Bikie subscriber Jeff Schimpff is at it again! -Mike PS. Go, Jeff, Go!
THE CAPITAL TIMES MONDAY JULY 14, 2003
Rob Zaleski: How about charging toll downtown?
By Rob Zaleski
There is, it turns out, one surefire way for cities to eliminate - or at least sharply curtail - traffic congestion in their downtowns.
They can emulate what London has been doing the last five months: charge a daily $8 traffic congestion fee for all vehicles entering an 8-square-mile zone in the central city.
That far-reaching and highly controversial move has proven so successful - London's inner-city congestion is down about 40 percent - that even its proponents are shocked, according to a story last week in USA Today.
"Without a doubt, London is a far more pleasant place to live in, work in or visit than it was five months ago," said Graham Goodwin, a spokesman for Transport for London, the city agency that's running the program.
However, the quieter streets have come at a rather stiff price.
London's central-city merchants say business has plummeted as much as 20 percent since the fee went into effect. Moreover, there's a Big Br other aspect of the program that's making some people nervous. The city has set up a network of 700 cameras throughout the zone that record license plate numbers to ensure that vehicles have paid the fee, which is payable by credit card and is in effect between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Violators are fined $130.
Even so, New York City and Washington, D.C., have expressed interest in the plan, London officials say. And while some traffic experts say the fee smacks of desperation, others suggest it's a jarring example of how bad things can get if fast-growing cities ignore their congestion problems - whether on their freeways or in their downtowns.
Of course, there's a dramatic difference between a city like London, whose population is 7 million and whose narrow streets were designed for carts and horses, and a city like Madison, with a population of 208,000.
Nonetheless, Madison can certainly learn from London's experiment, says Jeff Schimpff, an environmental impact analyst for the state Department of Natural Resources and a resident of the Regent Street neighborhood.
Like many Madisonians, the 54-year-old Schimpff has become frustrated by the widespread apathy that exists in this city regarding our own congestion woes. He recalls moving into the Regent Stre et neighborhood with his family in 1989 and how surprised he was by the huge volume of commuter traffic on nearby University Avenue.
When he mentioned it to state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, he says Risser told him not to worry, that we'd have a commuter rail system that would ease much of the congestion within 10 years.
"Well, that was 14 years ago," Schimpff grumbles.
Schimpff remains a staunch advocate of commuter rail. But, as he explained in a recent commentary that ran on this paper's op-ed page, he also believes it's time that Madison considers other options to reduce the exasperating and increasingly dangerous rush hour congestion on the Beltline - congestion, he points out, that already is having serious effects on our air quality.
What kind of options? Schimpff is pushing for a commuter impact fee of 25 cents to $1 per commuter parking stall per day - or, as he likes to point out, less than what people pay for a cup of coffee. (Former Mayor Paul Soglin made a similar proposal in 1995.) The revenue from such a fee could help pay for a variety of things - such as road costs - now funded by the property tax.
Schimpff, who's concerned about the alarming increase in asthma cases among people living near high-traffic areas - including, incidentally, both of his sons - says such a fee could also help fund health care facilities that treat lung disorders.
And unlike a wheel tax, it wouldn't penalize someone merely for owning a motor vehicle.
But would Madison politicians support such a fee?
Personally, I think that's about as likely as Pittsburgh first baseman Randall Simon being named Man of the Year by the National Sausage Association.
But Schimpff disagrees and says he senses that a growing number of Madisonians are fed up with our worsening gridlock and want city officials to do something about it - now.
"It's not at the point where they're organizing public rallies," he says. "But I think if our politicians got serious about creating some alternatives, most people would support them."
The question, of course, is will they get serious?
Or do we have to wait another 14 years?
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT <http://rd.yahoo.com/M=194081.3551198.4824677.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=1705044561:HM/A=1663535/R=0/SIG=11ps6rfef/*http://www.ediets.com/start.cfm?code=30504&media=atkins>
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.
_______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
