Congestion is about work not transport
London is a lovely place to get around - either using pubic transport or driving - outside the daily congestion peaks due to people getting to and from work. By making travel difficult and expensive at these times there is an incentive to switch your work habits - a market-driven solution to the problem which is already being followed by a goodly portion of the workforce. There is no actual pay-off to making work commutes any better or faster in the already congested time-periods as this will simply increase the number of people who will then commute at these times. Witness the increase in traffic every time a new road or expanded transit system is introduced - up to the point that the commute time becomes the same limiting factor and the people who get most fed up find a way to avoid it (tele-commuting, flexi-hours etc.).
Bottom line: City planning will never reduce commute times in the long term, no matter how good the planners are at modelling.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
