Filed under: Government/Legal, UK
London congestion charge has failed to solve congestion
London Congestion Charge: FAIL. According to the most recent reports, traffic in London is exactly as bad today as it was before the C-Charge was ever initiated. London motorists have made their opinion about the system clear in recently voting out ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone, a man who championed the charges and had plans to increase their dollar amount and expand their coverage. The new mayor, Boris "Fast Lane" Johnson, says, "I have always thought that the Congestion Charge is a blunt instrument." Blunt and ineffective, it would seem. While the number of cars within the city limits have gone down, other factors have crept up like an increase in bike and pedestrian traffic that keeps motorists crawling.There is one thing that the London Congestion Charge was good at: making money. Last year alone, the C-Charges racked up some £268 million (a whopping $536 million) in charges. While it may be hard to see that income go away, the fact is that it still takes Londoners an average of 2.3 minutes per kilometer to drive through the city, so expect to see some major modifications to the system in the coming months.
[Source: Reuters via Motor Authority]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Rocketboy 3:03PM (8/08/2008)
But with all the money that they made, I'm sure it lowered taxes...
didn't it?
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BlackCanary 3:30PM (8/08/2008)
it is a tax and politicians never lower taxes.
Mobius_1 11:24PM (8/08/2008)
Remember what James May said about Livingstone's taxes:
"If you earned a living and paid income TAX, and bought a car, and paid value added TAX on the car, and then bought road duty TAX, then bought petrol and paid fuel duty TAX, and then paid value added TAX on top of that fuel duty TAX, you should then pay 25 pounds TAX to drive into the centre of the capital."
Probably not completely correct, but it was damn funny
Shawn 3:09PM (8/08/2008)
When a politician have no answers to a problem, his first response, tax it!
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JD 3:13PM (8/08/2008)
I disagree, when a politician has no solution, the first step is just to say your opponent is wrong. The second step? "You're supporting the terrorists if you support my opponent."
JGH 3:16PM (8/08/2008)
Quote from the article:
"Without the Congestion Charge the traffic problems in London would be much worse," said Malcolm Murray-Clark, TfL's Managing Planning Director.
"However, as a result of other interventions such as utility and construction works, the reduction in road space has had a detrimental impact on congestion levels and is slowing traffic down."
It's a bit disingenuous to claim the congestion charge has failed when the failure is clearly attributed to utility work and construction. According to the article, the congestion charge clearly reduced the number of vehicles entering the city center.
I support congestion chargies and increased gas taxes as measures necessary to combat the problems we face, including overtaxed infrastructure, air pollution (including carbon), obesity, etc. I've seen many criticize the congestion charge as some sort of socialist measure. The gov't provides incentives for all sorts of things. We encourage home ownership, surplus crop production, business startups, etc. Congestion charges are no different. We have a common problem, and it is but one tool in the government's arsenal.
If anyone has better suggestions that don't include road expansion, I would be interested in hearing them. I exclude road expansion because in the long run, it only improves throughput, not travel times.
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Big Rocket 4:21PM (8/08/2008)
If reduction in road space due to construction projects has an equal or bigger effect on congestion than the £8 of usage fees, why did Ken Livingstone not decree that these projects be done during off-peak hours to relieve congestion? Could it be that the former mayor was only interested in the millions of pounds of additional revenue for pork-barrel politics, and he didn't care less about how much time a driver spends stuck in traffic? Talk about disingenuous, indeed.
I do have a better suggestion than a congestion fee. It's called road expansion. You may not like it, but as the Reuters news report pointed out, the reduction in road space had a negative impact on traffic flow. Hence, an increase in road space, i.e. road expansion, would have a positive impact. And if a city like London does not have room to accomodate more roads, then at least get those construction equipment out of the way during peak traffic hours.
And let's be honest. This is a congestion charge. It isn't supposed to be a government initiative to fight obesity due to the increased walking. If you increase taxes on the working class to pay for pork-barrel politics, poor families would be able to afford less food, which helps fight obesity. Is that supposed to be a good thing? Who knew bullies taking away other kids' lunch money were angels in disguise?
Doug 5:05PM (8/08/2008)
Rocket is right, your reasoning is completely flawed. You say the actual reason the roads are still clogged is due to a reduction in lanes caused by construction. Then you go on to say that increasing the number of lanes wouldn't help. Time to re-think your claim.
Anton 3:21PM (8/08/2008)
One of the Worse (or better ,for some) effects of the charge is that it brought the prices for Real Estate within the London ring even higher...
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Josh 3:23PM (8/08/2008)
is that the guy from the Karate Kid movie?
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BlackCanary 3:32PM (8/08/2008)
Lol - Put him in a body bag Johnny!
s13hybrid 4:14PM (8/08/2008)
NO MERCY!
thedoosh 3:31PM (8/08/2008)
It's very shortsighted to label the London congestion charge "FAIL".
The aim of the congestion charge was twofold: to reduce congestion and raise money. 50% effectiveness is good, considering it also increased bike and foot traffic. Those two modes of travel have a lower overall cost to the city in terms of infrastructure and environmental impact. So it not only made money, but it saved money too. Traffic flows are famously hard to plan and direct, so I'm not surprised they were unable to mitigate congestion. It will take longer than one or two years to sort out, but it can be done. And in the process they make piles of money and encourage people to use public transportation, walk, and bike. How is this bad?
The larger goal was to try to apply the true cost of traffic/congestion to people doing the driving. In that effort it was an unqualified success. ("True cost" is discussed in many economics books, most accessibly in The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford - he examines the congestion charge at some length.)
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Doug 5:09PM (8/08/2008)
That's like saying the overpriced water and snacks at sporting events are "good". The purpose of them is twofold, to quench the hunger and thirst of the fans and to make tons of money for some fat cat sitting around trying to think of more ways to screw people over by not allowing them to bring their own items in to the game. The tax (that's really what it is) is a way for the gov't to collect more money from its citizens that it will just mismanage.
it is a FAIL.
thedoosh 6:53PM (8/08/2008)
@ doug:
this is ridiculous -
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That's like saying the overpriced water and snacks at sporting events are "good". The purpose of them is twofold, to quench the hunger and thirst of the fans and to make tons of money for some fat cat sitting around trying to think of more ways to screw people over by not allowing them to bring their own items in to the game. The tax (that's really what it is) is a way for the gov't to collect more money from its citizens that it will just mismanage.
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Londoners have been forced to either pay for a valuable privilege (driving in a congested area) or to pursue an alternative. Using your belabored analogy, when you go to a game you can drink out of a fountain or eat before you go. That is to say, pursue alternatives or pay the additional cost associated with your poor planning. Your analogy breaks down when you realize that, unlike sports stadiums, you are welcome to enter the London congestion area without paying a fee if you don't mind walking or taking your bike. Try biking into the Staples Center the next time there's a Laker game, see how that works out.
Whether or not the government mismanages the funds is a different issue. The fact is that the area is hopelessly congested and the people causing the congestion are not paying their share of the true/actual cost related to the traffic.
Big Rocket 8:39PM (8/08/2008)
First off, I find it rather interesting that both of you used the baseball analogy, because it is much more relevant and closely tied than first appearances might lead you to believe. In America, shortly after 9/11, baseball stadium operators used the excuse of fighting terrorism to stop sports spectators from bringing in their own food and beverages inside coolers. In London, Ken Livingstone used the excuse of fighting congestion to levy expensive tolls on drivers bringing in their own vehicles. As the facts clearly show, these excuses had nothing to do with the true motive behind either measure. It had more to do with greed.
As the Reuters news report also show, any effect that the congestion charge might have had was easily negated by poor planning of construction and repair projects on London's congested roads. Why did Livingstone not mandate such projects be carried out during off-peak hours only, if he was truly concerned with gridlock, and the resulting air pollution and wasted fuel? Answer: It was always about the money.
In this sense, the congestion charge was a complete and utter failure at its stated goal of relieving traffic congestion, because simpler and cheaper measures existed to combat the true cause: Getting rid of construction equipment during peak travel hours to maximize road surface and traffic flow. That Londoners have voted out the main proponent of the congestion charge, and replaced him with an outspoken opponent of the same congestion charge, says all there is to say about the complete failure of what is, in essense, a colossal money grab disguised in sheep's clothing.
Brooks 4:05PM (8/08/2008)
So the logic goes:
1) There are fewer cars on the road in London
2) However, a reduction in the number of roads avaialble to cars, combined with an increase in pedestrian and bicycle traffic, has kept driving times constant
3) Therefore, the congestion charge is FAIL
Nevermind the idiocy of using an already-fading internet meme to sound cool and hip, the writer here didn't even understand the article he was attempting to summarize.
Ouch. Autoblog, please stick to cars. Because you don't understand policy analysis even a little bit.
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Liam 4:21PM (8/08/2008)
He was voted out, because his political party have had no goodwill from the British people for ages. Nothing to do with the individual, nothing to do with his policies.
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Big Rocket 4:44PM (8/08/2008)
Really? Because this was what Ken Livingstone himself said, according to the BBC:
"Mr Livingstone defended London's mayoral system, which unlike traditional local authorities, allows the mayor to make many decisions without having to justify them to councillors. The system also allowed the mayor to bypass the civil service, Mr Livingstone claimed... 'And if we didn't have that, I couldn't have got the congestion charge through a traditional council system...' He denied it lacked accountability, saying Londoners would judge him in May at the ballot box. 'If they don't like it, they can get another mayor and that is the best form of accountability.'"
As Livingstone's own words show, his electoral defeat had everything to do with him and his policies.
Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2008/01/24/livingstone_defends_power_feature.shtml
Lx 4:25PM (8/08/2008)
I'd be interested to hear about your city-centre tollway experiences from Autoblog readers in Singapore.
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