Editor's note: rosa prince Deputy Editor of Politico UK. Her views expressed in this comment are her own. Read more her opinion on CNN.
London CNN —
Former US President Donald Trump appears to be going out of his way to distract the public this week, and many can guess why.
“I can't believe New York City has congestion pricing in place. Everyone has to pay a lot of money for the 'privilege' of coming to New York City,” he wrote on his Truth social site on Tuesday. But without it, the city is in dire straits.” Many political observers say the election interference trial in Manhattan was the most difficult day yet.
Here in the UK we call this the 'dead cat strategy'. Want to change the conversation at a dinner party? Throw the dead cat on the table. Want to change the political debate? Discuss debates in other areas as loudly and energetically as possible. Yes, it's a little extreme, but it's often very effective.
Stormy Daniels, President Trump's former mistress, took to the witness stand on Tuesday to claim that Trump paid her hush money to keep quiet about the affair so as not to ruin his chances as president. As the story unfolds, shocking and ridiculous details about their short-lived affair are revealed. Winning the 2016 presidential election.
In short, President Trump's comments about New York traffic were a classic dead cat. And those of us living in the UK know that that was way off base.
In the same Truth Social message, the former president reflected on the impact of congestion pricing elsewhere in the world. “It's been a failure wherever it's been tried,” he says. “And that would only work if the place was hot, hot, hot, which New York City isn't right now. With this tax money, what kind of office tenants and businesses would want to be here? Hopefully it will be withdrawn soon!”
Unlike the previous president, I'm not going to gloat about congestion relief fees, which I know nothing about. But “failure everywhere it's been tried”? That seems unreasonable.
After all, congestion pricing has been introduced in many cities from Singapore to Stockholm over the past 25 years. In London, where I live, congestion pricing is not considered a failure. In fact, it is far from a failure. And as someone who until recently lived in New York City for more than a decade, I can't imagine that would be much of a problem in the Big Apple. In fact, I could very well imagine that New Yorkers would love it even more if they gave it enough time to get used to it.
Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images
London introduced congestion pricing more than 20 years ago and has since seen a reduction in traffic congestion, pollution and noise.
The purpose of having congestion zones is, of course, to reduce traffic. Additional benefits include reducing air pollution and reducing street noise and wear and tear. It's also a great way for cash-strapped cities to raise money for other transportation needs, such as bike lanes. In contrast, in the UK, motorway tolls are relatively low compared to the toll plazas that disrupt journeys over significant distances on US motorways.
The key to gaining public buy-in for taxing city roads is establishing physical boundaries to mark where congestion zones are.
In London, the congestion zone occupies the center of town, where very few people actually live, and given the highly efficient public transport system, most people don't need to drive. And of course, for those who have to drive, there are faster and more convenient alternative routes without going through the town center. I live about 4 miles from the edge of a traffic zone and have never had difficulty getting around traffic. In fact, I can't remember the last time I paid a bill. The cost is £15 ($19) per day (7am to 6pm Monday to Friday, 12pm to 6pm on weekends).
My old Manhattan apartment is less than a mile north of the proposed 60th Street zone, but like most of my neighbors, I don't own a car. The bill was not high because I had not done so. problem. It was much more convenient to take the subway or catch a taxi. Wisely, taxi fees are waived in London, but you'll be paying $1.25, compared to $15 for a regular car in New York, so it doesn't feel that expensive. .
In retrospect, there is no doubt that there was some alarm before this offense was introduced in London 21 years ago, but it quickly became seen as non-problematic and The charge has since been upheld by mayors from all political walks of life, including Trump's conservatives. A friend of Boris Johnson, who served as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016.
By most metrics, London's congestion pricing experiment has been a huge success. Figures released by Transport for London (TfL) to mark the 20th anniversary of its introduction last year showed that traffic within congestion zones had fallen by 18%. Traffic congestion has decreased by 30%, and public bus use has increased by a third. His car trips decreased by 10% as residents transitioned to walking instead of just cycling and public transport.
There is also no evidence of any negative financial impact on businesses within the London Zone. In fact, the opposite is true: deliveries are much easier when the roads are less congested.
Mr Johnson was replaced as mayor of London by Labour's Sadiq Khan, who has clashed with Mr Trump in the past and under whose watch TfL awarded the former president £750 in unpaid congestion charges in the 2019 state parliament. (He reportedly hit a $935 bill on a visit to the UK) by introducing a separate charge for the most gas-guzzling vehicles under a scheme called Ultra-Low Emission Zones, commonly known as ULEZs. Opinions were divided.
The plan aims to reduce pollution and was introduced in 2019 after the asthma death of Ella Roberta Addo Kissy Debra, a 9-year-old girl who lived near the city's downtown south. was introduced in addition to. It's on the ring road, about a mile from my home in south London. She was the first person in the UK to have air pollution cited as a cause of death, and her proposals to reduce air pollution, which only applied to central London, were widely welcomed.
Mr Khan faced some backlash after extending the scheme to suburban boroughs last year, but polls show Londoners overall want polluting cars off their roads. As it turned out, 9 out of 10 of his cars were ULEZ compliant, including my own old banger, and various trade-in schemes were implemented for other caught vehicles.
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As a result, after launching the Congestion Reduction Plan, together with other initiatives to reduce traffic and generally improve quality of life, air quality in central London has improved dramatically. In fact, levels of harmful nitrogen oxides have almost decreased. half.
Mayor Khan was re-elected just last week, perhaps a sign that Londoners recognize his overall job performance and responsibility for managing the car tax policy introduced by his predecessor. That suggests that it certainly isn't seen as much of a “failure” by most people in this city.
To be fair to Trump, he is a New Yorker and wants New York to prosper.
But as someone who considers himself both a fellow New Yorker and a Londoner, I can honestly say that the strange post-pandemic world facing these two metropolises, and more broadly, Congestion pricing is simply not appropriate given all the other problems that exist. Not one of them.
