London in great old photos – definitely pre-Motordom. Check out the great-grandfather of the London Eye at 0.33.
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The first subway was built in London, between Kings Cross and Paddington Station, due to so much horse traffic, wagons and people, first with horse drawn carriages then steam engines in
1863
!!
Not more buses, or horse drawn wagon, as Vancouver is attempting to do now, 150+ years later !!
Congestion is reduced by adding more capacity, below ground.
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Underground#The_first_underground_railways_.281863.E2.80.931905.29
when Paris did build its Subway in 1900, it didn’t reduce the congestion. quite the contrray. Louis Dausset, on Paris’ budget Committee was stating as soon as 1909
“When we built the Metropolitan and encouraged the development of trams, we gave our citizens and visitors a taste for moving around…So underground transport does nothing to reduce surface movement in Paris; on the contrary, it multiply it” ([7] citing C.M. report no 128, 1909). (see this link too).
What was true then is still now…subway doesn’t reduce congestion…transit in general doesn’t reduce congestion (#cutcongestion is one of the worst lie of the referendum campaign).
Transit doesnt reduce congestion: transit increase mobility what is already a lot.
And exactly the same thing was observed in Toronto, when they opened their subway. It replaced the streetcars on Yonge Street, which meant there was more room for cars – which promptly filled up the space. The Yonge St subway increased road traffic in downtown Toronto.
In London traffic was reduced significantly with the introduction of the congestion charge – but only because at the same time street priority was given to buses (a greatly enlarged fleet) bikes and pedestrians. Unfortunately a subsequent decision to increase the size of the charge zone to include a residential area – and to permit residents to operate their cars without paying the charge – significantly increased traffic.
I think those pictures need a commentary rather than the ditzy music – or at least captions. Of course I recognize many of the locations.
Indeed a major oversight of the MetroVan “decongestion” tax: it will not reduce car use. Only when cars are far more expensive to use (or park) will people use other means.