£35.50 to take a car into London 😲

I worked in central London for nearly 20 years, living in zones 2-3 all that time and working in big busy offices. Nobody I ever worked with would dream of trying to drive into work. As others have said, there are no car parks, and anyway, who wants to sit in traffic for 2 hours plus in the morning rush hour instead of spending 20-30 mins on the train or tube, or a little longer on a bus (which is much quicker than a car as it uses bus lanes)? I didn’t even own a car for the vast majority of the time I lived in London, and this was far from unusual for my type of well paid middle class office worker.

Not long before I left I did meet that rare creature, someone who lived in a very naice bit of zone 2 and drove to work every day. He was nearly 70, had a lovely comfy Jag, and had for decades worked as a senior solicitor in a firm somewhere just off Oxford Street where he’d managed to hang on like grim death to his parking space. But I still remember that conversation years later because it struck me as so unusual a thing to do and him as such a throw-back.

So he either gets a ULEZ compliant van, or he parks the van outside the ULEZ and commutes to it by public transport. Surely the great Free Market should be rushing to provide secure parking for tradespeople outside the ULEZ? - because if we can't rely on it to do that, we sure as shit can't rely on it to improve air quality and lower emissions in a regulation-free free-for-all.

I love the CC, and ULEZ, I can drive my huge Ranger Rover into town without being held up by poor people in their old bangers...

@Gogogo12345 they are gone before 7am.

For most commercial vehicles their workplace pays for it.

As people have said it is is to limit traffic and congestion, something which actually benefits business and drivers.

Or you could opt for a ULEZ compliant car, of course, and help stop pollution.

Residents are not fully exempt from the congestion charge but they only pay 10%.

In underground car parks or residential parking bays. We also have to pay the congestion charge for lots of deliveries and tradesmen driving in to do work on property. If there are so few people living in the zone, as people seem to be arguing, why aren’t they exempt? I don’t care that much but I don’t want to be told that I’m irrelevant.

The ULEZ can be avoided by buying a ULEZ compliant vehicle. The vast majority of vehicles are already ULEZ compliant anyway. There is a Mayor of London scrappage scheme for vans with a grant offered to buy a new compliant one. Our car isn’t compliant and we plan to apply for the car scrappage scheme.

How many of the people living in the CC zone have cars? Where on earth are they parking them?

I guess someone has to pay for maintaining that awful tunnel! It’s in pretty dire condition

Either you pay up - or you face longer delays because it becomes unusable and needs rebuilding completely!

Yes, but in believe that’s the point? To keep traffic out, lower pollution, and keep cars that don’t conform to Ulez standards in particular, out?
London has fantastic public transport too…

But it’s been going since 2003! Honestly, the residents are over it by now.

No, it’s just the people in the ULEZ zone who drive non compliant vehicles. How might that be fixed, hmm…?

That includes Worthing and little Hampton! My point is the same though. There are lots of people living in the congestion zone and it is irritating to be dismissed as irrelevant. You can compare it to Oxford or Exeter.

The guy who fitted our kitchen lives in the ULEZ zone. Most of the jobs he does are outside the ULEZ zone and not easily accessible by public transport. It's not just people working in London who are affected by the charges.

And what about when they leave?

Well the assumption of an office job was made becuase she complained about having to drive right in to cenrral London. Of course trades, deliveries and builders work in the congestion charge zone but often they arrive well before the charging kicks in at 7am.

Indeed Mr Monkey was out early today to meet the 6.30am delivery at the central London store he manages.

But what’s the issue? Where are you driving for work and why does your vehicle attract a ULEZ charge?

I don’t think that there is such an assumption because everyone who works in an office in London knows full well that that absolutely none of their colleagues drive to work. There is no parking!

My assumption is that OP lives near one of the tunnels and drives through them now and again for non-work reasons, but has decided to protest and wants to use fictional London car commuters to bolster her cause.

Would be great - except I live in one of the four London boroughs that has no tube at all.

Central London transport can be great (when they're not striking, or it's not snowing, or it's too hot etc), but in outer London it really isn't.

Our local bus doesn't link to either of the train stations we need to get into central London. If there are road works it stops running completely as it can't divert due to low bridges. Outside of rush hour we have one train and hour which stops at 23.30. If there are problems on the trains, our line is the first to be cancelled as they keep the ones to the south coast running over ours which doesn't go there. And the endless strikes.....

Whilst I could see the value of the original ulez, the extension was rushed and just not thought through. The public transport options, particularly in S London, are just not there.

There's an assumption here that OP has an office based job (may well do, not enough info) but may well need to drive regularly into London or via these crossings transporting equipment or a trade that needs a van. Not everyone can use public transport.

My job for instance is at mire than one site and public transport wouldn't work for me as i simply wouldn't be able to get from one to another on time and dragging my equipment around would be too much. I therefore choose to work in the home counties instead.

I love a good debate about transport. Its a niche specialism in Economics, sometimes I wished I'd gone into it instead of teaching.
It's great to see so many ideas, obviously as a society we are going to have to find a way to adapt as we phase out petrol vehicles and reduce air pollution.
I'm always struck as a historian by how societies never have these discussions as the technology is introduced in the first place. Relatively recently children played in the streets and adults walked or set up stalls and other small businesses in them. Making roads the sole preserve of personal vehicles is really restrictive.
Also public transport between South East London and East London for me is a breeze thanks to the overground!.
And Beckton is not on the outskirts of London! It's all relative. This is why I love transport it is so democratic and all our lived experiences are valid.

This has to be balanced against the fact that these same firms and small businesses benefit from less congestion. Economically speaking, everyone in society (including small businesses) end up far worse off in the long run when streets are clogged. And if you don't manage demand in a big busy city, every road will be clogged, and millions of hours and billions of pounds in productivity get lost every year due to congestion.

Charging (in various ways) for road usage is not some woke, wet tree-hugger thing; it's generally supported by economists, including right-wing think-tank types. In fact, things like congestion charges and Ulezes were broadly supported by the Tories back in the day when they actually cared about economic growth rather than culture wars.

Who the hell is using a car to deliver food in central London? I live in suburban zone 3 and all of our Deliveroo/Just Eat type drivers use bikes, or occasionally mopeds.

Is there a massive backstory about not being able to take public transport because Reasons (like a family member who is too disabled to use public transport, or you are a workperson carting heavy equipment about)?

If not, be like Gran. Use the Tube.