At the risk of wearing out my (very generous) welcome, there are a few more pieces to the congestion pricing discussion I’d like to add.
First up is this, again from the Daily Telegraph:
The London congestion charge has failed to cause a significant reduction in delays on the capital’s roads, it emerged yesterday.
In the last two years the congestion endured by drivers in central London has actually got worse, according to Transport for London figures.The amount of traffic entering the zone during charging hours has been cut by around 20 per cent since the charge was introduced in 2003, but this has been largely offset by a reduction in the capacity of the capital’s roads, due to road works and the introduction of bus lanes.
Congestion fell by 30 per cent in the first year of the charging scheme but is now only 8 per cent below precharging levels.
The weswtward extension of the charging zone next week is expected to increase congestion in central London, as motorists living in Kensington and Chelsea will be entitled to discounted access to the existing zone.
Interesting. But it still looks as though overall congestion has declined. If it’s rising again, chalk it up to the habit many people have for adapting to disincentives if the eventual gain is great enough.
And in an example of how transportation rhetoric knows know international boundaries, consider this:
The Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that ministers would press ahead with their plans for road-pricing pilot schemes. “Doing nothing is not an option and we know what will happen if we do nothing — congestion will get worse and worse,” he said.
Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?