On 4 Oct 2006 07:04:01 -0700, "Earl Purple"
wrote:

Does the route then follow Barlby Road (not even a classified road) or
does it head along the B412 (St Quintin Avenue, St Marks Road and
Cambridge Gardens) up to Ladbroke Grove. Most of these are fairly
narrow residential streets.
The boundary will be formed by the railway line that crosses over
North Pole Road so Barlby Road etc will be inside and chargeable (but
the cameras are at NPole Rd and at the top of Ladbroke Grove where the
roundabout leads to Sainsbury's, allowing free access to the big
shop). Oddly the camera before that rbt seems to cover entrance but
not exit. The side streets bordering Wood Lane will be uncharged but
residents there will have access to the 90% discount.

In that neck of the woods almost all of K&C is inside except the bits
to the south of the Harrow Road towards Sainsbos. My guess is that the
few pinch points were chosen as the edge with Sainos arguing
successfully for exemption. The xM41 and Westway will not be covered,
which could be interesting if the new shopping centre gains a few new
roads into K&C territory.

The thing is that I think many people in London don't object to the
congestion charge in the centre so much because there is fairly good
public transport to the centre - after all the underground lines do all
go to the centre of London.
Also that zone has few residents, the initial CC affected few ordinary
bods. The extended one will scalp more peeps. The buses are better for
the investment they've received.

The only sensible way to cure the congestion problem is better pooling
schemes. I would also like to see another orbital rail route connecting
all the lines in the outer zones. I'm sure such a line would be well
used.
I'd like to mention the system I saw in Madrid: bodies on the ground
enforcing local access only for locals and limited deliveries - but
there's no profit in that scheme is there? The CC is about money:
Capita fill their boots and some sloshes to Ken. It is not a user
friendly setup either: no lights to say the zone is active, no easy
way to pay automatically after the event, in fact it appears to be
designed to make money from non-payment. And an open charter for plate
cloning or plain reregistering of the car in Poland or Latvia.

Well it's fine, they can just make every road in London private flats
and have no facilities. More and more facilities are being replaced
with private flats anyway. Hardly surprising then that to access
facilities you can no longer find any in walking distance and have to
get into your car...
London is quite poor for local walkable facilities. I've lived in
places with far more on the ground locally (and much safer bike lanes
than mere blobs of paint) but London is focused on cars + shopping
areas.
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