London’s conservative mayor tells DC to go all in on transit and bikes

Conservative politicians in the US often oppose investing in transit, bikes, and other urban necessities. But not in the UK, where “conservative” doesn’t mean quite the same thing. Recently, London mayor Boris Johnson made the case for better multimodal infrastructure in the US.

In a visit to Washington last month, Johnson touted the benefits of spending on transit and cycling, offered tips on reducing pollution, and spoke about affordable housing.

Here are some highlights from his February 12 talk at Brookings.

Spend big on transit

Johnson spoke repeatedly about the benefits of London’s Crossrail2, a £27 billion ($41 billion) rail project that will cross from one side of London to the other. In his words, Crossrail2 will be “a colossal benefit to the city.”

By comparison, the $2.5 billion Purple Line that Maryland Governor Larry Hogan calls too expensive is approximately 6% the cost of Crossrail2.

In London, the private sector takes on an important role in infrastructure spending. Johnson noted that private entities reap huge benefits from infrastructure, and he suggested developers and businesses should pay up front for that opportunity.

Says Johsnon, “With Crossrail we have a big levy — a community infrastructure levy — that will fall on developers. It falls on London businesses over a certain square footage that will benefit from the Crossrail scheme.”

Make cycling superb

Johnson admits there’s often public resistance to new bike lanes, but insists they’re beneficial. He says “In order to do something difficult, like put in great bike lanes, you have to infuriate a lot of people… We’re putting in a huge new east-west cycle lane, and there’s a great deal of apprehension about it, but it is going to be superb.”

Green tech and affordable housing

The discussion at Brookings wasn’t all trains and bike lanes. Johnson also spoke about green technology and affordable housing.

Johnson sees green technology as a jobs driver, rather than a job killer as it’s often depicted in the US. “I’m a firm believer that ‘green’ equals ‘jobs’. There’s absolutely no question that green technology is taking off in London.”

Regarding automobile pollution, Johnson’s remarks would be almost unthinkable for a politician here: “We are going to make sure that the center of our city is inaccessible to all except for vehicles that have virtually zero tailpipe emission or zero tailpipe emission… And that is driving technological change.”

On affordable housing, Johnson quoted New York mayor Bloomberg as saying high housing costs are a “good problem to have” because it means people are moving to your city instead of fleeing it, as happened to both New York and London in the 1970s. To ameliorate rising costs, Johnson advocated a vigorous approach to building new housing throughout the city.

In short, Johnson seems to take for granted many urban solutions that we are still arguing about in the US, and in the DC area specifically. It will be interesting to watch London move ahead with its plans.

The unofficial transcript of the conversation is available from Brookings.