*Picture this: You no longer have a car to get you from place to place. Instead, the government has made that a thing of the past, with handling your driving duties.
If you’re thinking this is the stuff of dreams, you may want to rethink that. Believe it or not, folks in the United Kingdom are dealing with this issue and it could cross over into the U.S.
According to Express, (via MSN) efforts have been made to eliminate private car ownership. A new measure in Southern California, the 2021 Regional Transportation Plan, was recently passed by the San Diego Association of Government’s board of directors. The Plan is a $160 billion initiative is an effort to boost public transportation for the metropolitan area.
With such a price attached to the Plan, the question is how do officials fund it. Express notes of the options on the table, which is to levy a per-mile driving tax against citizens. Critics of the Plan and other fines and fees associated with it say that these options are designed to eliminate personal vehicle ownership for everyone but the wealthy.
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Needless to say, the unpopular per-mile driving tax was put on the shelf, with the possibility of bringing it back down the row or other states in North America exploring similar measures in their respective areas.
While the car ownership issue in the US and beyond is not as prevalent, the UK’s situation with the issue has been going on for some time. Speaking recently at a mobility conference on the future of personal mobility, UK Government Transport Minister Trudy Harrison echoed a growing number of government officials by stating it was necessary to ditch the “20th-century thinking centered around private vehicle ownership and towards greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport.”
Discussing the topic further, Harrison praised public transportation as well as bike-share services, e-scooters, and ride-sharing platforms. The modes are meant to tone down the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere in the UK, Express explained.
All of these are supposed to tune down how much carbon the UK is emitting into the atmosphere. According to media sources, the notion of private car elimination struck a nerve with 300 people who recently expressed interest in giving up their personal cars. In return, the government reportedly give them a mobility credit worth up to £3,000.
Express reports the mobility credit program has been in effect since March in the UK, with 73 cars turned in and crushed.
The mobility credit program, while beneficial in the eyes of government folk, has drawn opposition from Brits who are upset, with some asking if they should start riding their horse instead, all the in the name of “progress.” In another angle, other Brits are tying Harrison into the issues, with a looming government ban of internal combustion engines for cars by 2030.
Their opposition’s reasoning lies in the government thinking that since vehicles are not being cheap “what better way to force people onto public transportation than by pricing them out of the vehicle market?” Express commented, noting how real the possibility is with the government being the go-to source for getting around.
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