London £5 "Congestion Fee"

[DanS]

Oh, I can see this working in Washington and all other American cities... Not!

That's a huge chuck of change!

Some 250,000 people drive vehicles into central London every weekday. From Monday, under the world's most ambitious traffic control scheme, they will have to pay a daily £5 "congestion fee". If it's a success, grid-locked cities around the world will follow London's example.

That headline's from FT. Here's a story from the AP...

http://www.tribnet.com/news/story/2563169p-2613163c.html

[FrustratedPoet]

£5 a day is a lot of money ... sounds like a silly plan to me.
All you will get is the exact same traffic jams, only everybody will be five quid poorer and a bit more pissed off.

[Sarxis]

There's nothing downtown (Detroit) worth going to see for $5, or for even 5 rupees. So tax aaway!

[Ming]

In New York, you have to take a bridge or tunnel to drive onto Manhatten. You have to pay a toll to enter, or leave. The traffic is still a joke

[Drogue]

Very controvertial, and maybe a little silly, although I happen to like the idea. The amount of traffic in london is horrendous. It makes journeys so slow. Therefore, if you're journey isn't worth £5, you do not make it, if it is, you are compensated by having far fewer cars, and thus a much faster journey. Not to mention the masses less pollution it will cause, which in Central London is especially important

I think congestion charges in general are a great idea, although I have my reservations about this one. The biggest being that our public transport alternatives are appauling. I think we need to spend far more on the railways and buses, get them up to a decent standard, and then introduce extra taxes/charges on using cars.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Drogue
Very controvertial, and maybe a little silly, although I happen to like the idea. The amount of traffic in london is horrendous. It makes journeys so slow. Therefore, if you're journey isn't worth £5, you do not make it, if it is, you are compensated by having far fewer cars, and thus a much faster journey. Not to mention the masses less pollution it will cause, which in Central London is especially important

If it works like that it'll be great .... time will tell, however, and I can't say I'm optimistic about this scheme.

Is this one of Red Ken's ideas?

[Dauphin]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/congestion/maps/map_main.shtml

Also:

In general, those entitled to an exemption are:
All two-wheelers, London licenced Taxis, London licensed minicabs, certain operational vehicles used by the emergency services, including HM Coastguard and Port Authorities, and certain operational vehicles used by the eight London Boroughs, either partly or wholly within the congestion charging zone, the armed forces, Royal Parks Agency and breakdown organisations.

[FrustratedPoet]

I assume that your £5 buys you a day-pass, and you don't have to pay every time you 'cross the border'?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Is this one of Red Ken's ideas?

Yep. One of his few unpopular ideas. Usually I find what he says too much appealing to the lowest-common-denominator, very populist and not well thought through. This seems to be the opposite. Personally, anything that gets people out of cars and into public transport is good, although the public transport system needs to be much much better if this is to happen.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Drogue

Yep. One of his few unpopular ideas. Usually I find what he says too much appealing to the lowest-common-denominator, very populist and not well thought through. This seems to be the opposite. Personally, anything that gets people out of cars and into public transport is good, although the public transport system needs to be much much better if this is to happen.

Hopefully all the money raised from this (which could be over a million pounds a day I suppose) will go to improving the public transport system.

[DanS]

will go to improving the public transport system

What do you think the chances of that are?

[Drogue]

Supposidly it will. I'm guessing it'll go on either less Gov't debt, higher public service wages, or lower council taxes for London though

[JohnT]

"Oh, I can see this working in Washington and all other American cities..."

You ever driven into Manhattan? Same principle applies -as a matter of fact, I'm not too sure you can actually enter without paying some government department some money - maybe if you walk or bike across the bridges, I guess.

[Dauphin]

will go to improving the public transport system

What do you think the chances of that are?

Worse than the chances of Bush being a closet liberal.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by DanS
will go to improving the public transport system

What do you think the chances of that are?

chances that the money will go there: slim

even if it does, the chances that it will make the tiniest difference: even slimmer