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Congestion charging

from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

The Times

December 16, 2002

Toll 'rat runs' will carry extra 200 vehicles an hour

By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

CONGESTION on some of London’s busiest roads will increase from February as drivers find new rat runs to avoid paying the £5 daily toll, the team behind the new charge has admitted.

At least 20 streets, many of them through residential areas, will carry an extra 200 vehicles an hour at peak times, according to Transport for London (TfL).

The scheme, starting on February 17, is expected to cut congestion by 20 to 30 per cent inside the charging zone, which covers eight square miles of Central London bounded by Vauxhall Bridge, Elephant & Castle, Tower Bridge and Euston Road.

TfL has previously said that congestion would rise slightly around the boundary, but a map produced by the authority reveals that the impact will be much greater than previously thought and will stretch far beyond the zone.

Several roads forming the boundary, which will be free to all drivers, will gain more than 180 extra vehicles an hour in the morning peak. They include Tower Bridge Road, Commercial Street, City Road, Vauxhall Bridge Road and Kennington Lane. A similar rise in traffic is expected in Edgware Road, Camden Street and Shoreditch High Street.

Drivers will begin to alter their routes from several miles outside the zone, leading to more congestion on a number of streets in Maida Vale, Wandsworth, Peckham, South Kensington and Limehouse.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, is hoping that the extra congestion on some streets will be outweighed by reductions elsewhere as 20,000 drivers a day switch to public transport.

The TfL map shows substantial reductions in congestion on a few arterial roads leading into the zone. Inside the zone, Piccadilly, Embankment, Upper Thames Street and Westminster, Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges will all carry much less traffic, according to TfL’s analysis. But other routes across the Thames will become more congested, including Tower Bridge, Wandsworth Bridge, Vauxhall Bridge, and Rotherhithe Tunnel.

Mr Livingstone has allocated £100million for 165 schemes around London to prevent rat-running and other negative effects. But the London Assembly, in a report published today on the impact of congestion charging, says that one in four of the schemes will not be in place by February.

The report says: “For those living on the edge of the charging zone this amounts to a double whammy — more overcrowding on trains to work and greater likelihood of rat-running in their local streets.”

The Assembly says that Mr Livingstone’s refusal to publish the criteria for judging the scheme means that he is its “sole arbiter” and will be able to claim success without justification.

Several major roadworks, including at Shoreditch, Trafalgar Square and Vauxhall Cross, are due to be concluded before the charge begins. The Assembly is concerned that improvements in traffic flow resulting from these projects will be falsely attributed to the introduction of the charge.

“We find it astounding that a scheme, which will have a major impact on London, can be arbitrarily withdrawn without any published performance criteria by which it can be publicly judged,” the report says.

The Assembly does not oppose the scheme in principle but says that TfL may be liable for hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Capita and other contractors, over and above the £200 million start-up costs.

John Biggs, chairman of the Assembly’s Transport Committee, said: “Alleviating congestion in Central London will inevitably involve some disruption. It may, however, come at the cost of frustrating, inconveniencing and alienating large numbers of Londoners, and that is its greatest risk.”

A TfL spokesman said: “A few roads around the zone may experience a small percentage increase in traffic. But we expect there will be a net reduction in traffic in the boroughs around the zone.”

Mr Livingstone has promised that congestion charging will lead to “school holiday levels of traffic all year round” and will raise £130 million a year for transport improvements

DEBATE

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