The most recent episode in the ongoing dispute over the London congestion charge, once again pits the Mayor against the American Embassy. A congestion charge of £8, around $16, is levied on private vehicles entering a central zone of the vast capital city of Great Britain during working hours from Monday through Friday. The American Embassy, among others, is located in the central zone but refuses to pay the charge for its fleet of vehicles. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is incensed, and he is not one to mince his words.

Referring to the wayward Embassy during a radio talk show last Thursday, he said: “If it was up to me, I would’ve seized their cars and crushed them, but it’s not legal for me to do that. I would've been quite happy to crush the car with the American ambassador in it, quite frankly.”

Washington argues that the congestion charge is a tax. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, adopted under the auspices of the United Nations in 1961, embassies and diplomats are exempt from paying national taxes. So, if the charge is a tax, diplomats are not obliged to pay it. But, Mayor Livingstone replies, the congestion charge is not a tax. It is more like a toll, the charge payable to use a bridge or road, a fee that everyone, without exception, must pay.

The congestion charge was first introduced in February 2003, and at the time it met with great opposition both in the media and from Londoners. But when, not long after implementation, the positive effects of the toll became noticeable, it was hailed as a success. Within a year there was a palpable decline in traffic throughout the central zone and figures confirmed a substantial increase in the use of public transportation throughout the city. In July 2005 the charge was raised from £5 to £8. Since then the American Embassy, headed by Ambassador Robert Tuttle, has refused to pay and has thereby incurred a sizeable debt.

How much does the American Embassy owe to London? Different figures are floating around on different websites. In October 2006 the BBC cited 1 million pounds in unpaid charges and penalties. A press release from the mayor’s office lists the sum of £891,000, about $1.6 million, owed in September 2006. At the end of the press release there is a note to editors: “The Mayor has demanded that the Embassy pay outstanding fines as the congestion charge is not a tax but a charge for a service – reduced congestion – from which US diplomats benefit.”

The charge system was altered again in February 2007, not with a rise in fee this time but with an extension of the zone to West London. According to the BBC, “residents staged a peaceful demonstration against the new charge”, saying it would “damage business and cost residents hundreds of pounds a year”. The toll zone is now about double the area of the original zone and includes other embassies, a number of which have stopped paying the charge. As Allen Cowell of The International Herald Tribune wrote, “the American envoy won support from an unlikely quarter” notably from the French Embassy, which is now also incurring debt.

Mayor Livingstone is infuriated by the diplomats’ repudiation of British regulations. At the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit held in New York last month, he chronicled the evolution of the congestion toll. According to a press release from the summit he “described how the initial proposal for a congestion charge came from a consortium of London business interests that calculated the cost of congestion in terms of London’s productivity and competitiveness at two billion pounds”, around 4 billion dollars, annually. “In one year,” he said, “the congestion charge has brought about a 38% drop in private cars entering London – twice the anticipated figure.” With the massive increase in cyclists and bus passengers, from four to six million, there has been “a 20% reduction in carbon emissions”.

From the green perspective, the American, French and other embassies should pay the congestion charge even if the sole benefit were the reduction in carbon emissions, but other benefits provide an even more powerful argument in favor of the toll. Other positive effects appeal to a wider audience, including skeptics of the green movement. The obvious example is the benefit of greater productivity. While the ol’ saying “time is money” may be trite, it is ringing true as businesses and individuals save time thanks to the decline in traffic. But, in order for the system to work, everyone needs to pay up.

There was talk at the Large Cities Summit of introducing a congestion charge, based on the London model, in New York. Yes, I say, and everyone must pay. Even the British Embassy.

Image Credit: Jennifer Carlile / MSNBC.com

www.london.gov.uk/mayor/congest/, news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6368957.stm, www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/21/news/london.php, www.nycclimatesummit.com/pressReleases/pr_2007_0515.html

Related info from GO:

www.greenoptions.com/2007/05/22/world_s_mayors_take_on_global_warming
www.greenoptions.com/news/hybrid_sales_boosted_emission_cut_by_london_congestion_charge