The mayors of Connecticut's scrapping-just-to-get-by cities spend much of their time dreaming up ideas to raise revenue for their echoing coffers.

For most of them the idea well ran bone dry long ago.

Although New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, could probably close his city's budget gap with his mad money, he is no less prone to revenue-raising brainstorms.

His latest is to give New York a dose of London.

The idea is called "congestion pricing," and it's been happening across the pond (if New York is the Big Apple, is London the Big Fog?) since February 2003. Maybe you read about it.

Here's how it works: With Central London traffic about as mobile as a catatonic Queen's Foot Guard, city fathers installed 688 remote-controlled cameras in 8 square miles in the city's most gummed-up area, including Piccadilly Circus.

The cameras take pictures of the license plates of every vehicle entering the zone. Using something called Automatic Number Plate Recognition Technology, computers convert the pictures to digits then sort through license records to finger the cars' owners.

Drivers entering the zone are instantly billed $8 for the privilege. If the fee is not paid by 10 p.m. that same day, it rises to $12. If it's not forked over by the following midnight, the bill is $130.

While the final results are not in, it appears the system is a rousing success. Traffic in the zone is down 20 percent to 30 percent. And the

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fees are expected to yield as much as $2.2 billion in 10 years.

Zowie! A revenue cow.

A couple of years ago Connecticut's Transportation Advisory Board considered congestion pricing on I-95 as a way to reduce the traffic on that anachronism of a highway. Like most of the panel's ideas, it went nowhere.

Adapting congestion pricing to Connecticut cities and towns would require some modifications. But it could work.

In Bridgeport, for example, where congestion on downtown streets is not exactly an acute situation, the cameras could be trained on cars leaving the downtown zone. Car owners caught exiting the city would be automatically assessed on a sliding scale: The longer your stay the less you are charged. Stay overnight at the Holiday Inn and it's free.

This would encourage people to linger downtown for that extra cup of McDonald's Paul Newman joe, or to shop for that perfect used saxophone at one of the city's fine pawnshops.

The revenue stream from what is tentatively being called "escape pricing" would allow Mayor John M. Fabrizi to cancel property taxes by 2011.

Exclusive suburban towns could use the system to regulate border crossings. Cars from selected urban areas would have to pay to cross the line. So would cars owned by people whose income scans indicate they can't afford to shop in an exclusive suburb.

And if the system can reduce traffic, why can't it do the same for other undesirables? A suggested price list:

l Restaurant customers who so much as touch their cell phones: $55.

l Supermarket shoppers who stare at the soup selection for more than three minutes: $15.

l Men in movie theaters who after every good line ask their wives aloud, "What'd they say, hon?" $8.50.

l Window-seat passengers on commercial air flights who get up to use the bathroom more than once: $200.

l Oil company executives who explain $33 billion profits as "near or below the average of all U.S. industry": $2 million.

l Any car with a "humorous" bumper sticker: $5.

Charles Walsh's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can reach him by phone at 330-6217 or by e-mail at cwalsh@ctpost.com.