Traffic fears as charging zone expands

25 October 2006

Transport for London believes it is ready for the start of its new, expanded cordon congestion charge, but boroughs are concerned that uncharged routes will not cope with extra traffic.
The doubling in size of Ken Livingstone’s congestion charge to take in areas popular with visitors to the west of the centre, such as Knightsbridge, Kensington High Street and Notting Hill, is due to go live on 19 February.
An ‘internal readiness review’ has been signed off, with congestion charge administrator Capita’s systems and staffing improvements on schedule, and the installation of cameras completed.
But the concerns of London boroughs over the impacts at the edges of the new zone remain. Kensington & Chelsea officers’ attempts to secure an assurance that TfL would review whether or not the new Earl’s Court Road western boundary could cope with the predicted extra traffic have been knocked back.
It has instead ‘promised to look at it again, if there’s a problem’, a spokesman said. Westminster City Council had ‘still not received detailed estimates of projected traffic flows from TfL, making it hard to know whether the road network will cope’. It was particularly concerned about the impact on Edgware Road and around Victoria.
On Harrow Road – part of Westminster’s network – it was ‘doing all we can to improve capacity in advance’. Reviews of loading and waiting restrictions and of right-hand turns were being made alongside £1M ‘civic streets’ improvements to footways.
But a TfL spokesman was confident the concerns were misplaced. ‘All traffic signal timings are being reviewed as part of preparation for the anticipated change in traffic to ensure that they assist the efficient and safe movement of traffic and pedestrians in and around the western extension.
‘A similar exercise carried out in advance of the existing scheme ensured that traffic ran smoothly on and around the boundary roads.’
Kensington & Chelsea, however, had not been advised that TfL had altered any signal timings to provide extra vehicle capacity on Earl’s Court Road. A spokesman said this was something it would resist.

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