London £5 "Congestion Fee"

[Lawrence of Arabia]

SFs system is a joke. Two of the six lines go to the same location, and whoever was on the planning team obviously didnt live in the Richmond because there are no trains that go anywhere near that area.

[Sten Sture]

That's easy! Just take the convenient #38 Geary bus, or walk across the park from my super N line.


Gotta go bribe someone to run an N-Judah. How f-ing hard can it be to run a train system as elaborate as the muni? Boggles the mind.

cheers

Long live Willie - somewhere else.

[Sten Sture]

this shows the horrible complexity of the SF subway system. Impossible to administer.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The 38 is so crowded in the morning and at night that ifyou arn't by the door, theres no way you can get off at the stop you want to. BTW, where's the F line? Those puppies go so slow, you die of old age by the time you get to Fisherman's warf.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Actually the Singapore subway reminds me of the DC one with its similar architecture and mix of underground and raised railway - the one thing I didn't like was that if you buy single tickets, you have to pay an upfront deposit as the tickets are recycleable (good idea), but the card costs more that the price of the fare so they were losing money on lost tickets. This now mean that when you finish your journey you have to queue up again to get your bloody deposit back! A rare lack of foresight from the Singapore govt...

The local MTR (subway) tickets are also recyclable, being thin sheets of plastic with a magnetic strip. We also have multiple-use passes called the Octopus, a sort of smart card.

[Sikander]

A fiver just for congestion? In most places you can get your congestion for free!

[Havak]

I think the money raised by this has to be ploughed back into public transport by law - or so the BBC news team were reporting last night.

Of course public tranport here is rather a joke. Drivers already prop up the national economy through indirect taxes - on the purchase of the vehicle, 80% plus of the cost of fuel, excise duty to be allowed on the road, mandatory insurance with mandatory insurance tax...

I can't see Americans putting up with the tax burden that the british motorist does to be honest.

So thanks Ken - another stupid idea that every council in the country will copy to fund their next 'fact finding mission' (to SF maybe?)

[TheStinger]

The maximum it could raise is £365 million. That will not do a great deal to improve the tube.

[MikeH]

Polls show that the majority of Londoners are in favour. The money does have to be put back into public transport.

I think London is unlike a lot of US cities, although Ming's New York comparison is spot in, it's just like paying to get to Manhattan. 40% of London households don't own a car, the lower income you have the less likely you are to own a car. Not because they can't afford it as much as it just being a total waste of money having a car if you live in Central London. The main people who'll be hit by this are people working in the city.

I live about 50 miles from London and I'd never even consider driving into Central London.

I would attatch a London Tube map but the image is 670K

http://www.thetube.com/content/tubemap/images/tm_quad_2h.gif

[TheStinger]

London is differnt to US cities in that is older and therefore the the vast majority of it wa in place before cars were invented, making it difficult to drive. Added to the fact the government spends too little on transport and you have gridlock.

In other countries it also the case that not just the capital gets an underground system. Of course the UK is very London biased and therefore no one considers setting one up in the other big cities

[Solly]

I'm all for it. Hopefully it will spread elsewhere.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by TheStinger
London is differnt to US cities in that is older and therefore the the vast majority of it wa in place before cars were invented, making it difficult to drive. Added to the fact the government spends too little on transport and you have gridlock.

In other countries it also the case that not just the capital gets an underground system. Of course the UK is very London biased and therefore no one considers setting one up in the other big cities

It's too expensive. No-one would pay for it. Out of interest, has any European country built an underground system in a city in the last 50 years? 100?

[TheStinger]

Madrid, Barcelona.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by TheStinger
In other countries it also the case that not just the capital gets an underground system. Of course the UK is very London biased and therefore no one considers setting one up in the other big cities

Liverpool has a decent local rail system (at least it used to). Most other major cities seem to be going for trams or guided buses instead. London is probably the only UK city where there are so many people to move around that a full blown underground system is economically feasible.

The money does go back into public transport. The nice thing about this tax is that it will mostly hit the people who can afford it. Many Londoners don't even bother to have cars and there is absolutely nowhere within the restricted zone that has free public parking so anyone who will be paying the £5 to get in is either already paying more than that per day to park or has a very well paid job with a parking spot provided by their employer.

There has been a rash of adverts in this months UK scooter and motorcycle magazines encouraging people to switch to two wheels and avoid the charge. Personally I would be scared to ride or drive anything short of a tank around central London.

[TheStinger]

Leeds is getting trams but only 3 lines I think, and the west of the city is being ignored.

Guided buses are crap