Soon the people of Manchester will get the opportunity to vote on the proposed congestion charge rip off. As if having a budget of £3m for an awareness (or propaganda) campaign was not enough. With the vote being only weeks away Manchester now has some very 'Interesting' road works in progress. The diversion routes are unbelievable. They have not even suspended the parking bays. (Greed or what?) They are successfully producing the desired gridlock effect. For many years, Manchester City Council has been preparing for the congestion charge. They have been deliberately creating congestion. They have narrowed the main arteries in and out of the city by installing unnecessary bus and cycle lanes. All the smaller roads are fitted with bollards, speed bumps or ridiculous one way systems. Traffic lights are unsynchronized, and usually incorporate a complete set of pelican crossings, unnecessarily holding up ALL the traffic in every direction. They have completely messed up the city centre with its one-way route system. Other cities in the world have underground or skytrain systems, some (like Bangkok) have both. Manchester installs a tram system in on the roads. Which incidentally is creating even more congestion at the moment because they are relaying the tracks. Maybe the tracks would need less major repairs if they were not being ran over by buses, lorries and cars all the time. Surely it would not take much to employ someone to sit in a room and watch the monitors from the millions of traffic and security cameras and actually switch a traffic light to green when a road gets congested. The estimated annual operating costs of the congestion charge scheme are around £31m. I would happily sit in a room and switch traffic lights to ease traffic flow for say £1m per year. That would leave the council with £30m to squander on some other project. I can’t believe someone is paid to dream this stuff up, then get a nice cushy pension at the end of it.