Independent, The (London): Jam today, but no jam tomorrow?

No one said life as a tourist was going to be easy - especially if you plan to visit London. The capital is the leading attraction for British travellers as well as overseas visitors. But so many hurdles are created against tourists that it is a wonder that anyone turns up at all.

In sensible countries, the main lines of communication converge on the capital. The same used to apply in Britain, but creaking infrastructure now makes London maddeningly tricky to reach; in polite Manchester society, how to get to the capital has supplanted house price rises as de rigueur dinner conversation.

Even though we invented the railway, these days most lines are no faster or more reliable than in the days of steam. The brightest news for the train traveller this summer is a reinvented service from Manchester via Leicester to London, with a journey time of three hours - the same as it was half a century ago. Foreigners from countries with sensible railway networks, and even some Americans, cannot believe how abysmal Britain's train services have become. About the only comfort these days for most UK airlines is the way that they are blessed with such pathetic competition from the nation's trains.

Even flying to either of the capital's big airports is fraught with problems. British Airways now allows 70 minutes to fly the 155 miles between Manchester and Heathrow, a journey that should take no longer than half an hour. Amsterdam is twice as far from Manchester, but BA schedules exactly the same time to reach the Dutch capital. From a number of UK provincial airports, Paris or even Prague is easier and often cheaper to reach than London.

You know all that, of course. And you are probably aware of the pounds 5 congestion charge that takes effect in the capital next month, aimed at deterring drivers, improving public transport and making cyclists feel horribly smug. But what does it mean for anyone who plans to drive a rental car in the capital? They will become embroiled in a collection of rules that is even harder to untangle than the gridlock that grinds past the straggle of tourists at Piccadilly Circus.

The congestion charge is a motoring version of Russian roulette. There are to be no toll booths around the central ring; instead, 230 camera positions will read registration numbers of every vehicle entering the central zone during the working day. Every good motorist will pay the pounds 5 fee by 10pm that day by phone, online or at a newsagent's or petrol station. But if no payment is made - through forgetfulness or taking a chance that a bus obscured the camera's view - the cost ratchets upwards faster than the first-class rail fare to Manchester. Between 10pm and midnight on the day, it is pounds 10; from day two to day 14, pounds 40; between two and four weeks, pounds 80; thereafter, pounds 120 or they will come and take the offending vehicle away.

Where does this leave anyone who rents a car and drives it in central London? Out of pocket. The leading rental companies say congestion charges, like tolls on bridges and tunnels, are the hirer's responsibility. Aha, the loophole-seeking motorist may say, there is no physical barrier, so why not feign innocence and let the car rental company pick up the tab? Because the firm will figuratively send the boys round, or at least tell Transport for London the name and address of the person who had hired out the car at the time it was caught on camera. Passing on that information exempts the vehicle company from further harassment, and leads to the hirer being pursued for payment.

No doubt plenty of overseas visitors will take a chance, in the same way that many British travellers abroad leave parking or speeding fines unpaid. But for UK motorists, driving in the capital could be an expensive business - even in someone else's car.

ONE MAN did say life was going to be easy: Lord Easy of Luton, as Stelios Haji-Ioannou is not quite yet officially known (he was mysteriously overlooked in the New Year's Honours list). The entrepreneur who tried to ease our lives with easyJet, easyInternetcafes and easyCar has a solution for car hirers - at least if they pick up a vehicle in central London.

Stelios's rental car division offers the unusual option of hiring a vehicle by the hour. Consequently, a single car could be rented by half-a-dozen drivers a day, each of whom pays the pounds 5 fee. So easyCar is to stump up the tax for every vehicle at its Barbican location. The virtuous vehicles will carry this attractive decal featuring "Red Ken", and exempting hirers from the charge.

THE MAYOR'S tax on traffic could conceivably prove the salvation of London tourism. At present, visitors are choked by the fumes emitted from vehicles choked by inadequate streets. If the capital becomes a more pleasant place to visit, with fewer cars and more buses, London may yet reclaim its place as a great world city.

ACROSS IN Brooklyn, home for many of the mobsters featured on pages 6 and 7, the congestion charge concept has been picked up and refined. Since 1911, motorists crossing from the borough into Manhattan have paid nothing for the privilege. At Brooklyn's Borough Hall they realise the stream of cars heading over their magnificent bridge could be a revenue stream; faced with a $3bn budget deficit, they are considering a toll. New York City's version will be more sophisticated than Mr Livingstone's pounds 5 flat fee. At rush hour, it could rise to $12 (pounds 8), and decrease when traffic is quieter - an example of "yield management" that would make Stelios proud.

The principle of charging more when demand is high, and lowering prices during slack spells to stimulate custom, underpins each of the easyBusinesses. Yet at his easyInternetcafe near Times Square, Stelios is encountering a mysterious slump in demand during the hours when the glorious New York Public Library is open. The early 20th- century benefactors who provided the city with this masterpiece of public property did so to enhance human understanding. But in the 21st century, the library's main purpose is to enable tourists to e- mail home free.

The main reading room, named after the generous Rose family, was the largest unsupported chamber in North America when it opened to the public. Vast chandeliers illuminate the ornate wood panelling and the dramatic ceiling painting. But no one in the room cares two hoots: they are too busy accessing Hotmail.

Unlike the British Library, you need not demonstrate serious academic intent to gain entry. So any passing tourist can have free access to one of around 50 internet terminals. The news spread rapidly on the travellers' grapevine, with the result that, as soon as the magnificent doors open, tourists sprint up the elegant staircase to be first in line for a terminal. For the remainder of the day, the Rose reading room is frenetic with people keen to get online. Canny (or desperate) clients have started forging the slips that entitle you to a precious half-hour, leading to blazing rows rather than bibliotechnical calm. A congestion charge is evidently needed. Meanwhile, three blocks away, terminals stand idle at New York's easyInternetcafe.

Stelios was in Manhattan this week to survey this part of his empire, and tells me the librarians have got it all wrong: "Internet access should be left to private enterprise. We will run it for them as another easyInternetcafe, and even pay them rent. If they want to offer free access for some deserving causes such as tourists, they can buy the tickets and offer them for free."

RUSSIA'S BID to chase away tourists continues. The world's biggest country has come up with a Soviet-style Catch 22 with which to entrap visitors. As from the start of this year, all travellers to the Russian Federation are to be issued with an immigration card by those jolly fellows on passport control. Hotels are instructed to turn away guests who cannot produce this card, and you must show the card to be allowed out of the country. But 10 days into the New Year, the immigration posts at the airports in Moscow and St Petersburg, not to mention the Trans-Siberian rail crossing at Naushki, have run out of cards.

travel@independent.co.uk