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Traffic jams

from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Sorting out the jams is Ken's job

Simon Jenkins

Evening Standard

28 November 2002

Is there a conspiracy or is there not? Wherever two or three Londoners are gathered together, they whisper of "the plot". Why has traffic on key routes in central London slowed to 2.9mph, according to this newspaper, or an average of 9.5mph, according to the Mayor? The evidence of the eyes confirms it. From Baker Street to Islington, from Shoreditch to Vauxhall Cross, a mass of metropolitan rage congeals around one conviction, that someone, somewhere is strangling the traffic. Whodunnit? A traffic jam is no respecter of rich or poor. Like death, it is a great leveller, trapping the minister in his limousine, the doctor, the white-van driver, the tourist and the man on the Clapham omnibus. At Piccadilly, the rephasing of lights backs-up traffic to Hyde Park. Trafalgar Square clogs the Strand and Charing Cross Road. Gower Street is now a car park to the Euston Road. North London's rich are locked in holding pens at St John's Wood roundabout, permitted down Baker Street only in twos and threes. Roadworks at Bishopsgate and Vauxhall stifle all of human life.

Cycle lanes lie unused and gathering leaves. Bumps and blisters narrow roadways and entomb goods vehicles. The only way from Kennington to Westminster in rush hour is by Sherman tank.

The number one suspect must be the Mayor. He has both motive and weapon. Next February he is introducing the one policy he can call truly his own, the congestion charge, on which he says he will stand or fall. His enemy is the private motorist. He has traffic lights and roadworks at his disposal. Next year he wants to show that traffic speeds have risen. What better prelude than to create chaos now and boast a better future tomorrow? He must have done it.

The truth of the matter appears to be as follows. London's roadworks are now completely out of control. The Strand was dug up 160 times in the past year. My local street is never "at peace". Westminster city council counted 58,000 separate roadworks in the past year, almost double those the year before. The streets of Karachi and Kabul are more efficiently managed.

The Mayor is indeed trying to finish big road schemes before next year and has rephased traffic lights to ease flows through them. But he cannot control utilities, which can dig up roads at will.

More suspect are the urban guerrillas in the office of London's traffic supremo, Derek Turner. Using Health and Safety rules and a target on boroughs to cut the rise in urban traffic by a third, they have gone round "tweaking" traffic lights. To these mavericks a jam is a joy to behold, an enraged motorist a thing of beauty. To them, the streets are being returned to the proletariat - defined as cyclists and pedestrians - who are now able to wander Oxford Circus, Piccadilly and Holborn, supposedly strumming guitars, eating pizzas and singing praises to Citizen Ken. Not for nothing are these venues called " all- red phases". The net effect has been interesting. It has crudely held back a tide of traffic at the boundaries of the new congestion-charge zone, south of the river, east of the City and north of Euston Road. In doing so, it has replicated the charge's effect. Away from roadworks, parts, at least, of the innerzone area do seem less congested. With parking bays costing an exorbitant £4 an hour, Mr Livingstone is making the West End, ironically, more convenient for the rich. They should cheer the charge.

But in that case, goes the cry, why bother with a charge at all? The Mayor already admits to a cut in vehicle numbers within the zone of 16 per cent in the past year, against his target for the congestion charge of 15 per cent. Traffic lights and parking fees have done the trick. The latest figures for the charge anyway look poor value for money. Over the first six years, the total cost of the scheme is now £490 million and mounting, against a predicted revenue of £794 million (and probably falling).

I still believe that charging motorists for scarce road space is, in principle, better than the present "rationing by congestion". I refuse to abandon the principle because of a city motorists' hue and cry. But the scheme chosen is phenomenally complex. A similar scheme in Melbourne took nine months of electronic chaos to become enforceable. Nobody knows how half a million vehicles are to be registered for exemption in the next 10 weeks without crashing Capita's computers with daily penalty notices. There must be a cheaper way of collecting £300 million from London motorists over the next six years. By then, satellite tracking should do the job more cheaply.

One person whose nerve has already cracked is Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary. Yesterday he told this newspaper that London's traffic now poses "a real threat to jobs and the status of London as one of the world's leading centres". His knee duly jerked, and he announced the appointment of a "czar" to resume control over traffic in London. This individual would have legislative powers to override the Mayor and his transport commissioner, Bob Kiley. The czar will be given statutory control both over traffic-light phasing and over the digging up of the roads.

This is madness. I want to blame Ken Livingstone. If more powers are needed to control roadworks, why are they not given to him? It was Tory central government that deregulated roadworks. It was Labour central government that demanded "30 per cent less traffic" and licensed the traffic-light guerrillas. There is no reason why London's government should be stripped of its powers because of the past failings of Whitehall.

London needs no more of the pestilential czars who so conspicuously failed to run the city for 10 years. If Mr Livingstone screws up the congestion charge, then we shall sling him out. That is not the job of Mr Darling.

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(posted 7790 days ago)

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