The Oil Drum: Local

London experience.

- You need a dictatorial mayor with a lot of power-- Red Ken has jurisdiction over most of London's transport.

Don't ask people what they think before you install the system-- Edinburgh made that mistake and they decisively rejected the system in a referendum.  The people who will be hurt will vote down the people who might benefit.

How you implement is as important as what you implement.  At another point I might post a bit on this, but its basically about managing expectations.

• The revenues from the system were a lot less than planned-- there won't be a lot of surplus cash to subsidise public transport.

• traffic speeds have risen about 20%.  Traffic is about 10-15% lower, but the effect is much less than that at Rush hours and correspondingly greater 9.30-4.30.

• Red Ken also heavily invested in public buses before the system started-- more buses and new routes.  This has worked: the only known intra-model passenger shift from cars to buses, by about 4%.  That has never been achieved before in the history of public transport.  (the Tube/subway system is over capacity and has little meaningful that can be done to improve it over the short term).  However the bus subsidies from Central Government are now running out, leaving a yawning gap on the operating deficit.

You also see quite a few more cyclists about. (there was a story this was as a result of the 7/7/05 bombings, but that has been discounted-- I think the very warm weather and the shortage of rain we have been having has had a much greater impact- -we are officially on drought warning)

- the leading department store (John Lewis on Oxford Street) says custom is down 8% due to the tariff.  I find it hard to believe that there were all these eager shoppers who shopped at John Lewis, by car between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday, but there you have it.  If I go into John Lewis on weekdays, I see people who have popped in from work.

It's not good for downtown retailers is their consensus (it's hard to know who is right) and the effect has worsened the retail trading problems in central London (shops moving to the suburban malls, general deterioration of shopping in London).

• we've just doubled the tariff (to try to increase revenues) to £10 per day = $18.  There is also a plan to increase the coverage zone westwards into Chelsea (the equivalent of embracing the Upper East and West Side).  This is a very bad idea, as it will create more 'free' users who don't have to pay the tariff (because they live in the charging zone) and so increase congestion.

• the largest office complex, Canary Wharf, (think Battery Park City or La Defence in Paris), is outside the congestion charge zone

• traffic has increased on the boundary roads, but except at peak hours it isn't impossibly worse

• it was widely predicted the world would end, or that London would be saved.  Neither has happened.  The big news is the buses are better and there seem to be more cyclists

• electric cars (and hybrids) enter the zone for free.  This has led to a miniboom in all electric cars, which being smaller, quieter and lighter, is a good think all round