The Socialist Party's City Council group (Borgarstjórnarflokkur sósíalista) rejects road tolls

Our common funds; taxes, should pay for transport infrastructure development, as well as other necessary infrastructure development. The tax burden has been shifted from the rich and corporations onto the shoulders of low-wage earners, and when we do not tax those who are able to pay, a large part is missing from our common funds to support this basic infrastructure. Reykjavík City's housing policy has also resulted in less affluent people being forced to move to the suburbs and into adjacent municipalities. This is due to insufficient social and non-profit development and an emphasis on luxury apartments and hotels. In the system the city has maintained, land speculators have been able to profit excessively at the expense of ever-increasing housing prices.

Now, congestion and traffic fees are to be imposed on main roads, which will weigh heaviest on people who need to commute to work in the city center and live in the city's suburbs. These fees are, of course, also proportionally much higher for the less affluent, and there is a risk that we are going to create yet another factor that separates different social classes. On the one hand, there will be people who can afford to drive a car, and on the other hand, people who are forced to take the bus. We should, of course, make the bus a good and realistic option that is fully capable of attracting passengers, rather than forcing less affluent people to use it due to economic reasons.

On these and other grounds, the Socialist Party's City Council group is entirely opposed to these proposed road tolls. We believe that it is possible to build a good transport system; to do so, we need to rebuild the tax system and move away from the ideology of 'user pays' and back to the principle of 'those who can pay'.