be cheaper for me to pay the congestion charge (for two travelling together in one car) than for us to use public transport to get to work on icy/days when we can't cycle. That's called a tax - it's not a choice.

I also agree that the 'zones' were stupidly large. You would have had to pay to go to Prestwhich from Bury. There was also no plan to provide anything extra or even to give a vote to people coming in from Derbyshire either, as many of my colleagues do, yet they would still have to pay the charge. On rainy/icy days, rather than cycling to work (13 miles) I get the train from Salford Cresc (having been dropped off there in car, where partner works) to Oxford Rd where I work, but if we had to drive in and pay the charge, ( 'cos it would still be cheaper than using public transport even taking fuel into account), then he would drop me off in Manchester - I would obviosuly not choose to pay an extra £2 for a return train ticket, having already paid the congestion charge. Therefore, in our case we would actually be adding to the congestion, not reducing it! Of coruse the two hour trip by public transport, to/from work (I have done it a few times) is reduced to one hour maxiumum (sometimes less) by car. I just wouldn't do a daily four hour commute, but the TIF plans did not make any provision to reduce this time apart from by paying the charge and using the car, so that's another reason why I couldn't support them.

Congestion Charge & TIF plans = 3 out of 10. Must Do Better!

I also had to laugh at the proposed cycling "improvements"; yet more useless cycle lanes included. Also, to not allow bikes on trams, but to make sure you can sell a cycle storage locker at the tram stops, and also sell a bike hire scheme at the other end is a great money spinner. Why on earth would I pay to leave my own bike at a tram station only to have to pay again to hire one when I get off eth tram at Picadilly (and one without clipless pedals so I 'd have to change shoes as well)?!! Pure stupidity. Of course that particular idea was not aimed at regular cyclists, but since bikes are not allowed on trams what other choice is there for cyclists apart from the car when the weather is poor? I do my best to cycle to work but I can't do it for very long on dark ungritted roads in the winter. I could probably get (slowly and carfeully) to the nearest tram station by bike (10-15 minutes) and even in torreential rain I would not get too wet (my usual commute is one hour and there is no where to dry anything at work). This will only work if bikes are allowed on trams though. I am not going to do a half hour plus, walk to the tram in the rain, so that is why i don't just use the tram Just showing again, that no thought has been given to how to integrate transport. This is why there was a no vote. People are actually not as stupid as the campaigners seem to have thought!

I'm really tired of hearing the "we need decent alternatives in place first" argument. Our selfishness in using cars for every insignificant little journey is a major part of the reason our public transport system got so impoverished in the first place.

And the reasons people give for cars being "essential" - as I think most drivers see their cars - are absolutely ludicrous. My mother brought up seven children single-handed without ever sitting behind the wheel of a car. Cars are a luxury item and the sooner we remember that the better.

That's not to say the Manchester plan wasn't rubbish. I don't know anything about it, but from what little I've read I'm thinking I probably would've voted no as well.

First of all, I have to say that Manchester is one of my favourite cities in the UK. It is clear that the traffic there is awful, as I've found when I've driven up there. By the sound of it, this charge was a disaster waiting to happen.

As I've said about London to friends in the past, if you want to get rid of cars you either pedestrianise large areas, you ban private vehicles for large periods of the day or you introduce a fast, cheap and reliable public transport system. However, the problem is that our government talks about getting people out of cars, but they don't want to pay for the alternatives. Look at train fares. The reason that they increase above inflation each year is because the government is reducing the amount of subsidies it provides and the increases are meant to cover it. For my train into London (appx 13 miles) my fare will go up 11% in January. Last January it went up a similar percentage. In the same period my wage has gone up 0%, so in real terms it has decreased. My brother and I were talking about it last night. We reckon that if you have maybe 2 or 3 people it gets to the point where driving into London and paying the congestion charge would potentially be cheaper than all three of you paying to use the train.

Good luck to the people of Manchester. I hope that they come up with some interesting schemes to develop the transport infrastructure, as I really do love the place.