London – a city with traffic and congestion problems comparable to New York’s – is about to actually do something about it.  Beginning in February, motorists who enter an eight square mile area of central London between 7am and 6:30pm will pay a daily fee of £5 (about $7.80). Mayor Ken Livingstone speculates that the congestion pricing program will reduce traffic in the area by 20 to 30 percent, encouraging people to take transit, bike or walk.

London’s transportation commissioner said last week he wants the pricing scheme to last at least two years, according to the London Times.  Livingstone, who won the city’s first mayoral election in 2000 in part because of his promise to attack congestion, has also vowed to stand behind the program.  Parliament gave the mayor the power to implement “congestion charges” in the same 1999 act that created the mayoralty (MTR #289).

Two weeks ago, comments made by the mayor were widely interpreted to mean that the project would be scrapped if it wasn’t working within two months.  However, the mayor’s office issued strong clarifications last week, explaining that only a major technical glitch would cause the program to be suspended that quickly.

Under the program, single fees will be payable by phone or over the internet, and weekly, monthly and yearly passes will also be available.  The system will be enforced by a network of cameras poised at the area’s perimeter, in conjunction with a computer system that will match license plates on the road to those whose fees have been paid.  Livingstone decided not to use electronic toll transponders, favored in Singapore and Norway for congestion-pricing cordons, in order to get the system in place more quickly.

Livingstone has publicly vowed to leave the fee at £5 through his current term in office, which ends in May, 2004.At that price, the program is expected to raise over $200 million a year, which will be invested in the city’s public transportation system.  Since taking office, Livingstone has added more bus-only and bicycle lanes, created a pedestrian-only zone downtown and changed traffic signal timing to allow pedestrians more time to cross.  Critics accuse the mayor of a personal anti-car bias.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who shares with Livingstone the habit of commuting to work by transit, could take a cue from his London counterpart. While Bloomberg recently has shown some interest in traffic experiments, he is hesitant on simple matters like car-free parks. The mayor’s interest in East River bridge tolls could be more significant than any of these other issues, but it is far from clear where the city administration will go on issue.

A recent article in the New Yorker surveyed transportation and traffic issues in the post-September 11 cityscape and noted that the next year is likely to be a crossroads in NYC traffic policy: 

“Will New York, which is planning to build a state-of-the-art transit center in lower Manhattan, be the first city to implement a state-of-the-art traffic policy?” Seabrook asked, after a discussion of the carpool rule’s traffic-reducing impacts.  “Or will this period in the city’s traffic history—a period in which the automobile is a privileged guest—end in the coming months, defeated by our insatiable desire to drive?” asked writer John Seabrook

Looking to London and other cities, Seabrook called for a congestion pricing cordon around the Manhattan central business district.  He called the free East River bridges “the single most irrational traffic-management practice in New York City.” 

Info on congestion pricing from Mayor's Office

Looking to London: New Mayor Pushes Congestion Pricing 
(Oct. 9, 2000)

MTR search facility and back issues:

Search our database of all past issues of Mobilizing the Region since Fall, 1994.

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues