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Old Posted May 2, 2012, 7:53 PM
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Dramatic Changes on London Streets in the Congestion Pricing Era

Dramatic Changes on London Streets in the Congestion Pricing Era


May 2, 2012

By Tanya Snyder

Read More: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/05/02...n-pricing-era/

Quote:
For the last nine years, private motorists entering central London between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. have paid a fee (currently £10 or US$16.22) to drive on the city’s scarce street space. The revenue from the congestion charge is plowed into the city’s transit system, and as Transport for London has amply documented, many Londoners have changed their commuting habits.

- Of course, people aren’t just sitting at home. They’ve embraced other ways of getting around. So while there are fewer vehicles in London now than in 2001, one motorized mode has become more ubiquitous: the bus. London bus ridership has risen an impressive 60 percent in the past decade. Bicycling has also been a big winner in this seismic shift in travel habits. Cycling is up 110 percent in London since 2000. In the country as a whole, cycling on the road has increased 12 percent.

- ITO World CEO Peter Miller says it’s not just the congestion charge that’s reducing the footprint of cars on London’s streets. It’s also the phenomenon of “peak car” — the less-understood pattern, happening in several industrialized countries, of diminishing car use. According to the Wikipedia article on “peak car” that Miller co-wrote, traffic into London had already fallen 28 percent in the nine years before the congestion charge was implemented. He gives many possible reasons for peak car, including rising gas prices and a growth in the culture of urbanism.

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  #2  
Old Posted May 2, 2012, 8:04 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K View Post
Dramatic Changes on London Streets in the Congestion Pricing Era
Looking at the dots in that map, while it's obvious the number of cars in the inner city is falling, it appears to me that there's an obvious increase in the number of cars in a ring surrounding the inner city.
What would be interesting to see would be the vacancy rates of the inner city to that ring surrounding it.
What I'm suggesting is that the congesting pricing may have only moved the location where new construction is occurring.
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 1:39 AM
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Originally Posted by M II A II R II K View Post
Dramatic Changes on London Streets in the Congestion Pricing Era


May 2, 2012

By Tanya Snyder

Read More: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/05/02...n-pricing-era/






I doubt it has much to do with the congestion charge, about 95% of commuters used public transport getting to Central London before the charge, the impact is marginal. It has reduced the routes of delivery/trades vehicles though.

The reduction in traffic is too wide to be because of the charge, it is more down to better public transport and vehicle travel costs.
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 9:27 AM
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The Congestion Charge assisted in the reduction, but I think it is one of several reasons including:
- The introduction of the Oyster.
- An overhaul of the bus network (real-time bus departure boards: http://countdown.tfl.gov.uk).
- Significant investment in the tube.
- A focus on assisting interchange across multiple transport networks.
- The lack (and cost) of car park spaces.
- A real absence of petrol stations as sites have been redeveloped.
- The gradual realisation that various environments should be geared towards the pedetrian, e.g. Trafalgar Square pedestrianisation, Exhibition Road shared space.

In general however cars are ill-suited to Central London due to the absence of any major thoroughfares and the backbone of the city composed of meandering alleys and streets.
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 12:42 PM
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The congestion charge is really over stated.

The fact is that car commuters into central London were already the minority before the congestion charge even went into use.
The huge spike in ridership on transit has not really come from the shift of car commuters to transit.
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 3:21 PM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
The congestion charge is really over stated.

The fact is that car commuters into central London were already the minority before the congestion charge even went into use.
The huge spike in ridership on transit has not really come from the shift of car commuters to transit.
That's typical of you, mike. An article is posted showing the effect the congestion charges have had. The article links to half a dozen other articles, studies, and trend maps showing the same.

But they must all be false because you said so. The congestion charge is overstated, folks, take it to the bank, because mike said so.

Even when the "conventional wisdom" is good news, you still feel compelled to disagree. Tell me, is there any conventional wisdom you agree with? Or is the minority opinion always the correct one, no matter the subject?
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 3:44 PM
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If a congestion charge were to have this kind of impact in other cities the transit would have to be up to speed as an alternative.
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 5:17 PM
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Originally Posted by bunt_q View Post
That's typical of you, mike. An article is posted showing the effect the congestion charges have had. The article links to half a dozen other articles, studies, and trend maps showing the same.

But they must all be false because you said so. The congestion charge is overstated, folks, take it to the bank, because mike said so.

Even when the "conventional wisdom" is good news, you still feel compelled to disagree. Tell me, is there any conventional wisdom you agree with? Or is the minority opinion always the correct one, no matter the subject?
The congestion charge is overstated, that map covers all of London. The decline in traffic can be seen throughout the city, the biggest declines are in the inner areas, while the congestion charge only covered a small area of the city centre where private car use is already small. It suits the articles narrative of the article to say this is due to the congestion charge. When it is due to a variety of factors
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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 5:25 PM
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What’s the Secret to World-Class Transit Systems? Congestion Pricing


April 30, 2012

By Noah Kazis

Read More: http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/04/3...stion-pricing/

2012 RPA Regional Assembly Highlights: http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/04/2...onal-assembly/

Quote:
Top transportation officials from three global cities — London, Singapore and Stockholm — shared their experiences in expanding the use of transit at a panel at the Regional Plan Association’s annual conference last Friday. Eyeing those cities, it’s easy for New Yorkers to get jealous. “I was, in many ways, salivating,” said MTA chief Joe Lhota.

- In a city where “mega-projects” mean three new stations for the Second Avenue Subway and one on the 7 line — and where it’s possible no system expansions at all will be included in the next five-year capital plan — it’s hard to imagine the cash-strapped MTA ever reaching such lofty levels. How did these other cities do it? It’s foolish to call anything a silver bullet, but even so, it’s no coincidence that each of these cities do something New York hasn’t done: price the use of scarce road space.

- London’s phenomenal growth in bus ridership, for example, can be significantly attributed to the fact that surface transit doesn’t have to sit in gridlocked traffic, thanks to the city’s congestion charge. Analyst Kenneth Small estimates that in the typical American city, bus ridership would jump 31 percent due to the introduction of congestion pricing, without bus service even receiving any of the revenues. But the money certainly helps. London’s congestion charge generated approximately $240 million in 2009, all dedicated to transportation. Stockholm’s pricing scheme took in about $112 million in a much smaller region.

- Is there political support in New York for any form of road pricing? It’s hard to say. “I really don’t want to talk about congestion pricing,” said Lhota, calling the question one for elected officials. “It is a tough political row to hoe,” admitted former MTA chief Lee Sander, who moderated the panel. Still, Sander noted, of the three state senators who doomed bridge tolls in 2009, only one is still in office. One is headed to prison and the other may be following soon.

- Recent history suggests other reasons to think some form of road pricing could be politically possible in New York. The City Council approved Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan by a vote of 30 to 20. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver endorsed East and Harlem River bridge tolls pegged to the price of a subway fare. And polls showed a sizable majority of New Yorkers in favor of congestion pricing, as long as the revenues were dedicated to the transit system.

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Old Posted May 3, 2012, 6:24 PM
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The congestion tax here (yeah, it's a tax, we got laws against charging people to use public roads, apparently) might be $112, but ALL of it FOR DECADES to come are committed to pay for a motorway "by-pass" (almost exclusively for suburb-to-suburb traffic). Why so expensive? after environmentalists complained for years, the whole project got new life when the brilliant idea to make it 95% tunnels was launched. Even huger waste of money, but now it won't disturb a couple of parks with endangered frogs in 'em, so the greenies are much quieter.

\end rant.

My point is: make sure the money goes to transit, and not to increase the car-dependency of the region!
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