London's congestion charge.

[Ducati]

Read an interesting report over the weekend which said that the congestion charge had not produced as much revenue as was hoped, and that the number of accidents involving injury in the congestion charge area had not reduced in a like proportion to the amount of reduced traffic on the roads.

 

Therefore, I've drawn two conclusions from this: the first is that the congestion charge had nothing to do with congestion but was in fact a revenue earning exercise, and secondly, as a result of the congestion charge the roads are more dangerous.

 

So, am I wrong?

[Starman 2112]

For all the talk about introducing the congestion charge, everyone was more concerned about how they were going to pay it, rather than finding an alternative way to travel to work etc. I agree that it is a very cynical revenue earning exercise. What about the proposed suggestion to extend the charging area outwards? The only difference to public transport I have seen in London is the phasing out of the Routemaster double decker buses.

[Cockney_si]

They got rid of all the routemaster busses as they were the main cause of the congestion in the atmosphere Just walking around the city of London used to fill my nose with some horrid dark stuff....eeewww!).

One step the government has taken to outlaw diesel users.

[hobart]

Where did you see this report and who said that it's not created as much revenue as hoped? All of the articles that I have seen have talked about the fact that it's managed to reduce traffic by 30%.

As for your second point, from what you are saying in the first paragraph, it seems the roads are overall less dangerous. They are possibly more dangerous per vehicle, but that seems rather irrelevant.