It’s unfortunate that small businesses are hurting. Do they know that this is because of the congestion pricing, or is it possible that it’s some other reason? (I actually patronize more small stores when I’m biking, because it’s easier to hop off and buy something. In the car, I have to find parking, which often means going to a retail chain that has a parking lot.)

Essentially, congestion pricing in London has been terrible for small businesses which, truth be told, are the “soul” of any large city. I fought congestion pricing vehemently because I knew in my heart that if it were to be enacted in NYC, many small businesses on the financial fringe would just fold. This article substiantiates that thought.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/04/06/2008-04-06_congestion_fee_hasnt_stopped_snarls.html

["While traffic congestion also dropped initially, it rose last year with road improvements and additional bus and bike lanes contributing to slowing traffic, the data show.

Business experts are not bullish on the charge.

We would argue the current London scheme is not one you would want to export," says James Ford, spokesman for the London Chamber of Commerce.

Ford's research found that since congestion charging began, retail chains have experienced a 22% drop in profitability while independent stores saw a 53% dip.

Higher-end department stores are doing fine: "Harrods' customer base won't be deterred too much by the cost of the congestion charge," Ford said."]

Using backroads to avoid dense traffic and toll roads is what people do right now. By making the whole city into a “toll zone” that alleviates the problem - you’re either going in there, or you’re not. There is no more question of route. If you’re going around it, then you shouldn’t have been going into that high traffic area in the first place and clogging up their already-straining roads.”

I’ll give an example about this. I live outside of Boston. If they did put in Congestion pricing, I could see it being anything inside of Rte 128. Now say you live in Plymouth (to the south of Boston) and want to drive to Salem (to the north of Boston). It is much quicker and less miles to drive right up through the city on I-93, then to drive around the city on rte 128. But if there is a charge to do this, everyone will just drive on Rte 128 which is already packed. Add all the people avoiding the congestion pricing will make this road a parking lot. So I can see there are a lot of bugs to work on if this is ever going to work in Boston or any other city with the same situation.

But I do think it’s a good idea, just needs to be adapted to the city it’s being implemented in to avoid people just clogging up other roads to avoid the charge.

Plus about 80% of Manhattanites (and some similar number of New Yorkers in general) don’t have cars. So the politicians wouldn’t even have to piss off many voters.

Congestion charging isn’t all roses. It’s been murder on small businesses in town.

Again, making the case for Manhattan: One of the costs of doing business in Manhattan is a $450 (last I heard) extra delivery charge for any delivery made by truck to any business. Basically, it is so hard for the trucks to park to unload that they assume that they will park illegally and get a ticket–so they add the cost of the ticket onto the delivery fee. If that cost were eliminated, life might actually be easier for small businesses in Manhattan. Not sure that applies anywhere else in the US.

But we can afford private cars, and garages to put them in and all of the really nice things that go along with being able to spread out our population. People like it. Why take away what they want?

I wasn’t going to respond, because I think the answer to your question is obvious, but then I realized that this is an excellent example of the phenomenon I was talking about.

Downtown LA is about 15 miles away. Driving there between 3:30 and 7:00 takes about an hour and a half to two hours. On a subway that averaged 30MPH, that same trip would take 30 minutes at rush hour. (Less on an express train). Traffic is consistently rated the number one problem in our city. And yet, bizarrely, you claim that “People like it”.

???

As one living in flyover country, it is impossible to depend on public transport. That license is your freedom and your indepedence. Gas tax would not be so bad if every other person did not own an SUV, otherwise known in the rest of the world as a commercial truck. It is equivalent to having a US family driving around in one of those state trucks that plow snow in New York. Yes, lots of utility and ground clearance. But do you really need one in Miami? And to see one driven by a commuter is almost silly.

Anyway, most US public transport is less than useful outside of NYC, Boston, or similar older foot-trafic cities. I lived just out of the city center and the wait for the bus took two hours. My car was far more convenient and reliable.

My issue is one of declining civic equality. If one is an aristo, one can avoid the pains and the need to fix the problem. Wealth can ship in tankers of Evian for water use and the poor deal with scarcity on their own.

The charge is probably better than the alternatives, but there’s no reason to be uncritical about it, or about the way public transport is administered in general. Train fares are far, far too high; a peak-rate daily fare is almost as high as the congestion charge, and that’s for only one person rather than a carful. From here in W3, I consider a day in town to be a luxury, based on public transport costs alone.

The way it’s been implemented has been veering away from the democratic; the charge zone was extended contrary to the originally stated plans and without public consultation. The oh-god-please-no project to build a tramline here in West London was similarly fudged; thankfully that’s been cancelled, but the whole project spoke volumes about the democratic credentials of public transport schemes here.

Oh, one really neat reform that’s gone unmentioned here; resident over-60s are allowed to use all public transport for free, but still have to pay the congestion charge, so that group has pretty much quit driving into town entirely.

London doesn’t have much in the way of choke-points that you can direct traffic into either. Just a massive network of cameras. If you can get good enough camera coverage such that there is _no_ way into or out of the area without being spotted, then there wouldn’t be any of that “backroads instead of toll roads” business, since _everything_ in the area is a toll road. It’s a “toll zone” really.

Using backroads to avoid dense traffic and toll roads is what people do right now. By making the whole city into a “toll zone” that alleviates the problem - you’re either going in there, or you’re not. There is no more question of route. If you’re going around it, then you shouldn’t have been going into that high traffic area in the first place and clogging up their already-straining roads.

Concerns about civil liberties have been diminished by the cameras’ effectiveness in reducing street crime.

What effectiveness? The people involved admit that they don’t really work.

Yes, the congestion pricing idea seems like a good one. It still cheeses me off that people pretend that the surveillance works as advertised, when it really doesn’t.

Limited access is important. In the U.S., at least, I’d expect this to result in an immediate flood of 50% of the driving population to the back roads, dutifully spending an additional 45 minutes per car, destroying the peace of the surrounding areas, and burning a few million extra gallons of gas in order to avoid paying the government anything.

That would probably kill a Boston proposal, for example.

Joe, gas taxes are more problematic. One issue is that (unlike congestion pricing) they apply state wide. Because many areas outside cities are not amenable to functional public transport, then a gas tax would raise the cost of movement for people in those areas without providing them an alternative.

The nice thing about a city-specific congestion pricing scheme is that the people who are affected negatively (car transport gets more expensive) are given an enhanced public transport system in exchange. And as a “double bonus”, the transportation system also provides a benefit to those who couldn’t afford to drive anyway.

I think this could work in Manhattan maybe in Chicago, probably not in LA and definitely not in Atlanta.

I think a gas tax would be a better way to get people to drive less but that’s just me.

Unfortunately, it’ll never work in Los Angeles. It’s the same as with universal health care: we see other countries implement it, we see that it totally rocks, and then we bizarrely claim that what we have is as good as, no, BETTER than what they have. (Boy, I’m sure glad I’m not in London. They have to WAIT for the bus! Sometimes as long as ten minutes! I’d much rather sit in traffic for an hour and a half.)

Sometimes I think that Americans are too rich for our own good. Maybe if we couldn’t afford private cars, then we’d all be forced to take fast, cheap, efficient public transportation.