By ANNE McHARDY Herald correspondent
LONDON - Ken Livingstone, the new Mayor of London, has committed himself to reducing traffic congestion in the city with a two-year plan to reduce the number of commuter cars.
He is expected to use planning regulations to reduce car access and penalise motorists with charges and also offer incentives to use the public transport system.
Livingstone, who takes office in July, having been elected overwhelmingly three weeks ago, told the Greater London Assembly, which will oversee all his decisions at monthly question time sessions, that if he succeeded he would get a second elected term. If he failed he expected the electorate to reject him.
Part of his strategy includes appointing his Liberal Democrat mayoral rival, Susan Kramer, a financier, to the London Transport Board to coordinate bus, tube and train services. Kramer shares his belief in a bond system to fund the underground, not the public-private partnership favoured by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
He has also appointed Will Hutton, a financial journalist and author who was editor of the Observer and is now director of the Industrial Society, an independent research organisation, to head the inquiry he is setting up into the financing of the underground.
London Underground will not be handed to the control of the mayor by the Blair Government until the planned part privatisation has been carried out, but the Livingstone inquiry will add to pressure for a rethink of the public-private partnership. Hutton is also critical of the Government plan.
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