This London  

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London is a unique city.  Now is congestion charge, tomorrow decongestion charge.  One wonders why we should pay for congestion charge and not decongestion charge.  The idea is to decongest the city and not congest it.  Are we paying to congest the city or are we discouraged from coming to the city with our car? 

It is inconceivable to pay and do the wrong thing.  One of the arguments of Ken Livingston is that the atmosphere would be cleaner.  It then means that those who can afford the charge are doing the wrong thing because they are paying to pollute the less fortunate ones.  If the charge is to discourage us from taking our car to the city so as to reduce congestion and get us a cleaner air, then the appropriate name should be decongestion charge.

Anyway, Ken is smiling to the banks now and his officials are busy giving obedient citizens great fines after they had prepaid.  Machines or computers are convenient to blame at this level.  The most pertinent question is to assess the scheme: is it working according to its objectives or not?

That is difficult to do.  The real objective of the scheme oscillates between obtaining enough money for the development of transport in London and reducing the congestion in the city.  Any other objective can come in between.

At the initial stage, it appears the scheme has worked to reduce the volume of traffic in the controlled zone.  But anybody that has lived in a city of traffic control knows that such controls work while its inhabitants are looking for possible loopholes and/or pass on the new charges to consumer and given a reasonable time, the congestion comes back.  And then a new control would be enforced or the amount increased.  The inhabitants are always at the receiving end.

We hope that the case of London will not be so.  We urge all Christians to pray for Mayor Ken to think of those whose salary is moderate.

Liberty       >>>>>>>>>>  Setting the captive free!  <<<<<<<<<<