It has been 15 years since London’s congestion charge was introduced by the city’s first mayor, Ken Livingstone. Livingstone hoped the charge would reduce congestion, radically improve bus services, make journey times more consistent for drivers and make increase efficiency for those distributing goods and services throughout the city.
Key measures show it has been a success: in 2006, Transport for London (TfL) reported that the charge reduced traffic by 15% and congestion – that is, the extra time a trip would take because of traffic – by 30%. This effect has continued to today. Traffic volumes in the charging zone are now nearly a quarter lower than a decade ago, allowing central London road space to be given over to cyclists and pedestrians.
The charge covers a 21km² area in London. It’s a simple system: if you enter the zone between 7am and 6pm on a weekday, you pay a flat daily rate. The charge has risen gradually from £5 in 2003 to £11.50 today. Residents receive a 90% discount and registered disabled people can travel for free. Emergency services, motorcycles, taxis and minicabs are exempt.
Recipe for success
Today, city leaders in places such as New York are facing resistance, as they consider introducing their own congestion charge in the urban core. But the same thing happened in London, 15 years ago: notable push-back came from Westminster Council, which took the issue to court, claiming it would cut residents off from education and healthcare services, but lost. If it weren’t for the 1999 law which centralised certain powers to the mayor, the charge may not have been realised at all.
London’s congestion charge succeeded for two key reasons: it had a clear and convincing premise, and it was just one part of larger efforts to improve travel across all forms of transport in the city. The case for congestion charging was simple: the charge would reduce traffic in the city centre and generate funds to reinvest in improving public transport services.
I would not support the article’s stated reasons for the successful introduction of the congestion charge. The two main reasons I would give are:
– the 1990s had seen a lack of capital investment for transport in London and congestion charging was seen as the one solution which had not been tried and would not require billions of investment to make a difference.
– all through the 1990s, particularly in the second half, London’s politicians had been coming round to the idea of a congestion charge. Whereas in the beginning of the 90s a senior politician who supported the idea said she couldn’t say that out loud, by the end of the 90s, all the London boroughs had supported the principle along with business organisations such as the CBI. This made it easier for Livingstone to stake his election bid on the issue. It is probably the case that had he been the Labour Party candidate, instead of an independent at the time, he probably wouldn’t have been allowed to make the same stand.
It’s also a bit disingenuous to blame increased congestion in central London on Uber. While the percentage increases have been high, the absolute numbers are still low as a share of total traffic. As the article hints, the peak hours for Uber and private hire are in the evenings, after the congestion charge has finished, and Uber is on record sa sting their peak hirings are around midnight. None of this will impact significantly on day time congestion.
@quinlet
I disagree with your last paragraph statement “None of this will impact significantly on day time congestion”. The article does state “City Hall investigated and concluded that traffic congestion was the primary reason why bus usage was down in London”, and also states that transportation network company (TNCs) vehicles, ie Uber, Lyft and the like, have increased greatly in number.
Also the peak TNC trade is later evenings, there are daytime Uber, Lyft et al vehicles roaming about central London. And given the paucity of street lanes, it doesn’t take many additional vehicles to cause turbulent traffic flow and delays. Also TfL has posted data stating that overall ridership over all modes is down slightly. Extrapolating what is happening in large cities in the US, this is due to TNCs. Circumstantial evidence certainly, but a number of these factors correlate. Hopefull TfL will release detailed data sets in due course.
Nicole Badstuber will be on BBC Radio London live at 8.10pm this evening to talk about the success of London congestion charge & the case for reform.
Radio One broadcast on BBC iPlayer