| All This for a Fiver |
21 April 2003
|
Driving in Central London on £5 a Day
London traffic had reached the point where socialist Mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone adopted a monetarist solution of charging people to drive on the roads. In a major blow to ideological purity, it worked. Traffic was down 20% almost immediately, and scofflaws had failed to stop the fee. Paying attention America?
"It won't work here" is a favorite among local politicians with no sense of vision, and this phrase will almost certainly be trotted out to keep such schemes from the streets of North America and Europe. The problem is the argument does not hold a drop of water. If it works in London, there are very few places it can't work.
London has more drivers than Los Angeles, the same bridge and tunnel misery of New York, and streets narrower than Boston's. Londoners have had to deal with terror threats for more than a generation. And there is a segment of London's population that views the government there with the same hostility as the Michigan Militia does the Feds.
Cameras have already been placed in most major US cities to catch those running red lights. Adapting these to monitor license plates of those driving to make sure the fee is paid would be simple enough.
One advantage to this scheme if adopted in San Francisco or New York would be the end of bridge tolls. They would become superfluous, and the delay at the booth to pay up would vanish. Unless, of course, they are kept for the joy of the extra revenue.