There’s one thing you notice in downtown Toronto whether you’re a pedestrian, bike rider, driver, or transit passenger: there are too many cars on the road.

A typical trip down Yonge Street reveals broken traffic laws, high tempers, and an inability to get anywhere fast. So how do you fix that?

London’s idea to keep some cars off the streets in their core is a congestion charge.

The premise is simple: if you drive into the congestion charge zone between 7am and 6pm, you pay the city a tidy sum of £8. Any surplus revenue generated by the charge goes to improve London’s transport infrastructure — which, essentially means that people driving into the city are subsidizing things like public transit and road repairs.

Certain vehicles — like alternative fuel cars, buses, and motorcycles — are exempt from the charge in an effort to promote more sustainable ways of traveling in the core.

The system, which launched in 2003 with tons of controversy, is now an everyday part of London life. The system is monitored by CCTV cameras and automatic number plate recognition, and drivers can pay their charges online or purchase cards that allow them multiple entries over designated amounts of time.

This then begs the question: is it time for Toronto to institute its own congestion charge for cars driving in to the city core?

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