Lessons From London
Bloomberg is in shackles while Livingstone speeds ahead
by Niall Stanage Published: June 19, 2007
Tags: Politics, Real Estate, The City, Congestion pricing, Michael Bloomberg

As he struggles and strains to push through his congestion charge plan this week, New York's billionaire mayor must feel an incongruous affinity with one of Britain's last prominent leftists, Ken Livingstone.
Mr. Livingstone is Michael Bloomberg's opposite number in London. His socialism is of such a crimson hue that, back in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher abolished the elected body he headed, the Greater London Council, rather than deal with him. He won his first London mayoral election in 2000 as an independent, having been expelled from the center-left Labor Party of Tony Blair in the run-up to polling day.
When Mr. Livingstone announced that a congestion charge would be introduced in February 2003 to try to ease London's wheezing tailbacks, it was no surprise that more brickbats rained down upon his head.
Steven Norris, who was to become Mr. Livingstone's Tory opponent in his re-election battle the following year, derided the plan as "incompetent and incoherent". Peter Walker, a cabinet minister under Mrs. Thatcher, said that the congestion charge would bring "general misery".
The pun-loving British tabloids, which had customarily referred to Mr. Livingstone as "Red Ken" during the 1980s, now ran headlines that blared warnings of "Ken-gestion."
Even Mr. Livingstone admitted the scheme could imperil his political future, telling a BBC interviewer, "If this goes wrong, you will not be interviewing me next year."
He need not have worried. The London congestion charge is widely adjudged to be a roaring success, and its critics have long since been silenced.
The number of cars on London's roads has fallen by about 20 percent while the number of passengers on the city's buses has risen by about two million passengers per day, according to the official figures. The charge has also raised $240m to be put towards the British capital's transport infrastructure.
Mr. Livingstone romped home in the 2004 mayoral election. Reluctant encomiums have come his way from tabloid columnists - "I was wrong [to oppose the charge]. London is now as quiet as a Trappist monk's carpet slippers," wrote one - and even from the prime minister himself.
"I think it was an experiment that a lot of people were dubious about, frankly including me, and I think he deserves credit for having carried that through," Mr. Blair admitted.
There is no good reason to assume that what has worked in London would fail in New York. In fact, Manhattan has several practical advantages over London when it comes to setting up such a scheme. It is axiomatically easier for the authorities to monitor vehicles as they come and go to an island. And a population long accustomed to tolling and EZ Pass should find the introduction of a congestion charge less of a cultural shock than may have been the case in Britain.
Mr. Bloomberg's plan calls for the introduction of an $8 charge on cars wishing to enter Manhattan below 86th St between 6am and 6pm on weekdays. Trucks would be charged $21. Tolls paid at bridges and tunnels would be deductible from the congestion charge. Mr. Bloomberg has asserted that the levy would help pay for much-needed mass transit improvements. He has also claimed that at present the cost of congestion - including wasted fuel, increased operating costs and lost revenue - comes to about $13 billion per year.
In recent weeks, he has been rounding up support for his proposal. Governor Eliot Spitzer, New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and, as of Monday, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have backed him.
However, there is a fly in Mr. Bloomberg's ointment - the Democratic majority in the State Assembly, and their leader Sheldon Silver in particular.
Mr. Silver has become synonymous with obstructionism during his 13-year stint as Speaker. He foiled Mr. Bloomberg's intended West Side Stadium in 2005 and has also dragged his feet conspicuously over Moynihan Station.
As is his wont, Mr. Silver has not enunciated any clear principles on which his objections to the congestion charge are based. During an interview with an Albany radio station last week, he instead quibbled over the boundaries of the proposed fee-paying zone, and also mused on various other options for addressing congestion.
He declined to say whether he actually favored any of those options, of course, merely asserting that he's "not being negative."
If Mr. Silver's track record were more constructive that claim might be more believable. The Speaker has also said it is unlikely the Assembly will be able to take action on the mayor's plan before recessing on Thursday - though he has held out the possibility of convening a special session later in the summer.
Mr. Bloomberg, who insists the plan must be passed by early August if the city is to avail itself of up to $500 million in federal start-up funds, is unimpressed.
"If you can't do it by the 21st or whenever they finish up this session, I don't know why you would think you could do it later on," he said last week. "You're not going to learn anything else in another week or two."
The bickering continues. Meanwhile, New York's pre-eminence among international capitals comes under ever-increasing pressure. A January report jointly commissioned by the mayor and Senator Charles Schumer stated that the city was in grave danger of losing its status as the world's leading financial center in the next ten years.
Just last week, a report by MasterCard said London was now the best center of commerce in the world. It surpassed New York on four of the six criteria on which the rankings were based.
Mr. Bloomberg's congestion plan will not, of course, solve all New York's infrastructural problems in a single stroke. But it would represent a significant step in the right direction.
When Mr. Livingstone decided to introduce a congestion charge in his city, he overrode the objections of a majority of the members of his local assembly to do so.

When he contemplates New York's sclerotic state government, Mr. Bloomberg must long for the same freedom.

http://www.observer.com/2007/bloomberg-shackles-london-speeds ahead?page=0%2C1

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