To ask Londoners about the (seemingly sneaky) changes in TfL’s congestion charge?

[Piglet89]

We drove to visit friends on other side of London on Saturday 18 July. Today, we received an £80 penalty notice - because the days when Congestion charge is payable apparently changed on 22 June from just weekdays to include weekends.

tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2020/june/temporary-changes-to-the-congestion-charge-to-secure-safe-recovery

Seems this was really poorly publicised; I have an account with TfL and receive regular email travel updates from them: but nothing about this. We had no idea at all.

Anyone else suffered a similar misfortune? Strikes me as an incredibly easy way to shaft people out of cash, particularly if poorly publicised and, unlike Dartford Tunnel fee, you don’t get a chance to pay the charge within 24 hours or whatever.

@MintyMabel exactly.

@Jamestown I am coming to the end of my maternity leave. My husband is WFH because of Covid. We were not using public transport and have not seen an Evening Standard for months.

Ignorance of the law is no defence: I am well aware of that and, indeed, pointed it out myself upthread. But this is an arbitrary and, I still believe, unfairly implemented change introduced in a fairly underhand way. For that reason, it really sticks in my craw.

It isn't sneaky tho -it is on the en-suite snd was all over the news when Khan imposed it. What more could they gave done?

website not en-suite!

It wasn’t in my en suite and I only had that refurbished in 2018 so I would expect it to be right up to the minute!

Love that image - in future, such fairly important messages will appear in a digital display on your vanity cabinet mirror after your shower.

TfL are in finacially dark times. (I work for it)
The policies and projects started by Boris and Sadiq have put it in a huge hole.
Loss making cable-car, loss making hire bikes, loss-making buses, 40-odd million quid on a garden bridge never built, Crossrail way overdue, not raising fares for four years, giving ex-Commissioners a million quid when they leave, huge staffing costs at City Hall, white elephant projects masquerading as Art on the Underground...so TfL had a bailout by the Government and now the board has extra scrutiny from them.

Children aged 5-15 will soon have to pay on buses and tubes. Freedom passes for the disabled and elderly can only use the tube after 9am Monday to Friday and all weekend. Before 9am these customers have to pay. (Plenty of complaints about this).

Sadiq Khan is unrepentant about not raising fares. He also knew Crossrail wouldn't meet its deadline many months before it was announced. He doesn't care about car drivers. In his London Utopia, everyone can cycle or walk to work. Even though he goes everywhere by car, the muppet. (At least Red Ken and Boris used public transport and biked everywhere).

I can see the Government taking absolute control of TfL and selling it off. And Sadiq will get re-elected.

Interesting insight @Goyle

I would hate to see tfl sold off. On the whole it provides a great service. I use the tube, buses, boris bikes regularly if not daily. But sadiq should not have frizen fares for 4 yeaes. Even the £2 boris bike hire charge has never been increased. How many years old are Boris bikes? Maybe 6-7 years now?
Freedom pass holders should definately not have free fares in rush hour. That has always annoyed me. If they are commuting to work, which lets face most of these people are at peak rush hour they should pay their fare like the rest of us poor buggers!

I'm pretty sure I saw in the metro today that boris bikes are 10 years old

I know several SE people still working in their 60s and 70s. They're all really happy to get the freedom pass but I think all are able to afford the fares as obviously they afforded the commute before they got it.
Most places (like theatres, museums etc) have a lower price for OAPs maybe tfl should do half price fares or only free during certain hours.

There were large ads in the Evening Standard on quite a few days

The newspaper you mainly pick up at the train station on your commute home ? Someone didn’t think that through too well.

Or maybe take responsibility and check the details before you travel? This was national news. Tfl is on its knees due to fall in passenger numbers, before this crisis it was the only major city transport network to receive no government subsidy.

I missed it on the news

As I am constantly updated about covid (work and the many emails) I don’t watch the news as much as I did

And look at the website why would As for years the times have not changed and I do have an account with them. Due to everything being turned upside down (as it was for many) it slipped my mind to register my new car but I still have an active account and now it has been changed account number is still the same

Why didn’t TFL think it necessary not to inform all account holders of the changes when they charge them £10 a year very simply done

Yes Boris Bikes are 10yrs old- still never been on one. Central London is a terrifying place to ride and quite frankly I would die!

Khan may not have put il fares but he’s upped my council tax and his marketing budget...

Another money saving idea, removal free travel for family members of TfL staff.

@Needanewnamenow seriously? CC has been chargeable only during weekdays for literally decades and then it changes overnight and you’re saying all responsibility should lie with the traveller, rather than TFL issuing proper email alerts to all TFL account holders?

An email should have gone out with as eye-catching a subject heading as possible to alert travellers. I get now that it was national news - but people do miss stories and even if I’d heard it, psychologically I would have thought “ah I never travel by car into central London, so that won’t affect me”. Which is true. So when the exception happened and I did travel, I forgot. I hate this whole “it’s all your responsibility when stuff like this happens” - it makes me think London and the South East can be a really tiresome place in which to live.

Added to which, as I’ve said, I’ve no objection to paying £15 each way to travel (well, no real objection - that’s the charge - although it’s still fairly steep). Just tell me it’s payable and I’ll pay it. But an £80 fine first off? It’s just a money-spinner to make up for their lost revenues during Covid. We all know it.

I hope after maternity leave I can WFH for as long as possible so I can avoid TfL’s outrageously overcrowded, unreliable and I’m sure, at times, downright dangerous Central Line service.
Very little sympathy with them whatsoever.

You can be as defensive as you like but it doesn't change the fact you didn't check

We have a dart charge account that weve had since it became automated with number plate recognition instead of stop and pay. we top it up and it debits the amount each time (1.67 instead of 2.50 for a one off journey) . Last year we didnt check the amount in our account and made a crossing without paying. We got a letter but it said as it was our first offence we could just pay £2.50.

Saddiq Khan has been treating TFL as his own re election vehicle, and now the ends don't meet, so he's thrown and wobbly and fucked up the shopping areas in Central London.

The obsession with white elephant cycle lines everywhere is bonkers and expensive. And they are woefully underused, while cars get stick in jams and pollute the air even more.

To call him a muppet is too kind.

I’m afraid I agree with the judgement on Sadiq Khan. There’s also the very expensive cycle lane on Park Lane which appeared a month ago reducing a three lane road to one lane (new bus lane too). This runs parallel to the much nicer existing cycle lane - well lit and easy to follow - which is three metres away in Hyde Park. Presumably that one is courtesy of the Royal Parks and he wanted his own one .

And the ludicrous barriers that have reduced every two lane highway to one lane so that there can be social distancing. No one walks in the road. No one. There’s one where I live - it’s a major trunk road where the pavement happens to be five metres wide. There’s no problem with overcrowding on the pavement. But let’s reduce the road to one lane and leave half the road empty and then we can be seen to be Doing Something. I’ve noticed an increase in bikes on the pavements since this happened because it’s not safe for them to share a now narrow lane with double deckers, HGVs etc. I have yet to see a single person walk in the road but there’s no way they will remove them.

@Needanewnamenow yes - I’m not even apologising for being defensive; that’s exactly what I’m being and sometimes it’s called for.

I’m defending myself against something I still see as unjust. I didn’t check - but that really shouldn’t mean I should get fined that large amount. I do still think it’s unfair.

I reckon all the cycle lanes have been designed by people who don't cycle. When I used to cycle in central London, every bus lane was also a bike lane, and everything worked. It's the most gross waste of money.

The economy is screwed, and yet they throw still more money at these initiatives.

Also increasing the congestion charge amount is one thing but the hours and weekend charges are a joke. It’s like the low emission zone, you are just screwing Londoners and creating more bailiff jobs- not all of us are bankers, we are holding on by a thread in our home city. Khan got elected by going on and on about his dad being a bus driver, well if your dad lived under his mayorship he wouldn’t be able to financially survive.
No improvement on knife crime either.
Perhaps if he spent more time focusing on real issues and less time trying to pedestrianise everywhere, kissing up to James O’Brien and launching his future PM campaign he could benefit this city.
In my life time we’ve had an antisemite, Boris and a fraud .....lucky London!

Yep - and I’ve just checked my Oyster card and they’ve just charged me £2.40 for doing “Victoria to Victoria” on the central line, after I touched in and then realised literally 5 mins later that I needed something from a shop on the station concourse, so touched back out again. They’ve not classed it as an “incomplete journey”, so I have to actually phone them to get a refund - can’t do it online.

Yet more underhand behaviour, taking customers for a ride. If only their delivery of the literal sense of that phrase was as efficient as the delivery of the idiomatic sense.

You need to allow 48 hours for a refund to be automatically credited. Maybe you did, though?

I live in London and had no idea about this so would have been caught out too. So thank you and as I was oblivious too YANBU