A street in London built on a human scale. Photo by dnlb2.

The BBC has run a piece by Dermot Finch, the director of Centre for Cities, which argues that UK cities have a lot to teach their Trans-Atlantic neighbors on subjects such as suburban sprawl and traffic. Finch’s argument is broken into four categories:

• Tackling Gridlock
• Keeping Town and City Centers Alive
• How to Beat Suburban Sprawl
• Lavishing Attention on Cities

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Congestion pricing is good for the environment and public health. Photo by dlisbona.

A team of scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and King’s College London conducted a study showing that London’s congestion pricing scheme has reduced air pollution in central London, saving Londoners as a whole 1888 extra years of life. The study focused on two types of pollutants from cars: NO2, a chemical compound known to cause acute and chronic bronchitis, and particulate matter (PM10), tiny particles suspended in the air which can become embedded in the lungs, causing asthma and bronchitis.

The authors of the study, which was published in the journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, are hardly sanguine about their results, noting that overall London saw only “modest” reductions in NO2 and PM10 levels. However, they also point out that, “Absolute and relative reductions in NO2 and PM10 were greatest within the congestion charging zone wards,” suggesting that an expansion of the zone would have an even greater environmental and health impact. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bike docking stations in Paris. Photo by dangiles73.

Last week, Ken Livingston, the Mayor of London, announced an ambitious plan to transform the British capital into a pedestrian and cycling city, an effort that he expects will reduce London’s carbon footprint by approximately 1.6 million tones.

Following the lead of Paris, his plan calls for an extensive network of bike docking stations located every 300 meters throughout the city, allowing Londoners to quickly pick up a bicycle, ride it to their destination and leave it at the nearest docking station for someone else to ride.

The city will also create road infrastructure for cyclists, building 12 “radial cycling corridors” on existing roadways to protect cyclists from traffic. Read the rest of this entry »

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Millenium Bridge in London by Neil101 on Flickr

WalkIt.com is a new website out of the United Kingdom that wants “to get people walking more”. In step with the likes of Google Transit and Walkscore, WalkIt.com provides a free, easy to use web service that maps the easiest way to walk from point A to point B in the cities of London, Edinburgh, and Birmingham. You just provide your starting location, your final destination and any in-between stops, and the website plots the best route to follow while letting you know the distance, the time it will take, the calories you will burn and the CO2 that you will save by walking instead of driving, taking a cab, or taking a bus. Read the rest of this entry »

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A street shot of pedestrian friendly London. Photo by *Berto from Flickr.

During the months of March and April I lived in pedestrian-friendly London, the biggest of the half-dozen cities around the world that now impose a congestion charge on motor vehicles entering the city during daytime.London’s congestion charge currently stands at £8 ($16) per day, and it has been very successful in (a) reducing the amount of traffic in the city by about 30%, and (b) raising significant revenues to support upgrading of the city’s mass transit systems. In my view, the congestion charging has also considerably improved London’s quality of life. I stayed for a month in a club near the British Museum that had four Underground stations, on three different lines, less than a 12 minute walk away. Throughout the whole of Central London there are great pedestrian accommodations, as well as extensive networks of bike- and bus-lanes. Some streets have been completely pedestrianized. On others, only buses and taxis are allowed. Sidewalks throughout the city center have been broadened. Pedestrian crossings are numerous and large, and have satisfyingly responsive pedestrian push-buttons.

Many businesses have responded well to the high volumes of pedestrians on the streets. Pubs would have a bustling clientele spilling out onto the streets for many hours of the day; new restaurants, retail boutiques, and small businesses had proliferated around the Underground stations. London has become a magnet for young people from all over Europe. It definitely had a polyglot new liveliness, and the late-evening streets seemed safer than they did back in the 1990s.

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Via our friends at Streetsblog, Ken Livingston, the Mayor of London, has just announced a plan to ban cars on certain central streets, “as part of a bold plan to create continental-style boulevards devoted to pedestrians and cyclists.”

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Photo of traffic congestion in Hong Kong by A.H. 1987 from Flickr

Solving the problem of congestion is usually a top priority for city authorities, who note that congestion not only causes air pollution, but also decreases quality of life and imposes significant economic costs, especially in rapidly growing cities. Although different cities have developed different solutions for dealing with the problem of congestion, few have successfully solved it. Mostly cities come up with ad hoc measures for dealing with congestion, like constructing more roads, bridges and highways, which paradoxically spur more car ownership and, hence, more congestion.

To date, the most effective measure to reduce congestion is something called congestion pricing, a type of road pricing put in place during specific times and locations, namely the most congested areas during peak times like rush hour. The pricing scheme is used to encourage travelers to shift to other travel times, routes and modes of transit. Congestion charging rates are flexible and can differ according to the type of motor vehicle, and can either be a flat rate or updated regularly to reflect the prevailing traffic conditions.
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