LONDON (AFP) — Sitting in his office in the Fulham district of west London, Martin Kadhim has reluctantly accepted his fate: his high performance Porsche Cayenne will just have to go if a new car congestion charge is introduced.
"They've been great fun, but it's time for them to move on to better places," Kadhim says of his sports utility vehicle and his business partner Mark Roberts' equally grand Range Rover.
The 29-year-old and others like him have put their 4x4s up for sale before the planned introduction in October of a daily new 25-pound (31-euro/50-dollar) levy for high-emissions vehicles driving in central London.
Building on the existing congestion charge zone, in which vehicles must pay an eight-pound daily fee, the proposal is one of incumbent mayor Ken Livingstone's best-known, and most divisive, policies.
Livingstone is locked in a tight battle with the opposition Conservative Party candidate Boris Johnson to extend his eight-year tenure as mayor by another four years in the vote on Thursday.
By getting rid of his Porsche, Kadhim is putting his money where his mouth is -- he co-owns a company that helps drivers trade in their gas guzzlers for more environmentally-friendly vehicles.
He goes so far as to describe the 25-pound charge as the mayor's "make or break" policy.
For his part, cycling enthusiast Johnson has pledged not to introduce the charge, describing it in his manifesto as "a stick with which to beat motorists", and has said the current road pricing scheme must be reformed.
But because the mayoral result is too close to call -- some polls have the candidates just one percentage point apart -- many 4x4 owners are waiting to see who wins before putting their vehicles on the market.
"A lot of people will wait until May 1, when they'll know for sure if they have to do it," Roberts told AFP.
"What we have noticed is people react very last minute -- suddenly with a month to go, everything will come flooding in. In August, September, everyone will be trying to get rid of them" if Livingstone wins the election.
A poll this month suggested Londoners have more faith in Livingstone than Johnson to free the capital from traffic gridlock and improve the environment.
Yet despite his lead on those issues -- a city-wide low emissions zone was introduced in February, charging the most polluting lorries 250 pounds a day to enter -- he has come in for fierce criticism.
Jeremy Clarkson, a presenter on the BBC's "Top Gear" motoring programme, even joked that they should invite Livingstone to a recording of the show -- but only to set him on fire.
Some car companies are no less unhappy.
Porsche has launched a legal challenge against the 25-pound charge, describing it as illegal, unfair and disproportionate. Livingstone is unmoved, saying the German firm should have done more to cut emissions on its vehicles.
Some also question whether the congestion charge has actually achieved what it set out to do: increase public transport use and improve traffic flows.
The director of the London School of Economics' Greater London Group, Tony Travers, said the charge had been "a success in terms of its implementation, and it's good for London as a sort of brand identifier, but it doesn't actually reduce congestion."
Although the number of cars on the streets has fallen, it has had little effect in cutting congestion because of an increase in pedestrianised zones, he said.
"It's a kind of token policy which signals something, and it does that really, really well...It's a mild strike by a government over the globally dominant car, but I don't think it does a great deal more than that."
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