| | Weblog special: congestion charge |
|
 |
February 19: From this week, motorists have been paying £5 to drive in central London. Here are the best reads around the web.
Congestion Charge - Transport for London
Special report: congestion charging
The weblog: latest issues in links
More weblog specials
|
|
|
On the Clapham omnibus
With London's traffic 25% down on normal - albeit at half-term, when it is usually lower anyway - bus passengers are hailing Ken's congestion charge as a success. Helen Rumbelow in the Times hears from only one dissenting voice: a commuter driven out of his car, who wishes his bus were a little more modern than a green 1950s vehicle recommissioned from a museum. Still, we all know what the congestion charge is supposed to be spent on.
Times
|
A strange day in London
Tom Symonds, transport correspondent for BBC News, describes the 'expanse of space' that has replaced what used to be traffic-choked roads; but says it is persistent non-payers who will present the problems.
BBC News
A stress-free drive - BBC News
|
|
|
The cars that ate London
In a special feature in Time magazine, Amanda Ripley says the congestion charge is Europe's 'most radical traffic-control experiment of the past half-century' - and the last hope for getting our crowded cities moving. It needed a brave politican like Ken Livingstone, she argues, to prescribe the 'rough medicine' London needs.
Time
|
Scheme may save us from disaster
David Begg, chairman of the commission for integrated transport, puts the case in the London Evening Standard (which itself opposes the charge). London is in gridlock, he says, but only 11% of people entering the centre of town on a weekday morning do so by car. 'London's vibrancy stems from having pedestrians as its lifeblood,' he says, 'not cars circling in search of parking spaces.'
Evening Standard
|
Reasons to be cheerful
The idea that the congestion charge is a threat to the liberty of motorists is a nonsense, says Christian Wolmar on the BBC website. He says the charge affects few people, most of whom will be able to afford it; and after a 'small earthquake', it will bed in smoothly.
Charge will damage London - Steve Norris, BBC
For and against the charge - This is Local London
BBC News
|
Chat with the traffic chief
Derek Turner, Transport for London's traffic management boss, faces the public on the Evening Standard website. He paints an upbeat picture of how London will work when the charge is operating.
Evening Standard
Ken Livingstone, BBC London phone-in (RealPlayer required)
|
|
|
How the system will run
Karen Day, writing in Public Finance magazine, criticises several aspects of the scheme. First, there is the 'apparent secrecy' surrounding the deal struck between Transport for London and the contractor, Capita; and second, the fact that TfL will conduct its own review of the scheme's effectiveness, without releasing data to the London assembly. But the financial benefit, she says, is that money raised will be ploughed back into public transport.
Public Finance
|
Under cover at the call centre
Although the charge itself seems to work, opponents fear its administration could be chaotic. The Evening Standard's Elaine Galloway, who spent a fortnight at Capita's call centre near Coventry, reports on the preparations and problems there.
Evening Standard
|
Capita and Ken
Here's a fun little nugget, unearthed by diarist Andrew Pearce of the Times. Apparently Capita, the contractor engaged by mayor Ken Livingstone, took over the very bailiffs used by Brent council to chase Ken for his unpaid poll tax. Funny how life has a habit of biting you in the bum ...
Times
|
|
|
Captain Gatso
Of those opposed to congestion charging itself, none is more maverick than self-styled 'Captain Gatso', who plans to disable the cameras used to police it. His fame has spread as far as Canada's Toronto Star.
Toronto Star
|
Too many traffic lights?
Stephen Bayley, writing in the Independent, depicts an everyday story of congestion in London - but puts forward a libertarian solution opposed to Ken's. 'Removing traffic lights and optimising London for cars would not, perhaps, create a utopia,' he says with some understatement, 'but it would provide one possible answer ... It is impossible to get around London because paranoid officialdom interferes with personal liberty.'
Independent
|
Media opposition
London's Evening Standard leads the opposition to the charge. Even after its poll showed that Londoners appeared to back it, the paper's website used the headline: 'Surprise support for Mayor's road fee'.
Evening Standard
'Poor don't drive' - Evening Standard
|
A deal with big business?
But Michael Edwards and Nick Jeffrey, writing in Red Pepper, believe London mayor Ken Livingstone may have struck political deals in order to ensure the congestion charge's success. 'Could it be that gaining business support for congestion charging and for his campaign against PPP has a price - a price of opening up key sites for property developers and encouraging skyscrapers?'
Red Pepper
|
|
|
An open book
If you want to know whether something will work or not, you could do worse then ask a bookmaker. William Hill is offering 4-1 against the scheme closing by the end of the year; one punter, says This is Local London, has staked £500 on it.
icSouthLondon.co.uk
|
What's a weblog?