Here's an interview from last year with London Mayor Boris Johnson, who ousted Ken Livingstone last week. It's pretty remarkable in that Johnson spends the first eight minutes talking about buses and bikes.

• 1:54: Johnson says the first thing he would do as mayor is commission a study for a new bus design. The current articulated buses ("bendies") are dangerous and inaccessible to disabled riders, he says.
  
• 4:27: "By the way, speaking as a cyclist, I want to be absolutely vehement in my defense of cyclists and in campaigning for people to cycle in this town. I think that bendies are lethal ... They push you out into the traffic ..."
• 5:00: Johnson, who says he has cycled to work every day for eight years, encourages the interviewer to get on a bike.
• 5:40: Johnson to interviewer: "It's very very sad that people like you are so anxious about cycling, and I would like people to feel more encouraged to do it. That's a psychological barrier that we've got to overcome." Johnson then expounds on police failure to deter bike theft.
• 18:10: Johnson says he will abolish the congestion charge "As such time as I have a better replacement." Though he says he wants to be "the greenest mayor this country [has] had," Johnson says pricing in London has failed to reduce traffic and pollution. Despite these statements, Johnson has more recently pledged to reduce the congestion zone to its original size, but has no known plans to repeal the charge.

UPDATE: From Sunday's Daily Mail:

Without giving full details of his intentions, Mr Johnson said he would "reform and improve" the congestion charge on drivers entering central London, including by making it possible for motorists to pay their charge on account at the end of the month.

While foes of the congestion charge are already gloating over the prospect of a Livingstone defeat, the pricing mechanism is not in danger of being revoked. Should he gain the mayoralty, Johnson has pledged to shrink the congestion zone back to its initial, pre-2005 area -- before a western expansion that some transportation experts concede was poorly thought out. Livingstone's plan to increase the charge for the most polluting vehicles would also be off the table. However, the charge itself is there to stay no matter who emerges as the victor. It should also be noted that Livingstone successfully ran for re-election in 2004, after the charge took effect.

For those holding out hope that Livingstone will prevail despite the early returns, the BBC is running regular updates on the status of the vote count.

Update: The BBC reports that Johnson has indeed won the election, garnering 1,168,738 votes to Livingstone's 1,028,966.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone is on a tear. Yesterday he announced a £500 million investment in new bicycling infrastructure. Today, he approved a plan to charge the drivers of SUVs, high powered sports cars and other large engine, high emission vehicles a £25 fee ($48.75!) to drive into Central London's congestion charging zone. Simultaneously, low emission vehicles will become exempt from paying the charge. In a press release, Livingstone said,

The CO2 charge will encourage people to switch to cleaner vehicles or public transport and ensure that those who choose to carry on driving the most polluting vehicles help pay for the environmental damage they cause. This is the "polluter pays" principle. At the same time, the 100 per cent discount we are introducing for the lowest CO2 emitting vehicles will give drivers in London an incentive to use the least polluting cars available.

BBC News has more:

The new charges come into force on 27 October this year.

Transport for London (TfL) estimates about 33,000 vehicles that will now fall into the £25 charge sector drive into London each day.

It predicts about two-thirds of these will no longer come into the charge zone once the new fee is introduced.

London's transport commissioner, Peter Hendy, said the new charges were likely to bring in £30m to £50m a year, with most of this money going on new cycling and walking initiatives...

...The National Alliance Against Tolls said: "This move is not based on logic but on the whipping up of prejudices against those who use these particular vehicles."

Photo: Bennet Summers / Flickr.

New Yorkers already envious of London's congestion pricing system have a fresh reason to look wistfully overseas. A few hours ago, London Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled a £500 million ($940 million) program to build extensive new bike networks and launch a Velib-style bike-for-hire system. Bike Biz has the scoop:

With the introduction of a central London bike hire scheme with 6,000 bikes available every 300 metres, cycling will be accessible to many more Londoners and will become a fully-funded part of the public transport network for the first time. This is not quite a Velib scheme, but it's a start.

There will also be new commuter cycle routes from inner and outer London and cycle zones around urban town centres.

In a statement released this morning, Livingstone cast the program as part of a historic shift away from automobile use, and cited Paris as inspiration:

The aim of this programme is nothing short of a cycling and walking transformation in London. We will spend something like £500 million over the next decade on cycling - the biggest investment in cycling in London's history, which will mean that thousands more Londoners can cycle in confidence, on routes that take them quickly and safely to where they want to go.

The cycle hire scheme in Paris has proved a huge success, and I have now instructed Transport for London to work with the London boroughs and interested parties to develop and implement a bike hire scheme in central London, accessible to all Londoners. By ensuring that Londoners have easy access to bikes in the centre of the capital, as well as making our city a safer and more enjoyable place to cycle, we will build upon London’s leading position as the only major world city to have achieved a switch from private car use to public transport, cycling and walking.

The Independent, Bike Radar, Reuters, ePolitix, and This is London all have coverage of the plan.

There are five components described in the Mayor's announcement:

• A Central London bike hire scheme, similar to the recently launched Paris scheme, with up to 6,000 bikes located across docking stations every 300m so Londoners and visitors have quick and easy access to a bike. This will be supported by a series of easily navigable routes so that people can enjoy London’s sights by bike.
• Around a dozen radial Cycling Corridors for commuters to provide high-profile, easy to follow cycling streams into central London.
• The creation of a series of Bike Zones for shoppers and the school run in Inner and Outer London, with cycle priority streets, 20mph speed limits and quick, clear and simple routes that link key local destinations and open parks and waterways for cyclists.
• The expansion of the Legible London signage system to help people make short trips around the capital on foot, rather than driving, or taking the bus and tube.
• Working with the London Boroughs on the establishment of 200 Streets of Gold – urban makeovers which link key local destinations like stations, schools and shops in inner and outer London with high quality walking facilities, delivering improved pavements, seating and crossings alongside regeneration measures.

Image: This is London

Streetsblog reader George Henik directs our attention to the excellent new BBC documentary "Road Rage," a British version of Contested Streets -- minus the advocacy -- that examines the intensifying conflict between motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians in the UK. The Beeb describes the situation as a war of succession: 

For 40 years, Britain's motorists have been the kings of the road, claiming their title through tax discs and fuel duty. But now the balance of power is shifting. There are new pretenders to the throne. Pedestrians and cyclists want equal rights on the road, and this has sparked a war. Our roads are now a battleground.

There are 27 million cars on Britain's roads, an increase of over 5 million in 10 years. But there are also 23 million bicycles fighting with them for road space.

The whole hour is well worth watching, but here are some highlights:

• 4:21 - Great clips from a pro-biking TV spot sponsored by Transport for London and the Mayor's Office.
• 8:42 - Hilarious segment comparing a bus load of chatty kids to an SUV-driving, road rage-suppressing father taking his son to school.
  
• 16:10 - A bit about cyclists who jump red lights and the bobbies who ticket them.
  
• 31:15 - A look at one of London's least pedestrian-friendly intersections, Henley's Corner, and how one elderly man negotiates it.
  
• 51:50 - Competitive cyclist Emma Davies-Jones talks about why she moved from Britain to the more bike-friendly Belgium.
• 52:56 - Critical Mass in London.
  

And yes, somewhere in there are clips of the World Naked Bike Ride.

Speaking of Contested Streets, Stefan Schaefer's doc about NYC gridlock has been picked up by the Sundance Channel. It will air sometime after April 1st, details to come.

As New York City government issues its usual series of futile Holiday Season "Gridlock Alerts" (Warning to people stuck in traffic: You are stuck in traffic) while Manhattan shoppers have the life squeezed out of them on crowded sidewalks amidst honking, spewing, pissed off motorists, take a look at how London is handling the holiday crush.

Mayor Ken Livingstone declared Saturday, December 2 "Very Important Pedestrian Day," completely closing three of the city's most famous shopping strips, Oxford, Bond and Regent's Streets to automobile traffic from 10:30am to 8pm. Carol singers, artists, jugglers and other performers provided entertainment, and the day finished off with a massive fireworks display. As per the BBC:

"What it will create for the shoppers is a fantastic freedom to move," said Jace Tyrell, from the New West End Company -- which has organised the event. "Shoppers will be able to take over the streets and have a more festive fun atmosphere to enjoy Christmas shopping in the West End."

News reports say that up to a million people descended on the car-free streets to take part in what amounted to a £100 spending orgy (Said one retailer: "The increase in wealthy Russian, Chinese and Indian shoppers around Bond Street has been phenomenal").

As New York City's mayor struggles to explain to New Yorkers how less congested streets will make their lives better, Mayor Livingstone clearly framed the car-free event as a piece of his Administration's broader environmental, quality of life and economic development agenda. The Evening Standard reported: 

Mayor Ken Livingstone, who opened the event, said: "It has become a major event in London's calendar in the run-up to Christmas [and] shows us all what the West End will be like in 2013 with traffic removed and the streets turned over to the pedestrian." The success of the event has strengthened the view of many analysts that the West End is heading for a record Christmas even if high streets elsewhere in Britain are experiencing lacklustre sales.

Mr Tyrrell said: "There were no problems with the roads closures, everything went really smoothly."

Columbia University professor and Streetsblog reader Steve Hammer happened to be in London during the event. Here is his report:

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Hammer
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 7:55 AM
To: Aaron Naparstek
Subject: VIP Day -- London

Aaron,

Am currently in London. Wandered over to Oxford Street this morning, the main shopping street in Central London.

Oxford Street (and Regent Street) are both closed to vehicles as part of "Very Important Pedestrian" (VIP) Day in London. The Greater London Authority has set up exhibitions on bicycling around London, Transport for London services, and a new program encouraging parents to walk their children to school rather than driving them.

Mayor Ken Livingstone was speaking on a stage at Oxford Circus, talking about why the GLA had sponsored VIP day, and their long term vision for the central shopping district -- no more cars on Oxford Street, only dedicated bus lanes -- and more room for pedestrians. Eventually they will have a tram operating along the street instead of the buses.

These changes will be implemented over a 10 year period.

Regards,

Steve Hammer
Director, Urban Energy Program
Columbia University

P.S.

I almost forgot to mention... The streets are absolutely jammed.

Photos: Evening Standard

Fearing that London's ever-worsening traffic congestion would drive industry to other European cities, business leaders first broached the topic of congestion charging for the British capital, according to plan architect Mayor Ken Livingstone.

At a C40 Climate Summit panel entitled "Beating Congestion & Surviving Your Next Election," Livingstone said Tuesday that the business group London First had estimated the economic cost of congestion to the city at two billion pounds (almost four billion dollars) per year. Contending with bottle-necked auto traffic and "unpredictable" public transportation, Livingstone said, business people could not estimate inner-city travel times to within 40 minutes. It was just a matter of time before industry began packing up for Paris or other urban centers, London employers believed.

Four years after the congestion charge went into effect, automobile traffic is down by 20 percent while commercial traffic has increased, and London's economy is growing at three times the national average. Meanwhile, a proposal to charge the heaviest polluting private vehicles the equivalent of $50 per day is pulling a 78 percent approval rating.

Livingstone referred to London First as a "parallel organization" to the Partnership for New York City, a business group which supports congestion pricing. The Partnership has released a report concluding that gridlock costs New York $13 billion annually.

"The business community does not come forward and recommend a charge on itself unless it recognizes there is a real problem," Livingstone said. He acknowledged that London First was "concerned" about the widening of the charging zone earlier this year, but downplayed the fervor of the opposition. After all, he noted, "Driving in a city like London or New York isn't a life-enhancing experience."

As for the political impact, Livingstone "coasted easily" to a second term. In fact, he said, the congestion charge was more of a problem for his opponent, as many who weren't entirely happy with the plan were even less excited with the prospect of bringing congestion back. If elected to succeed Prime Minister Tony Blair, Livingstone suspects Gordon Brown will move forward with a national road pricing scheme for Britain.

Speaking later at a press conference in Central Park, Mayor Livingstone offered advice for New York as it debates a system modeled on his own.

"There may be one or two people who predict gloom and doom," he said. "Ignore them."

Ken Livingstone is expected to confirm that older, "dirtier" lorries and buses will be charged £200 a day to drive in London. London First, a lobby group for businesses in the capital, has warned that the scheme will hit smaller firms that cannot afford modern vehicles that are exempt. Mr Livingstone also plans to adapt the £8-a-day congestion charge so the most polluting vehicles pay £25 a day to enter.

The LEZ will cover all of London's 33 boroughs, rather than the smaller congestion zone, which straddles central and western areas of the city....Fines will be far more punitive than the congestion scheme, with transgressors facing a bill of up to £1,000.

The LEZ has been earmarked for launch next year and will be extended to vans and buses by 2010, in effect giving businesses two years' notice to overhaul their fleets.

Mr Livingstone has commissioned a report on the LEZ and indicated earlier this year that he would push ahead with it. "London suffers from the worst air quality in the UK and the proposed low-emission zone would target those diesel engine lorries, coaches, buses, heavier vans and minibuses which are pumping out the most harmful pollutants," he said.

Transport for London, the capital's transport body, estimates the LEZ would prevent about 40 deaths a year from pollution-related illnesses and avoid up to 86 hospital admissions. Some businesses have backed the LEZ and called for even more stringent curbs.

The Knightsbridge Association called for a more ambitious scheme. "The LEZ should go much further, much faster," it said. 

In his most recent article for the Guardian, London mayor Ken Livingstone applauds Mayor Bloomberg's plan to introduce congestion pricing in New York City:

New York is now to get congestion charging modelled on London's successful scheme. Isn't it about time the naysayers admitted they were wrong?

Retail sales in central London are far outperforming those in the rest of the country. The West End theatre trade is strong. Tourism is growing strongly. Congestion charging has achieved exactly what it was designed to do -- not cut the number of journeys, but shift them from private cars to public transport. It has cut congestion, and cut environmental damage, with the economy continuing to boom.

New York's decision is a final nail in the coffin of the claim by rightwing pressure groups and anti-environmentalists that policies being pursued in London are against the interests of its economy -- for the one thing that cannot be claimed against New York is that it is an anti-business city!

Now that New York is adopting congestion charging, I hope the small, unrepresentative rightwing pressure groups campaigning against congestion charging and, in particular, the Conservative party, will admit they were wrong.

Climate change is a greater threat to London than terrorism, one of the city's top planners said yesterday.

Debbie McMullen (right), a one-time New Yorker who heads implementation of the "London Plan," made this matter-of-fact announcement at a Tuesday evening forum, sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and held at the Center for Architecture in the East Village. As New York awaits the unveiling of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030, McMullen outlined the "spatial development strategy" that London Mayor Ken Livingstone has spearheaded during his seven years in office.

Like PlaNYC, the London Plan, published in 2004, is designed to help mitigate the environmental impacts of a predicted one million new residents in the coming decades. Backed by the power of the Greater London Authority (GLA) -- a city-wide governmental structure established in 2000 -- the London Plan integrates sustainable development practices with innovative social and economic policies.

As London becomes "younger, more female and less white," said McMullen, the city wants to build 305,000 new housing units over the next 10 years, spread throughout its 32 boroughs. The London Plan calls for 50 percent of those units to be priced for low- and moderate-income citizens. New construction standards cover insulation requirements, building orientation (to make the most of solar power potential), green (or "living") roofs, and renewable on-site energy.

To reduce CO2 from vehicle emissions -- in addition to congestion charging, which McMullen said has reduced car trips by 50,000 per day -- the London Plan prescribes that scattered "town centres" in the boroughs be linked by public transport routes radiating from the city core, along with other light rail and tram service. The city's canals are to be relied upon for ferrying more freight and waste, reducing truck traffic on the streets.

The plan is aimed at nothing less than making London a "zero emission city," said McMullen, with CO2 reduction targets of 30 percent by 2025, and 60 percent by 2050.

Rather than imposing mandates to achieve its goals, the GLA works in tandem with the private sector. Though "there is some resistance," as would be expected, grievances are heard by an independent panel and addressed in public. The plan is also monitored through regular progress reports.

"It's not a plan to sit on the shelf," McMullen said. "The mayor wants it to happen."

It is already paying dividends. Said David Haskell, executive director of the Forum for Urban Design, in introducing McMullen: "The reason London won the (2012) Olympics is that London knows its future."

Joining McMullen for a brief Q&A, Rohit Aggarwala, Director of PlaNYC, downplayed New York City's loss of the 2012 games, saying it hasn't slowed new development. One of the few insights Aggarwala offered into PlaNYC came after an audience member asked about planned improvements to the pedestrian environment. While McMullen replied in some detail how pedestrian and cyclist safety was a top priority of the London Plan, Aggarwala cited PlaNYC's goal of locating a city park within 10 minutes' walking distance of every New Yorker.

Trafalgar Square photo: Aaron Naparstek, March 3, 2007

Brad Aaron reports:

Political will, holistic planning, centralized management. That's what Malcolm Murray-Clark says it takes to implement an effective congestion pricing plan.

He should know. The Director of Congestion Charging at Transport for London (TfL) oversees a program that is as ambitious as it is successful -- a program that went from idea to implementation in just 26 months, significantly reducing traffic and pollution while earning approval ratings as high as 59 percent.

As cars and trucks clogged the arteries of lower Manhattan on their way out of the central business district yesterday evening (right), Murray-Clark held forth to a capacity crowd at 7 World Trade Center. Sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences, the lecture also featured Stephen A. Hammer of Columbia University and CUNY's Dr. Robert "Buzz" Paaswell, director of the University Transportation Research Center and former executive director of the Chicago Transit Authority.

From the start, Murray-Clark said, London Mayor Ken Livingstone pulled no punches regarding his intention to reduce auto traffic. In fact, Livingstone ran on a platform that included congestion pricing. And upon taking office in 2000, he got to work. Today, London is one of two major world cities experiencing a reduction in car trips (Paris is the other).

"It was a bold policy to embark upon," Murray-Clark said, and one that proceeded through a combination of thoughtful planning and shrewd political maneuvering. Rather than wait years for upgrades to London's already overcrowded subway system, for example, TfL leveraged congestion pricing revenue to invest heavily in new buses. In order to ease opposition in the early stages, Livingstone offered a 90 percent discount for residents of the congestion zone, and courted the trucking industry by offering it the same rate per vehicle as passenger cars.

Despite early skepticism and a highly critical media, Londoners warmed to congestion pricing shortly after it took effect. Livingstone has since won re-election once, and though he is up again next year, he has a series of more radical environmental proposals, like reducing -- or even eliminating -- charges for low CO2 cars while raising the fee for high-emission vehicles like SUVs to the equivalent of $48 per entry.

"his was announced, and there was no uproar," Murray-Clark said. "This is where Londoners are at the moment."

Still, congestion pricing remains "contentious and newsworthy," he said, and support fluctuates depending on fluid circumstances. Anxiety over a recent expansion of the zone caused approval ratings to dip, while new transit investments normally rate an uptick.

"This isn't a panacea," said Murray-Clark. "This isn't something you do on its own. This is something you do as part of a wider package."

The package -- more buses, effective traffic management inside and outside the zone, reliable monitoring technology, a convenient payment system, and steep fines for non-compliance -- was possible in large part because London transportation planners and transit officials work for the same agency, an advantage New York doesn't have. Another obstacle is New York's culture," according to Paaswell.

"Congestion pricing is like the Second Avenue subway," Paaswell said. "We've been talking about it a long time, and it isn't here."

The most significant issue New York needs to overcome, said Paaswell, is that of leadership, both political and bureaucratic. Who would collect congestion fees? Who would allocate them? Would a new authority be needed? Who will make these decisions? In short, read a PowerPoint slide beamed behind the panel:  WHO IS IN CHARGE??

In Murray-Clark's experience, someone has to be.

"A referendum," he said, "probably is a basis for doing nothing."

NYC photo: Brad Aaron
London photo: Aaron Naparstek

Most vehicles that will be charged £25 are high priced models. Those who buy them can afford to choose from pretty much the whole of the mainstream car market but have chosen to buy one of the most polluting vehicles. By making these changes to the congestion charging scheme we are encouraging people to take into account the impact of their choice of new car on the environment and the planet.

Also under the Mayor's proposal, owners of the least polluting vehicles, like the microscopic G-Wiz electric car, would not be charged any fee for driving into the Congestion Zone. And in further blow to the owners of "Chelsea Tractors," known as SUV's here in New York City, the 90 per cent resident's discount for car owners living inside the congestion charging zone would be eliminated for owners of big polluting vehicles. Livingstone's announcement comes three weeks after Richmond Council, south west London, became the first local authority in the country to announce plans for emissions-based residents' parking charges.

An how about this quote from Geoff Pope, the Liberal Democrat chairman of the London Assembly Transport Committee. What would you give to hear a New York City elected official say something like this?

Urgent action is needed to tackle the growing number of Chelsea tractors (SUV's) coming into central London. They are damaging and unnecessary vehicles in a densely urbanised, twenty-first century city.

Related:

• Stockholm Congestion Charge Coming Back Next Year
• London Calling. Are New York's Leaders Really Listening?
• An American Carwolf in London

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Chuck Schumer argue that New York City risks losing its place of global pre-eminence in a Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday. The editorial is a response to growing conventional wisdom that says London is overtaking New York as the world's leading financial capitol. In the editorial, available online only to subscribers, Bloomberg and Schumer say that there is much the city can learn from its British counterpart.

One lesson not mentioned in the editorial, which reads mainly as a push to reform the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is the role that long-term urban planning, quality of life improvements and agressive traffic reduction measures have played in London's ascent.

For London's Mayor Ken Livingstone, projects like congestion charging, banning cars from Trafalgar Square and the creation of the London Climate Change Agency, aren't just about altruistic environmentalism. "Ken's a very savvy marketer. He knows that these initiatives make London a more attractive place for big companies to set up shop and attract employees," an official at Transport for London told me.

Today's Guardian reports that macro environmental issues now inform everything that London's Mayor does:

Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, is these days possessed of one great idea. Climate change, and how to avert it, consumes him. It now informs all his decisions on transport. It is top of his agenda for social housing and new building developments. He reads about it in his spare time. He talks about it to anyone who will bend an ear and he will travel to the ends of the earth if necessary to cut deals with other politicians, to steal the best ideas from other cities and to communicate with anyone the urgency and scale of the problem.

Though Livable Streets issues weren't mentioned in the Bloomberg-Schumer editorial, New York City's business community is increasingly aware of their importance. As Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City has said, "The gridlock on New York City's streets has become a brake on the city's economy. She warns, "It is going to be increasingly difficult for New York to market itself as a place where you can get the most done in the least period of time with the best workforce if we're not able to solve the congestion problem."

Meanwhile, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a possible 2009 Democratic mayoral candidate, is off to visit the World Travel Market expo in England to sell UK travel groups on package tours that include a trip to Brooklyn. Marty told the Daily News, "Tourism is one of Brooklyn's biggest and most vital growth sectors, and I'll do whatever it takes to show the world the beauty of our borough."

There are a couple of things, of course, that Marty won't do to enhance the beauty of his borough. He won't support London-style traffic reduction measures. He won't stop parking his SUV and about a dozen other vehicles on the pedestrian plaza, technically park land, outside of historic Borough Hall. And he won't push the city, state and developer Forest City Enterprises to do smart, thoughtful, long-term planning around the massive "Atlantic Yards" project.

Welcome to Brooklyn, Brits. Perhaps the traffic congestion will remind you of what it used to be like in London. Don't forget to look to your left when you step out into the street.

Embassy employees have not paid the charges £8 ($15) a day for any car entering central London, since July 2005, arguing that the charge is a tax; diplomats are exempt from taxes. But London officials say the charge is a toll, not a tax, and say that British diplomats pay tolls in America.

Livingstone is focused on the Embassy's unpaid fees. But what about the sheer volume of traffic generated by American diplomats? By Komanoff's calculation the U.S. Embassy staff is racking up an average of 350 car trips into central London daily. Komanoff arrived at this number by dividing $1.6 million in unpaid charges by the daily charge of $15, resulting in 107,000 trips. Excluding weekends and holidays, when the charge is waived, approximately 304 days have elapsed since the start of July, 2006. Dividing 107,000 trips by 304 days yields 351 trips per day.

Clearly, Embassy officials aren't big fans of the Tube or double-decker buses. No big surprise. Before being sworn in as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Robert Holmes Tuttle, pictured above, ran one of the largest automobile dealer organizations in the United States.  

Unpaid diplomatic parking tickets are certainly nothing new to New Yorkers. But a recent study, written up in this month's Atlantic, suggests that this sort of scofflaw behavior is indicative of a broader culture of corruption. 

In an effort to learn more about how cultural norms effect political corruption, economists Raymond Fisman of Columbia University and Edward Miguel at the University of California, Berkeley assembled data on more than 150,000 unpaid parking tickets in New York City -- a total value of $18 million -- issued to cars with diplomatic license plates between 1997 and 2002. They broke down the violations by country-of-origin and then compared their list of diplomatic scofflaws to a widely used composite index that ranks countries on the basis of how corrupt they are.

Sure enough, the professors found a direct correlation between the amount that diplomats violate a foreign city's traffic laws and the level of corruption in their home countries. In New York City the top five parking ticket violators are Kuwait with 246 unpaid summonses per diplomat; Egypt, 139; Chad, 124; Sudan, 119; and Bulgaria with 117. Chad can be found at the absolute bottom of the 2005 Transparency International Corruption Index. Countries whose diplomats incurred no outstanding summonses include Canada, Israel, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Based on the behavior of the American Embassy in London and our own government employee parkers here in New York City, the good old U.S.A. seems to be keeping closer company with the group of Third World nations on that first list.

Translator's note: In London, SUV's are derisively known as "Chelsea Tractors."

Mayor Ken Livingstone has said he wants a sliding scale, with lower charges for low-emission vehicles and higher charges for "Chelsea tractors." The mayor said he wanted to encourage Londoners to buy low-emission cars to help cut carbon emissions and protect the environment.

"There is a growing sense of concern amongst Londoners about climate change caused by CO2 emissions, which is the biggest single problem facing humanity, and tackling this threat requires decisive action.

"'Chelsea tractors', many of which are responsible for some of the highest CO2 emissions of any cars on our roads, have to be dealt with."

What would you give to hear New York City's mayor say something like this?

Additionally, Transport for London has released its latest analysis of the city's congestion charging system, entitled, "Congestion Charging Three Years On: Cleaner Air, Safer Roads and Reduced Congestion."

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley:
"As part of our effort to make Chicago the most environmentally friendly big city in the nation, one of our main goals is to promote environmentally friendly lifestyles. Bicycling is a great way to get around Chicago. It's fun, fast, healthy and good for our environment.

"We want to make Chicago the most bicycle-friendly city in the United States. We have an ambitious, multi-million dollar program to establish 25 miles of new bike lanes and 200 miles of signed routes and to install 2500 bike racks. Major improvements to the Lakefront Trail are underway, with new bike paths to be built at other locations.

"Please help by biking responsibly and sharing the road with others. Contact us if you have suggestions to improve cycling conditions. Let's work together to make Chicago a better and safer place for biking!"