ULEZ & The Environment

[camberwell fox]

I live in SE London and over the past couple of years transport in London (own transport not public) has been ‘transformed’

It has been widely reported that in London alone 4,000 people PA have died prematurely due to the air quality. These figures have been produced by Imperial College (the same group who vastly over modelled deaths due to SARS and Covid). There appears no proof of this figure.

The ULEZ is about to be expanded and there are already multiple ‘traffic calming’ measures in place that are supposed to encourage cycling, walking and the use of public transport. I happen to live on a road that has such measures in place.

Don’t think this isn’t coming your way because this will just keep expanding.

To give context, I drive a 2015 Mini. If my car was non-compliant it would cost me £12.50 per day to park my car outside of my house regardless of a journey being made or not (ULEZ charge). I also have to buy a permit to park my car outside of my house which is getting close to £300 PA.

On top of this there is virtually no free on street parking anywhere with meters charging from £2 per hour to £6 per hour.

My question to you all is this, are the measures correct, fair and proportionate?

I’m interested in other peoples perspective on this.

 

[homer]

It’s all an enormous money making con for the tofu eating wokerati to champion ad nauseum

Wanna buy some magic beans? You’ll definitely need them to stop that there global warming - in fact it will soon be compulsory to own some

 

[Brown Nose]

The measures you describe are presumably intended to push people towards relying solely on public transport and/or electric vehicles. Theoretically that's fine if those options are plentiful, reliable and affordable. As far as I know, London has the best public transport infrastructure in the country but I can't really speak for the rest of it.

You're basically being asked to get rid of your car. What the cost/benefit implications of that are will determine its fairness.

As climate change requirements move from the future to the current, I fully expect a massive backlash from the vast majority. It's an impossible policy to deliver and be popular. We all know that whatever we do as individuals makes absolutely no difference and that, as an entire country, our ability to impact positively is virtually nil.

It's a world problem that will only be solved by the world changing. That will only happen if the cost of doing so is agreeable to almost all of us. So everything we're doing at the moment just seems to me to be pissing about.

I think the solution is not in reducing carbon emissions so much as removing carbon from the atmosphere. That's what I'd be investing in. However, I do suspect that the planet has already gone too far and is moving rapidly towards a different climate irrespective of what we do from now on. That conclusion also leads me to believe that the only answer lies in repair rather than prevention.

Ultimately, I can't help but believe that the planet was much better off before human beings appeared and it will be much better off when we're gone.

 

[Jeff]

ULEZ is not about climate change, it's to improve the quality of the air.

 

[camberwell fox]

Further to my initial post.

To me it has been introduced unfairly and without thought for all implications, just two of such (for me):

1). My children go to school separately and the round journey is probably 5 miles. This used to take me 45-50 minutes,now it takes me 1 1/2 hours on average. There is no viable public transport option.

2) When I used to take my kids to school or collect them I would make a point of buying products from local shops as this helps the local economy and the quality is much better. These same shops are now closing in droves as it is now too much hassle for me to use them as they are adjacent or within traffic calming areas.

 

[Brown Nose]

ULEZ is not about climate change, it's to improve the quality of the air.

TFL say that there are three reasons, air quality, climate change and traffic congestion.

 

[camberwell fox]

I also owned an electric car for 18 months. The infrastructure for charging is pathetic and woefully inafeqiate.

If is also not much cheaper now to use electricity v traditional fuels.

I was lucky enough to be able to charge my car at work for free. If this wasn’t available I would have been well and truly screwed both financially and logistically.

Duel fuels are the best option at the moment I believe.

 

[Jeff]

TFL say that there are three reasons, air quality, climate change and traffic congestion.

But the criteria they use to decide whether you have to pay is based on Nitrous oxide, not co2 emissions.
90% of cars already meet the required standards.

 

[Jeff]

If my car was non-compliant it would cost me £12.50 per day to park my car outside of my house regardless of a journey being made or not (ULEZ charge).

You would only have to pay if you drive it.

 

[give_us_a_wave]

Its the same as every scheme introduced since the 1990s. Designed to make you use your car less.

Unfortunately the previous decade saw the privatisation of the bus & rail companies which of course inevitably led to price rises & service cuts over the ensuing decades. Typical British planning in other words. No joined up policy just a free market shitshow.

It'll all be fine in 100 years but in the meantime my own scheme to fuel cars by melting down the bodies of ****ing cyclists for biomass remains ignored by both government & private companies alike. Short sighted bastards.

 

[bocadillo]

TFL say that there are three reasons, air quality, climate change and traffic congestion.

Anybody who lives in London knows that recent TfL measures (introduction of cycle lanes, traffic calming, blocking up of streets) have worsened traffic congestion leading to an increase in emissions.

 

[camberwell fox]

Anybody who lives in London knows that recent TfL measures (introduction of cycle lanes, traffic calming, blocking up of streets) have worsened traffic congestion leading to an increase in emissions.

Okay, I can expand on this from experience.

I live on a road in a terraced house. My street and the surrounding streets are in what you would describe as “toast rack” or “grid” streets. There are probably 30 odd streets in the “block.” This block is surrounded by a minor “B” road.

My road and others were used as a “rat run” to ease the time taken from A to B but NONE of the roads were ever busy or raced down.

Southwark Council in conjunction with the Kings College foundation have introduced “traffic calming” by means of strategically placing large planters in about 1/3 of the roads to block off the opportunity to pass through.

What this has actually achieved is to push (as was) good flowing traffic in the 30 roads and surrounding “B” road entirely onto the “B” road. Any pollution therefore which would have been evenly spread across all 30 roads and the “B” road is now all on the “B” road.

Traffic is now gridlocked 70% of the time and the pollution is now a “curtain” on the “B” road. Said “B” road has poorer (mainly council) flats and houses and state schools and libraries and so on.

So what has actually been achieved is the pollution is worse in poorer areas but better on affluent ones. Traffic is worse and this increases idling and therefore must increase pollution.

The most frustrating thing is I didn’t want this in the first place and there is no data available to quantify the decision to implement.

 

[camberwell fox]

You would only have to pay if you drive it.

Yes but it’s a wee bit pointless having a car only to polish it every fortnight

 

[homer]

Yes but it’s a wee bit pointless having a car only to polish it every fortnight

Well, Jeff has a penis…..

 

[Jeff]

Well, Jeff has a penis…..

I polish it more than once a fortnight,

 

[camberwell fox]

I polish it more than once a fortnight,

Yes but it only takes a minute.

 

[Payne74]

I drove my 2014 bluemotion 1:6dl diesel golf through the blackwall tunnel recently and didn't pay the £25 (coming home the next day)because l wrongly assumed it was exempt....next thing I have is two £80 fines non negotiable just ****ing pay...

The irony is had we taken my wife's 2022 4wd BMW 3:0 Diesel X3 we wouldn't have to pay because hers is a euro 6 and mine is a euro 5...I can tell you which car pumps out the most co2 and it's not the Golf.

 

[camberwell fox]

I drove my 2014 bluemotion 1:6dl diesel golf through the blackwall tunnel recently and didn't pay the £25 (coming home the next day)because l wrongly assumed it was exempt....next thing I have is two £80 fines non negotiable just ****ing pay...

The irony is had we taken my wife's 2022 4wd BMW 3:0 Diesel X3 we wouldn't have to pay because hers is a euro 6 and mine is a euro 5...I can tell you which car pumps out the most co2 and it's not the Golf.

Not really a like, more an acknowledgement.

 

[Fox Fan]

One of my mates works for VW and we were chatting about cars the other day.

You may have recall that a few years ago there were lots of 1l engines coming onto the market. They met the environmental standards, so was a big tick in the box. However to do so, they had to change the way the engine operates - which meant significantly less reliability.

Today these cars are worth less and those who have owned them have experienced all manner of issues - often more expensive than the cars they were fitted in. His view was it was a tax on the uninformed and poor that often buy those types of vehicles.

Someone else I know works in London. They're older and do a few shifts a week for a bit of pocket money. Her car is old and is rarely driven, except when she has to work on a later shift. With the charge, she's now working most of the first hour of her shift, just to pay off that charge. It's got to the point where she'll just give it up - which benefits no one as it takes money and resource out of the economy. As she's not on benefits, she doesn't qualify for the scrappage scheme.

 

[Fox Fan]

Don’t think this isn’t coming your way because this will just keep expanding.

It absolutely is. Birmingham already has it in the form of the low emissions zone for the city centre which I believe is the same as ULEZ, but there's much worse on the way.

The Labour run council (which is imminently about to go bust) has approved a plan to "split the city centre into seven traffic cells to reduce the dominance of cars for short journeys".

What this means in practice is that to make a journey that could be 150 yards, you now have to exit the city centre, enter the ring road and re-enter the segment you want. It's bonkers because unlike London, Birmingham's transport network is:

• More expensive
• Significantly worse
• Does not have an underground system
• Relies predominately on Bus routes (east - west)
• Was purpose built for the car and not the pedestrian

Here's what the quadrants will look like: