Monday 17 February 2003 Congestion charging starts in London  | Motorists in London will have to pay for the pleasure of driving through the capital from today. The new congestion charge hopes to encourage more people to use public transport, thereby reducing traffic and pollution in the city. This report from Rachel Ellison: |
 Listen to the story This is the Mayor of London's big moment. The introduction of the Congestion Charge was his idea and he's been prepared to stick by it. The new charge of £5 a day has caused outrage from builders, florists and other small businesses, which operate in and around London. But broadly speaking, Londoners are in favour of new congestion charge. Their city's become a dirty, polluted and overcrowded capital. Taxi drivers say their takings are down, simply because the traffic's so heavy, they can't drive from A to B.
It's hoped that the new Congestion Charge, which applies on weekdays between seven am and six-thirty pm, will encourage more people to use public transport. To that end, the mayor's put three hundred new 'bendy' buses on the road and says he'll pour money from increased ticket sales on the tube, back into the underground network. Public transport, though, is a sore point for Londoners. The three million of them who use the tube to go to and from work are fed up with dirty, delayed and overcrowded trains. Squashing even more people onto a hundred-and-forty-year-old network, could, they fear, cause the whole system to crack. A recent accident has closed the Central Line indefinitely, making some commutes pretty chaotic.
Well, chaos or not, whatever happens is of interest to other major cities around the world. New York, Boston and possibly Paris are watching London to see if the congestion charge works.
Rachel Ellison, BBC
Listen to the words Congestion if there is congestion in a place, then it is overcrowded to stick by it if you stick by something, you do it without changing your mind even when you are criticised takings are down they are making less money To that end in order to achieve that aim (of encouraging people to us public transport) 'bendy' buses long, single deck articulated buses which bend in the middle pour money spend a high proportion of the revenue a sore point it's a subject that is likely to make them angry if you mention it Squashing forcing cause the whole system to crack make the system break down so that it can't be mended commutes journeys from the outskirts of a city to the centre to go to work  Read more about this story | |  | | | SEARCH IN LEARNING ENGLISH | | | |
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