Thursday 17 April 2008

Side effects of the London Congestion Charge









As I said before in the blog, I have recently visited London. I had already been there some years ago, when no Congestion Charge was applied and the law has really changed the looks of the streets. For those who ignore what the Congestion Charge is, just say that is a fee for some motorists travelling within those parts of London designated as the Congestion Charge Zone.

This law has created a funny situation. Now the centre of London is posher than ever before since only rich people can afford to pay the tax on a daily bases. I was amazed by the number of Mercedes Class S parked around the city, unbelievable, is there an offer that if you buy three the fourth is free?. Another side effect of the law is that electric and hybrid cars are exempt of paying it, so the city is full of Toyota Prius and some sort of wee car called G-Whiz, an electrical and quite ridiculous car. Finally, I was amazed by the amount of mopeds ad motorcycles around. Since they don't have to pay the tax many people has chosen to circulate by motorcycle. It's funny, because I had never seen so many motorcycles on a northern Europe city (even though is far from the numbers of Barcelona). In conclusion, many times laws have weird side-effects that can deeply change the looks of a city.

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