Taxi trade magazine Taxi Leaks have published a very good article by Quentin Wilson on the anti-car legacy of past and current Mayors. It starts by him saying: “To lay the blame for the quality of London’s air on passenger car drivers is a ponderous whopper of some magnitude. Every transport usage survey going tells us that car use in London has actually declined yet congestion and pollution has risen”. He’s certainly right on that point.

He also says “The capital’s road system didn’t become the snarling constipated and polluted ruin it is today without considerable help from politicians and legislators. What we’re now seeing (and breathing) are the unintended consequences of decades of deliberate anti-car policies” and he’s undoubtedly right on that too.

He rightly blames the mess we now have on inept politicians from “I hate cars” Ken Livingstone, through to the current Mayor Sadiq Khan whose latest Transport Strategy Proposals will make matters worse (see http://www.freedomfordrivers.org/against-mts.htm if you have not yet objected),

Quentin also attacks the Congestion Charge for being a poor tax in terms of the revenue it generates, although he accepts that the reason congestion has not improved as a result is from road space reallocation. But that is the excuse TfL give when in reality such schemes are basically ineffective because there is such an excess of unmet demand just waiting to fill up any space left by people deterred by the congestion charge.

Apart from that minor error, the article is a very good explanation of the defects in London’s traffic and transport policies over the last twenty years. The full article can be read here: http://taxileaks.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/london-anti-car-legacyby-quentin-willson.html

Roger Lawson