In no uncertain terms they argue it is the most effective way to improve the quality of life and reduce carbon emissions.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone's "congestion pricing" has become a model success story that drew attention, whether awe or scepticism, from many mayors and city managers attending the second day of the "Large Cities Climate Summit" yesterday in New York.

Addressing the panel discussing "Beating the Congestion and Surviving Your Next Election" at the fourday summit of some 40 of the world's largest cities to tackle climate change, Livingstone acknowledged the fears of many elected mayors that their political future could be jeopardised by the drastic measures to tax drivers for taking their cars to trade and business centres of the cities.

"When I introduced the meas¬ure four years ago, my poll rating was bad, the media were hostile and gave disastrous predictions; it was all doom and gloom, no one would drive, retail shops and busi¬nesses in the controlled area would have to shut down.

"Tony Blair wanted to appear as if he had nothing do with it. The government gave us money to expand the bus system but hoped nobody knew about it," Livingstone recalled with a smile.

But he then listed how the meas¬ure improved flows of traffic in the city: the number of cars in the cen¬tre of London has been reduced by 38 per cent, a rate Livingstone said was twice more than he anticipat¬ed. Commercial vehicles increased, the number of cyclists increased 80 per cent, while bus riders increased from four to six million a day because of the city investment in the expansion of the bus system.

As a result, carbon emissions from the transport sector of London reduced CO2 emissions by 25 per cent.

Livingstone noted that his polit¬ical courage to introduce the meas¬ure came from being pressured by London's business community. Congestion in the city cost ?2 bil¬lion (Bt140 billion) in business losses a year. London had lost its competitiveness and businesses threatened to relocate elsewhere, he said.

The mayor of London said he expanded the controlled areas by doubling them early this year and increased charges from ?5 to ?8 with similar hostility from the media, but opinion polls stated that his political approval went up.

"Politicians like to underesti¬mate the intelligence of the gener¬al public - trust your people that they recognise the problem. In four years my poll has gone up 14 per cent and they don't want to vote for my rival because they fear my rival would remove congestion pricing."

Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin told Livingstone he was interested in his success story but had little clue how a gridlocked city like Thailand's capital with 5.5 millions cars on the street every day could begin the measure without a good public transit sys¬tem.

"We only have 50km combined of Skytrain and subway. The buses are run by the central government. We want to introduce the charge too. But don't have a proper mass transit system. Do we need to have the mass transit system in place first or could we start now in the inner city?"

Livingstone's advice is to improve the bus system because subways take a long time to con¬struct. He said in the case of London, the number of buses increased from 6,000 to 8,000 along with the introduction of new routes, and the private sector played a key role in helping with the expansion finance.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised Livingstone's scheme. If he has his way, drivers who want to enter inner Manhattan will have to pay US$8 (Bt267) as a congestion charge. 

The Mayor of Copenhagen, Klaus Bondam said he had want¬ed to introduce congestion charg¬ing for some time but the right wing central government opposed the idea by not issuing legislation needed to allow the city to embark on the measure.

"Copenhagen is much smaller than Bangkok with only 500,000 residents, but noise and air pollu¬tion from the traffic bothers our residents so we want to discourage cars from getting into the city. We will continue to fight for what is right."

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The Nation, New York City