London Deputy Mayor speaks in NYC about congestion charge policy
Last week, as part of New York City's work on a congestion charges for parts of Manhattan, the Deputy Mayor of London, Nicky Gavron, spoke at a forum sponsored by the Drum Major Institute (DMI) in New York. Also present at the forum were New York City Councilmember Eric Gioia of Long Island City and Sunnyside, Central Labor Council executive director Ed Ott and John Liu, chair of the New York City Council Transportation Committee representing Flushing. According to blogger-on-the-scene Lindsay Beyerstein, Gavron said that the London congestion charge brings in about $122 million for London while reducing the number of cars in the restricted area by a third. And people like the charge more now than they did before it went into effect.
There's a blow-by-blow account of the forum here.
[Source: This Modern World, DMI]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kri 8:59AM (5/28/2007)
Well, well, if it only worked so well as they claim.
Congestion is down by 8% and quickly returning to pre-congestion charge levels, and the whole venture is not exactly profitable - in fact it is getting less so. But no wonder, at the amounts of money spent on running it... 161 million pounds just to set it up (including over 60 million pounds in consulting, which seems to be recurring), it is vastly overhyped. While I support the concept in principle, it only works, if there is a sensible public transport alternative - which does not exist in London. Even at the current low fraction of people commuting using public transport the system is bursting at its seams. Getting more of the 70%+ car commuters onto public transport would simply overburden it completely.
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