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Brussels traffic jams ‘cost €511m a year’
The total cost of traffic jams in Brussels is as high as €511m a year, the Brussels Chamber of Commerce (BECI) has calculated. Le Soir and De Standaard report that, in its white paper on efficient mobility, the BECI calls on politicians and public transport to act quickly. The chamber of commerce has multiplied the time lost by the average cost of one hour’s work (€11.72). Time lost to congestion is estimated at 32 million hours, which means that traffic jams alone represent an annual cost of €375m, to which the estimated costs of air and noise pollution and road accidents must also be added, reaching a grand total of €511m. Solutions suggested by the BECI in its white paper include replacing company cars with rent subsidies, hurrying the implementation of the RER system, setting up park & rides around train stations and introducing a per-kilometre urban road tax.
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Many of the traffic jams in Brussels & the surrounding communes are caused by uncoordinated works. Before authorising such works (road repairs, roadmarks painting, tree cutting, garbage collection etc) to be done on the side of peak traffic towards the city in the morning hours, the public servants in charge should think more and act in a traffic friendly, smart way!
I wonder how they determined that air and noise pollution and accidents cost €136m. It's always amusing to see oversimplified guesstimates presented with such precision. How about the mental health of traffic jam sitters, how much is that worth? Good suggestions for solutions though. Brussels must do something about this problem, now.
Do not fret about uncoordinated works and the way calculations are done. A long term study by the Swiss consultancy INFRAS (Les coûts externes des transports, easy to find on WWW.INFRAS.CH and worth a THOROUGH read before you express any further opinion) has long established that external costs of road transport come at about 10% of Western European countries' GDP. Which means that road transport is subsidised at an incredible level by every taxpayer's money. Half a billion of costs for Brussels comes as NO surprise. Blue chip liberals who favour the car should take note : they are totally at odds with their own economic philosophy. Such subsidies have NO place in our economic system. Make motorists pay the REAL price of their mode of transport, and the transport market will work a lot better (and the rest of the economy will thrive by shedding the 'extra weight' the car frenzy is imposing on it).