Ken isn't anti-car
From Professor David Begg Sir: I write with surprise, having read Leo McKinstry's attack on Ken Livingstone's track record ('Revenge of the killer newt', 13 July), I was very much under the impression that The Spectator was a forum for intelligent debate, yet it appears to have lapsed into peddling a predictable and inaccurate tabloid-style rant.
To state that under Livingstone's command public transport has been a chronic failure with only a marginal increase in bus usage is wholly inaccurate. To his credit, London has witnessed a revolution in bus travel. Journeys by bus have risen 15 per cent in London, compared with 4 per cent in eastern and south-eastern England, and a 25 per cent decrease in metropolitan areas.
For a politician to espouse an alternative to the blight that is congestion does not mean that he is anti-car. The RAC Foundation's own calculations show that unless we introduce congestion charging we will need either five times the amount of road space or a fivefold increase in fuel duty just to keep pace with growing traffic demand. Seventy-one per cent of motorists questioned by the Foundation supported charging if the revenue was put towards better public transport and better roads.
1 am sure that readers of The Spectator would appreciate that trying to ration road space through pricing is far more efficient than queuing. The way we now use our road network is the last remnant of the Stalinist state.
Chairman, Commission for Integrated Transport, I,ondon SW1
David Begg
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