London Mayor Wants Daily Driving Charge of Up To $2.7 (bbc.com) 191
London's mayor says he needs to charge drivers a "small" daily fee of up to 2 pound ($2.73) for "all but the cleanest vehicles" to help hit climate change targets. From a report: The road pricing proposal is part of a push by Sadiq Khan to encourage people towards public transport, walking, cycling or electric vehicles. The RAC called the plan "poorly timed" with cleaner vehicles being "too expensive for most people." Longer term, Mr Khan says he needs to bring in a pay-per-mile system. He is also considering charging drivers from outside the capital who wish to travel into Greater London, widening out the current charging zone. Mr Khan said he was "not willing to put off action."
London public transport is also sh1t (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
At least a 10% reduction. It works.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Sort of and sort of not. It keeps poorer people from driving because they can't afford it.
Poor people already don't drive in London. Very shithouse parking options everywhere you go. This isn't the US of Gas Worshiping A. Nearly half of *households* in London don't own any car, a statistic basically unheard of in America.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It *could* have been Mayor Chekov, but Khan put this critter in his ear, and he withdrew from the election, muttering something about "nucwear weasels"
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically Chekov, aka Anton Yelchin, was crushed by his own SUV.
Re: (Score:3)
You will be outraged when you learn the UK Home Secretary is a) a woman and b) has Patel as a surname.
Wait it get's even worse. The Chancellor, the 2nd most powerful office in the country, is called "Rishi Sunak" !!
Re:London public transport is also sh1t (Score:5, Funny)
Well, this is news for nerds... and he shares a name with Captain Kirk's arch nemesis...
I can't believe the headline wasn't "Drivers to feel the Wrath of Khan..."
Re: Is the word, "American?" (Score:2)
It was great while it lasted, then look what happened.
Re: (Score:2)
What happened was that the people decided that even Joe Biden would make a better president then Trump.
Re: London public transport is also sh1t (Score:2)
Clearly it's too low. They need to charge 100 pounds each way.
Re: London public transport is also sh1t (Score:2)
TfL fares have been frozen for years. Itâ(TM)s something like £1.50 for zones 2-6 on the Tube, which is hardly expensive. More recently they added âoehopperâ fares for the buses, which made them cheaper. Perhaps youâ(TM)re referring to the national rail services in and out of London, which arenâ(TM)t London public transport and whose fare increases are managed by the national government.
Re: (Score:2)
London public transport ... Extremely expensive
I heard that London buses are significantly cheaper than buses in other major cities, e.g. Manchester.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, they could do what Tokyo did. Tokyo effectively started charging drivers per mile, then took the money and poured it into a public transportation system that today is second to none.
Milton Friedman agrees (Score:2, Offtopic)
"But there is a case for the government protecting third parties, protecting people who have not voluntarily agreed to enter. So there's more of a case, for example, for emission control than there is for
Re: (Score:2)
"There's always a case for the government to some extent, when what two people do affects a third party. There's no case for the government whatsoever in mandating air bags because air bags protect the people inside the car. That's my business. If I want to protect myself, I should do it at my expense."
Because today's economic structures are so intermingled, many actions that appear to only affect an individual can significantly affect others in economic ways. For example, air bags and seat belts only prevent death for the people inside that car. However, because car insurance is mandated for all drivers, the portion of the population that doesn't wear seat belts experiences higher death rates, which causes premiums for all drivers to be higher. As another example, smoking directly only kills or maims
Economics (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.electricbikeparadi... [electricbikeparadise.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Buy a used Leaf. The difference in running costs will make up the difference in purchase price.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.simplestockinvestin... [simplestockinvesting.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Coal-powered car, LOL. From Wikipedia:
Electricity production from coal in 2018 was less than any time since the industrial revolution, with the first "coal free day" in 2017 and the first coal free week in 2019.[24] Coal supplied 5.4% of UK electricity in 2018, down from 7% in 2017, 9% in 2016, 23% in 2015 and 30% in 2014.[25]"
Try educating yourself before posting. Otherwise you just show your ignorance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OK, now you have crossed over into "aggressively stupid".
Did you not notice that only 5.4% of the total electricity production in 2018 was powered by coal and that this is dropping, or is the math too complex for you?
Re: (Score:2)
I care far too much for the planet and am not prepared to run a coal powered car.
The UK gets a significant amount of its power from renewables and basically zero from coal, so if you are in the UK how could it be coal-powered? Biodiesel is not environmentally friendly, nor does it make sense other than niche uses. Look at crop production required for biodiesel or ethanol production and do some simple arithmetic - it's not an option for mass use as an alternative to oil.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Currently 42% fossil fuels and 21% nuclear (which is far worse).
I don't see how nuclear is worse.
Biodiesel is exceptionally environmentally friendly.
The last time I ran the figures (and McKay did too, and it's still valid as farming hasn't changed that much) there wasn't space in Western nations to produce enough oil crops to produce biodiesel so it would require massive land use change in other countries to provide it. It didn't look very environmentally friendly to me, or even sustainable to produce the level of crops year-on-year.
The problem is that people have no idea how little power you get from a wind farm or how unreliable solar is. The government wish to drive this to failure so they can go nuclear and make loads of weapons
That seems very unlikely. I don't think Denmark wants to produce lots of nuclear weapons,
Re: (Score:2)
I just bought an ICE for $3600 US and I expect that it will take me around town for 5 or 6 years. When I see the same economics with EVs I will start to buy EVs.
Also consider that by buying a used car you did not contribute to the environmental costs of producing a new one or disposing of an old one
Re: (Score:2)
"We will tax you so we get more money" (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFY.
The governed consent so not a problem. (Score:2)
If they want things to be different they'd be politically active as is their civic duty.
Inaction is de-facto endorsement. The majority have the society they chose.
Not again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You're right, not again. This isn't a pay for how much you drive. It's a pay for *where* you drive. Not every trip has the same effect on society and the environment.
If you go through a country road letting the window down then more power to you. You're affecting very few people and getting pretty good mileage as you go.
If you're in a city centre during peak hour contributing to the traffic jam holding up busses that move people more efficiently while also contributing to smog and NOx emissions that directl
Good! (Score:2)
It will keep the riff raff out!
I don't get it (Score:2)
The Congestion Charge is a £15 daily charge if you drive within the Congestion Charge zone 07:00-22:00, every day, so this is peanuts.
Ugh. These comments... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The fact is
Re: (Score:2)
So merely possessing a car costs you daily now, even if you don't drive it? Basically an additional 1000 pound yearly tax?
No, that's not how the congestion charge works.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did you choose to have such long commutes?
Or if you didn't choose those long commutes, then who did?
Re: (Score:3)
Why did you choose to have such long commutes?
Probably so they can live somewhere with some space and not be packed in like insects.
Re:do this in US cities (Score:4, Insightful)
Well then, maybe cities should allow more vertical building so that everyone can have a spacious home (on top of other spacious homes) while still having a short commute?
Re: (Score:2)
Spacious homes in high-rises are expensive.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why did you choose to have such long commutes?
Because they can't afford to live nearer to work. Years ago, a friend of mine living in Birmingham commuted to London every day, on a fairly well paid film editing contract. He started out renting a tiny flat (bed in a cupboard) in London, but he could not afford the rent. He also could not afford the fare for the fastest train, and had to use a slower service. He had just enough time to get a takeaway and crash every night.
Re: (Score:2)
What do employers do when they can't find people who can afford to get to work? Do they just give up? Does the job go unfilled? Do the toilets stay dirty and the burgers unflipped?
Re: (Score:2)
The same thing they do when they simply don't want to hire more staff: They push the people they do have to do more with the same time and resources.
Granted, that's harder to do now that people have realized that they have power when they act collectively. I guess they'll have to start paying a living wage.
Re: (Score:2)
What do employers do when they can't find people who can afford to get to work?
One would hope that they put up wages, or provide a travel allowance. However, if they can employ workers who are prepared to commute long distances, then they will probably do that instead.
Re: (Score:2)
People love those rentals, why do you think they cost so much?
Re: (Score:2)
You're kidding, right?
Re: (Score:2)
I know, right? Every single reply below is being modded to "Troll" haha!
Re:Tone deaf, but not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
In London, we *already have* green taxes for driving in the form of the Congestion Charge and the ULEZ. And both are supported by a majority of Londoners. So I'm pretty sure he's reading the room right, while you're squinting at it from several thousand miles away, and from a different political culture, and thinking you know better.
Re: (Score:3)
Air quality is pretty bad in London, so people living there are often quite supportive of things that improve it.
It's also got a half decent public transport system, so many of them don't drive in anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup
Re: (Score:2)
You must be confused. We throw rocks at the guys trying to help for not doing more, and we worship the guys who are crushing the life out of us like gods.
All because we believe the lie that we're just one lucky break from becoming gods ourselves...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think londons problem is that it was never really planned. Its just centuries of an ancient city getting built on piecemeal. Its similar to Sydney in that sense (Although *far* older) which really was just a settler colony that got built out over the centuries with little plan.
Compare and contrast with Manhatten or Melbourne, which was planned out from the beginning , and are basically just big grids.. You can learn how to navigate either city within 10 minutes.
NYC and London and Melbourne all have great
London depends on train commuters (Score:4, Informative)
VAST numbers come into London - and the other big cities by train every day. Admittedly I left the South East to avoid this experience; my family seemed to regard a regular commute as some sort of 'rite of passage', but for most of those who work in central London there is no realistic alternative.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"unless they are married "
Not 'especially'?
Re: (Score:2)
>Brits do actually hate sitting next to other Brits, *especially if* they are married or have known each other for more than ten years
There, fixed that for you
Re:Fix public transport first. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yea... San Francisco has been similarly bass-ackward in its own "transit first" push. They've taken the opportunity of COVID to go nuts on the streets... closing some streets entirely, lowering speed limits on others, taking away lanes on still more, and doing away with legal right turns on red... or even right turns in general, sometimes enforced with new concrete protuberances. The bridge tolls and parking rates have been jacked up, and, yes, there is even talk of congestion charges. All of this would be fine... if MUNI and BART were a complete, adequate, and useful replacement for driving. But we've put the cart before the horse here; with everything I mentioned, and more, to punish people for driving BEFORE building a mass-transit system that can completely replace it.
And I'm actually all for the concept, just not this execution. I believe that "transit first" would be a good thing. And hell... if I lived somewhere where the government truly believes in, and builds and maintains, adequate mass transit... like Tokyo for example... I would cheerfully give up my car and be happy to not look back. But we're not there yet by a long shot. We need world-class mass transit FIRST, and THEN start punishing driving.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Fix public transport first. (Score:2)
This is such a pathetically myopic view of the world. Apollo was public money; penicillin was public money; more prosaically, Zuyderland hospital in the Netherlands is public money and itâ(TM)s really very lovely indeed.
Re: (Score:2)
something about penalising private vehicle owners and pushing them onto shoddily run public transport?
Actually, that's not what is being proposed. It's about penalising private vehicle owners who own ICE vehicles, not private vehicle owners in general. I am not sure this is the way to do it, though, unless there is also a series of subsidies (funded from the £2/day?) to help Londoners buy electric vehicles.
Re: (Score:2)
However, they have a few benefits over public transport - you can choose whatever time you want to commute, you don't have to walk far to get to your car, you can sing and fart and burp and make funny faces without fear of public ridicule (ok, that may just be me), you don't have to sit next to people who smell, have diseases, want to rob you or want to do strange sexual things to you (again, this may just be my concerns - I'm weird).
You just described public transport in London, except for the sing fart and burp bit. This isn't downtown Boston, public transport is basically available at all hours of the day, you would likely have to walk further to your car than public transport depending on which suburb you live in, people generally don't smell (half the time you're sharing public transport with middle / upper class people as it isn't reserved for just the poor dredges of society like it is in the USA), and you're no more likely to ge
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd beg to differ. Glasgow has a pretty good rail system plus an underground plus lots of buses. Not as good as when it was all Strathclyde transport but still good.
I live in a city of 2 million people in Australia and our system while integrated and expanding, is not a patch on Glasgow's which has always had 1 million people.
Re: (Score:3)
So what's your point?
The other thing is this is intentionally an anti car measure. I'm all for it. London is utterly clogged with cars, the average speed being something like 8mph, down from 12 in 1900. Green or not London needs to stop the inexorable rise of private car traffic because the roads simply cannot cope.
And pollution is more than just carbon dioxide. There's a reason London is the home of some of, if not the first ever clean air legislation. Cars spewing pollution into a geographic bowl are kill
Re: (Score:2)
I get the anti-congestion angle and levying a fee (tax) to combat that seems more honest than "hit climate change targets". There may (also) be a local anti-pollution angle as well, but then they should simply say that too... Reducing city congestion and air pollution from vehicles is a valid and worthy goal in itself. Perhaps London already has fees for this and the mayor simply wants to use another reason, instead of piling on existing, but that isn't (or shouldn't be) needed.
Re: (Score:2)
You clearly have not understood the situation.
BTW, London is by far the largest city in western Europe, about double the population of Ireland & bigger than 34 out of 51 European countries. London is also highly influential, worldwide. When London does something, mayors of major cities around the world sit up & take notice. That's why it regularly makes international news.
Re: (Score:2)
When London does something, mayors of major cities around the world sit up & take notice.
Let me know when they all start driving on the left... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but that's clearly not what I said or implied.
Re: (Score:3)
The poorest in London in the whole don't drive already.
TFL actually publishes statistics, the most common driver is a while, middle aged, middle class man. Yes somehow whenever the utter supremacy of cars is challenged slightly, there are gales of histrionics about the poor and ethnic minorities.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Electricity generation is not really being expanded.
The move to solar and wind will have the effect of reducing electricity supply unpredictably. Sometimes when its not needed there will be too much and wind operators will be paid to turn down. Other times, like in winter calms and dark long evenings, just when its needed,t there will be none.
Could you meet the higher demand from heat pumps and EVs with wind and solar? No. Its impossible even to meet the current demand because (a) you can't install the
Re: (Score:2)
Electricity generation is not really being expanded.
Citation required.
you can't install the wind fast enough
Citation required.
(b) intermittency once you have it installed.
Scotland sees to be doing OK.
People have run the numbers on this.
McKay?
I'd agree that it will be very challenging, but you seem to be making a lot of assumptions around it being impossible.
Re: (Score:3)
the country will embark on another great project, that of replacing the gas grid with a hydrogen grid.
That's the first time I've heard it suggested. And it's nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
It may be nonsense, but it has been a bit more than suggested.
https://theconversation.com/so... [theconversation.com]
https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
An ambition for 5 GW UK low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030
by 2035, once costs have come down, all new heating appliances installed in homes and workplaces will be low-carbon technologies, like electric heat pumps or hydrogen boilers. We will take a decision in 2026 on the role of hydrogen heating.
Published the Hydrogen Strategy, setting out our comprehensive approach to growing the UK hydrogen economy
Started preparations for a hydrogen heating neighbourhood trial in Levenmouth, Fife led by SGN following funding awards by Ofgem and Scottish Government.
Hydrogen can complement the electricity system, especially in harder to electrify areas like parts of industry and heating, and in heavier transport such as aviation and shipping. A range of low carbon production methods could be used
2050 Scenario 2: High resource ... This pathway sees low carbon hydrogen generation increasing to around 500 TWh. As hydrogen
is the main energy source for heating, electricity demand and therefore generation is lower than
in scenario 1 at 610 TWh.
So there is an implicit suggestion that there will be a hydrogen grid. This would be very hard to deliver because of the problems with hydrogen as a gas, such as embrittlement, the effect of leaks. I would have thought it would be easier to look at further processes to turn hydrogen into CH4 for delivery over the existing gas grid, and maybe even using existing heating systems. I was wrong in suggesting it wasn't bein
Re: (Score:2)
My dear AC, you need to learn to recognize sarcasm when you see it. It has sharp corners and the inattentive can damage themselves when they don't look where they are going and stumble on them.
But to be serious, I am suggesting that the Net Zero plans are so unfit for purpose and irrational that a ridiculous idea like laying in electric blankets is, in the light of that absurdity, just about a match for it. Net Zero is going to place the country, if a serious effort is made to implement it, in a situation
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree with using taxes or charges to "make the polluter pay", this type of charge hits poor working people more than the better off. People with comfortable salaries or company cars can afford or already have modern vehicles, that are charged less. There are many low paid jobs which aren't just commuting to and from an office in the city, using public transport. Think about care workers, who need a car to visit clients. Another job that comes to mind is the self employed plumber or electrician, who can't afford to replace their van with the latest model.
I expect this has been considered and there will be models of subsidy to enable people to buy EVs. The subsidy would need to be for all people to avoid people farming subsidies. It might also need to be addressed on a regional basis to avoid people farming the subsidy on a regional basis.
Re: (Score:3)
this type of charge hits poor working people more than the better off
No it doesn't. Poor working people in London don't drive. They largely make up the 50% of households which don't own vehicles at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Poor working people in London don't drive.
I did not say the car charges would affect all poor people. I specifically talked about low paid jobs that require driving, such as care workers and certain tradespeople. That would exclude the unemployed. It would also exclude jobs where you work in one place all day, so you can use public transport to commute.
Re: (Score:2)
Care workers largely don't drive in London. Tradespeople who own their own vans are largely not poor. And every policy has some level of downside, but you have to look at it in the round, and this policy clearly provides health benefits for everyone, and is specifically better for the vast majority of poor people.