London Congestion Charge: FAIL. According to the most recent reports, traffic in London is exactly as bad today as it was before the C-Charge was ever initiated. London motorists have made their opinion about the system clear in recently voting out ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone, a man who championed the charges and had plans to increase their dollar amount and expand their coverage. The new mayor, Boris "Fast Lane" Johnson, says, "I have always thought that the Congestion Charge is a blunt instrument." Blunt and ineffective, it would seem. While the number of cars within the city limits have gone down, other factors have crept up like an increase in bike and pedestrian traffic that keeps motorists crawling.
There is one thing that the London Congestion Charge was good at: making money. Last year alone, the C-Charges racked up some £268 million (a whopping $536 million) in charges. While it may be hard to see that income go away, the fact is that it still takes Londoners an average of 2.3 minutes per kilometer to drive through the city, so expect to see some major modifications to the system in the coming months.
Motorists in London had high hopes when they elected Boris Johnson as their mayor. The former Conservative party leader is a well-known gearhead, and even moonlights as an automotive journalist. And those hopes may just yet be vindicated, as Mayor Johnson begins rolling back the Congestion Charges instituted by his reviled predecessor "Red" Ken Livingstone.
For starters, Boris has stated publicly and on the record, "I am not going to be having any more congestion charges." Although he has not yet dismantled the entire system, the Mayor has indicated that he is considering canceling its most recent extension into the Kensington and Chelsea neighborhoods, narrowing down the zone to the downtown core between Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge. At the same time, Johnson is launching a half-million-pound public consultation into the entire C-Zone network, while campaigning for a "modal shift towards bicycling and walking, not just in inner London but also in outer London." We hope to hear good things soon.
Forgive us for not being more up on the landscape of local London politics, but when we informed you that anti-automobile incumbent Ken Livingstone had lost his bid for reelection as the Mayor of London we had no idea how lucky Londoners had gotten with his replacement. Boris Johnson is his name, and he is the Yin to Livingstone's car-hating Yang. Johnson is a true motorhead, and a quick Google search reveals a plethora of evidence supporting that description.
The man is actually a professional editor, journalist and automotive scribe, having penned car-related columns for a number of newspapers and even British GQ. He's written a number of books including one called Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars, which appears to be straight from the Jeremy Clarkson school of car comedy. You can read more about Johnson at his official website here, check out his video review of the Nissan Quashqai here, or read reviews of his book at Amazon.com here.
Oh, and Johnson did appear on Top Gear once to drive a reasonably priced car on the TG test track. His time? 1:56 seconds in a Suzuki Liana (this was before they switched to the Chevy Lacetti), good enough for ninth place at the time and ultimately 56th when the list was finally reset. Did your city's mayor appear on Top Gear? That's it, we're moving to Chelsea.
