The way governments choose to tackle problems can depend on which strategy has the strongest champion. A prime example of this being the role of Ken Livingstone in choosing (in theory at least) to cut London’s traffic congestion by introducing a Congestion Charge in 2003. The basis for his ‘new’ scheme was actually a 40 year old idea, widely known as road pricing. But, despite Livingstone’s great success in championing a policy theory – following 40 years of rejection, in practice, it has not delivered sustainable reductions in congestion. Go here for a Reuters report on this. In fact, despite the Western extension of the zone, congestion levels are now the same in 2008 as they were before the charge. Quite clearly this superbly championed way to cut traffic jams does not work in practice – well it does to anyone who isn’t blinded by absolute faith in such ways to go… Now, and partly out of disenchantment with Livingstone’s failure to deliver progress for most road users, Londoners have elected Boris Johnson on the back of promises to champion a different approach to resolving problems. These include reducing the traffic jams induced by recent trends to include an ‘all red’ phase in traffic light sequencing at junctions. But the most controversial idea that mayor Johnson is committed to championing is to improve road safety by allowing motorcycle and scooter riders (P2W) to use bus lanes. Intriguingly, his choice to champion this move was the opposite of Livingstone’s – even they both had the evidence from a three year TfL trial on which to base their decisions. The trail showed that motorbikes use of bus lanes cuts casualties among cyclists and pedestrians and by up to 40%, for P2W riders. Unlike Johnson, who accepted the findings despite knowing that some cycling lobby extremists would not like them, Livingstone’s response to TfL’s report of safety benefits was to have it cut out of the published report…
Again, like congestion charging, the bikes in bus lanes idea is not new, but unlike congestion charging it is successfully deployed in many UK towns and cities and in many more locations overseas, including hyper safety-conscious Sweden. Nevertheless, the extent it can be deployed to reduce casualties still depends on how well the measure is championed.
Challengers of policy ideas can also have a significant influence on the way they evolve. That certainly happened to the UK government in 2007, when they were forced to back off from their plan for nationwide road pricing. This was the result of a spectacular challenge by a formerly low profile individual called Peter Roberts. With the help of the ABD and media publicity his petition on the newly established No 10 website for gauging public opinion attracted a truly exceptional 1.8 million signatures by the end of voting on the issue. Higher profile challengers to prevailing orthodoxies now include Jeremy Clarkson and his chums on the massively popular BBC TV program Top Gear.
The prevailing emphasis on constraining motorised vehicle use does however have several champions. The list includes Professor Phil Goodwin as an academic expert – who spread the theoretical word that enabled policy-makers to reject demand for improving capacity to accommodate traffic. Political champions of current orthodoxies include John Prescott who, backed by Blair’s New Labour regime, famously promised to cut congestion with a ten year plan that would deliver transport in Britain that would be “better for everyone”. Unfortunately for all in the UK it turns out that they were either just peddling dreams or lies – or perhaps a mixture of both…
Professor David Begg was also a significant champion of constraint and vogue notions of ‘sustainable’ transport. In many ways did for Edinburgh what Livingstone did for London, but despite massive backing from UK government, Begg and his chums failed to get away with a congestion charging scheme in the Scottish capital…
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