Private hire drivers across the borough have been left fearing for their livelihoods after learning they will have to pay the congestion charge if it is introduced.
But initial plans drawn up reveal that hackney cab drivers would be exempt from the toll, as would motorbikers and disabled drivers.
People attending all-day hospital appointments will also be excluded from having to pay the congestion charge while workers on low incomes will be given a 20 per cent discount. Buses and emergency vehicles would travel for free, and HGVs and other commercial vehicles would pay the same standard rate as cars.
Commercial vehicles that repeatedly cross the two charging rings on ‘multi-drop’ deliveries will pay no more than £10 a day (at 2007 prices), regardless of the number of times the rings are crossed. The ideas have been presented to the Association of Greater Manchester Authority (AGMA) leaders and will go out for consultation to the public and business community.
Private hire bosses now hope to set up talks over the plans, angry that they had not been consulted beforehand.
Bryan Roland, general secretary of the National Private Hire Association, based in Bury, said: “This would be a total disaster. Drivers will be forced to work even longer hours.
“This will take away quite a bit of a driver’s income and people would also be frightened of booking a cab in the rush-hour in case they get landed with the charge.
“Some of our drivers already work 60 to 70 hours a week and this would force some daytime drivers to work into the night.”
One driver for Prestwich and Whitefield firm Magnum Whiteline asked: “If we take a cab into Manchester carrying four passengers, isn’t that four potential cars we’re taking off the road?”
Lord Peter Smith, Leader of AGMA, said: “These proposals are the result of detailed research and common sense thinking. We’ll be very interested to hear what the public think.”
Sir Richard Leese, Deputy Leader of AGMA, said: “We want as many people as possible to benefit from the £3 billion investment in better buses, trains and trams.
“But we also recognise that for many people with a disability the car can be the only route to a job. We want to make sure that we do all that we can to give everyone the greatest possible support to get into work.
“A wider use of motorbikes and scooters has the potential to reduce congestion, so we’re proposing that riders will also receive a 100 per cent discount.”
AGMA say fewer than 20 per cent of peak time drivers in Greater Manchester are expected to pay any congestion charge at all because they will not cross a ring in the “direction of congestion” and only a small proportion would pay the full £5 charge. An average daily cost for those who do incur a charge would be less than £3 at current prices, AGMA estimate.
A spokesman for Manchester Against Road Tolls said: “Any discount from what is fundamentally an unfair toll tax will just create more anomalies. The discounts which are apparently proposed will also make the cost of administering and enforcing the scheme even higher. The cost of both the discounts and of the extra administration will inevitably be borne by other drivers.”
The introduction of congestion charging is a fundamental part of Greater Manchester’s potential £3 billion investment under the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF). This will support a major expansion of the Metrolink system, revitalisation of the bus network and extra carriages on peak time trains which will run through refurbished stations.
2013 is the earliest a charge could be introduced. There would be no charge for driving around the rings or between the rings or outside of peak times.
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