Poor TfL

[Martin Cassini]

News today that BJ might increase the con(gestion) charge because TfL is short of money. The con charge is premature because it was imposed before deregulation was even tried. TfL has 70 managers on salaries of £100,000+. Doing what? Dreaming up more sites for more lights to cause more congestion so they can increase the con charge again. Vile work if you can get it.

[Martin Cassini]

The less affluent (effluent?) don't get any benefit from the con charge - they suffer from it even more - it doesn't hurt the affluent. The money goes into further systems of control, or gets diverted elsewhere. The authorities have been lax in promoting clean transport. If some of the money raised went into developing sustainable transport, that would be a start. But the only action taken seems negative, burdensome, unproductive.

[Ian Perry]

I give value to The Commons. Why should people not have to pay to pollute my air, annoy me with their noise and use my public space for their dangerous, unpleasant vehicles? The less affluent of London are unable to park in central London, even if they own cars. Surely it is only right that they receive compensation from motorists who monopolise the public space known as "roads"?

[Martin Cassini]

Ian, you seem to be a little regulator at heart! I disagree with you. As I wrote in a Guardian Comment piece, "If we were free to use our innate ability and commonsense to filter, and subsequently road capacity were exceeded, congestion charging might be justified. Until then, it's another premature layer of control and enforcement to cure problems of the experts' own making. It does nothing to reduce danger and delay at junctions plagued by priority rules and traffic lights." Whole piece here.

[Ian Perry]

I would not blame the managers at TfL, but Boris. Despite the 25% increase in the C charge, TfL will (according to the London Standard) receive £35,000,000 less annual income because of Boris’ decision to scrap the Western Extension zone. Once again, London’s public transport users are increasingly subsidising the use of polluting cars by others.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23756905-huge-fare-rises-and-pound-10-c-charge.do