By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - London Mayor Ken Livingstone backed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to adopt the British capital's traffic-fighting vehicle fee, urging him on Tuesday to ignore critics and any drop in approval ratings.

Speaking from his own experience of introducing a so-called congestion charge in central London in 2003, Livingstone said private traffic had dropped nearly 40 percent, cyclists had nearly doubled and bus passengers had increased 50 percent.

"Can I just give you one word of warning? There may be one or two people who will predict doom and gloom -- ignore them," he told a news conference at climate change summit C40, a group of leaders from some of the world's 40 largest cities.

"There was this drip, drip, drip of negativity and it took a toll on my poll ratings," said Livingstone. "But within a week of the congestion charge starting, my opinion poll rating had gone up 12 percent."

Bloomberg unveiled plans late last month to impose an $8 fee on cars driving in Manhattan south of 86th Street, with the estimated revenue of $500 million a year to be spent on tunnels, commuter railroads, subways and buses.

"We'd be the first American city to experiment with congestion pricing -- and going first is always the hardest," Bloomberg told a C40 summit lunch. "But I'm hopeful of making it a reality."

A recent survey of 500 drivers by the Partnership for New York City business group showed 51 percent of commuters opposed to the fee and 43 percent in favor.

Livingstone also urged the New York state government to support the congestion fee plan, unlike British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, which he said shied away from the idea.

"They got a bit nervous about the hostility of the media," he said. "They did give me 200 million pounds ($400 million) toward the cost of implementing it, but only on the understanding I didn't tell anyone they had done so."

He said the idea for the fee on traffic came from the business community, which said London's congestion was costing it $4 billion a year and could force some businesses to relocate to other European centers.

Livingstone is chairing the second C40 summit in New York, following the first such meeting in London in 2005. He and Bloomberg said the mayors -- from more than 30 cities representing a quarter of a billion people -- were meeting to fight global warming because other governments had failed to act.

"We're willing to stand up, we care about this," Bloomberg said. "If they don't act -- we will."

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