Relieving Inner City Congestion

A very interesting article at the Transport Politic about reducing congestion in city centers.  He compares the congestion pricing used in London to the traffic limiting plan in Paris.  To very briefly summarize (go read the article, he does a much better job) – in Paris they removed a lot of the parking in the city, they created many more bike and bus lanes, thus making it more difficult to drive in the city.  It has had the intended effect of reducing traffic significantly in the city.  It is definitely an alternative to congestion pricing.

I’m not convinced that it’s a better option.  One big benefit to the congestion pricing is that London is taking the revenue from it’s congestion pricing and using it to increase transit service (since transit use increased as car traffic went down).

Here in Seattle they are talking about increasing the fee for street parking in the city (from $2.5o/hour to $4.00/hour).  I regularly go into the city and park for an hour.  I could take the bus, but then my one hour trip is now easily 2+ hours.  But if the parking rates are raised I might be inclined to take the bus for more of those trips.  (the bus costs $4 round trip).  But at least I still have the option of driving and parking should I need to.  That’s why I’m in favor of the congestion pricing (London) solution over traffic control (Paris) solution.

Do you live near a large city?  What would be your preferred solution?