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London: still stuck in a jam
spiked, 19 March 2007
Four years on, the Congestion Charge hasn’t got Londoners moving faster. It is a failure of policy, and a failure of imagination

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The piece argues that the Congestion Charge doesn’t appear to be designed to reduce driving in central London during the busiest periods. At the same time as traditional ways of managing traffic congestion and flow been relegated, London is continually being made less accessible. It contends that a number of elements have been lost from London's transport policy: ambition, imagination and innovation, and humanism, and looks at the increasing tendency blame to blame drivers. Noting the lack of appreciate for the researchers, engineers, designers and craftsmen who create the automobile, it considers the consequences of presenting people as the problem. It concludes on the attack on people's living standards and freedoms represented by initiatives such as the Congestion Charge. Article on spiked Environment.

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