Londoner? ULEZ expansion - wrong time?

[GrubzUp]

I like Sadiq Khan, in general I applaud green initiatives.

However it's been announced today that the original inner London low emission zone is to be expanded into outer London - meaning that if you have an older, more polluting vehicle it will cost you £12.50 every time you drive it anywhere in London (inside the M25 I think).

I live in outer London. There are a LOT of older, non ULEZ compliant vehicles on the road round here. At the moment, people don't need to be compliant for local trips, because unless they're heading inside the North / South Circular Rd, they are fine in their older cars.

I look out in the street and see my neighbours' cars: the people who tend to drive older vehicles are the young, the old, the disabled and the poor.

AIBU to say that hitting them with a big new tax for driving anywhere in the middle of a cost of living crisis is the WRONG time? If they can't afford a newer model they certainly can't afford to pay £12 every time they take it off the drive. I feel bad for these people. How are they going to afford it?

Note that public transport here is not what it is in inner London, you can't just "jump on the tube".

And?

one car pollutes the same wherever it is so it should be charged for that wherever it is.

🙄

I see sarcasm is lost on you.

There are three separate problems with cars.
Congestion - problem mostly in urban areas, applies even to electric cars, best dealt with with a tax or other restrictions on driving in that area and improved public transport.
CO2 emissions - problem wherever you drive it, doesn't apply to electric cars (or won't once we've decarbonised the grid), easiest dealt with by a tax on petrol/diesel for all cars wherever you are.
Local emissions of particulates, nitrogen oxides etc - much more of problem in urban areas where traffic is dense, much more of a problem with some cars than others.

ULEZ is aimed at problem 3.

its not so healthy for a family to not be able to afford food because they’ve had to buy a new car to keep up with Mr Kahn’s latest expansion.

It's cheaper to run a bicycle than a car, just for the rich you say?

I'm dyspraxic, if I cycled in traffic I'd wind up dead.
Tbf I don't drive either.

I’m assuming black cabs and buses are exempt from this ? Do their emissions magically not count towards pollution then ?

HopsLong, why would anyone want to drive down that road either, why not have your supermarket shop delivered then your kids won't be exposed to all those fumes

Some people want to go out, and -shock horror- visit the shops. Not everyone wants to live like a recluse.

So much for supporting the high street. It's all empty posturing, isn't it?

They seem to be exempt from the 20mph speed limits imposed throughout most of the outer London borough I live in so probably

I work at Heathrow. My shifts either start too early or finish too late to use public transport and I can't afford to replace my car. I can't afford £12.50 per working day either so I don't know what I will do.
There must be loads of shift workers that will be affected and many doing far more important work than me.

Middle class families who have time to cycle their darlings to school down the road and then retreat to their custom made garden office before school pick up again. Many families work minimum wage shifts many miles from their home and do not have the luxury of time to strap on their helmets for their Johnny Loco bike.

You don’t see the difference between 50 people on a bus vs an additional 30 cars on the road?

My point is that if this is to decrease pollution then all pollution causing vehicles should be charged . Not just the ones without powerful unions.

Also quite difficult to fit 50 people into a black cab 🙃

Middle class families who have time to cycle their darlings to school down the road and then retreat to their custom made garden office before school pick up again

Ha! That's so true. In my dds primary school, in the past few years, there has been an influx of eco warrior type parents. All very posh and preachy. Getting the school to promote their endless cycling schemes and blah blah blah. So sick of these people and the power they seem to wield.

All very posh and preachy. Getting the school to promote their endless cycling schemes and blah blah blah. So sick of these people and the power they seem to wield.

Call them out

All TfL buses were retrofitted to ULEZ standards over a year ago, and there's a plan to gradually move to zero emissions.

Black cabs are tricky because they have a long operating life, but there is gradual phasing out under the licensing for existing vehicles over the next 4 years (no non-compliant cab could get a new licence) and there are grants to help move to zero emissions.

Why can’t the rest of us have the same grace period as black cabs. Stop the new registering of any car not compliant in the zone and then give 3-5 years notice for people to change their current cars.

The mayor just wants to be remembered for something, it’s all political he won’t be voted back in after this. As a labour voter my whole life, I would even vote Tory to get rid of him now. I don’t think I’ve disliked or had such negative effects on me before made by a polWhen is the next Mayor elections?

Grow up on the eco warrior parents. They sound like successful people. The fact that amazingly they haven't chosen to buy a huge car or some other conspicuously antisocially sized vehicle or maintain a polluting one is good for everyone.

@thehorsehasnowbolted
Just to say that I agree with you! I was quoting another poster who wondered why on earth I would ever venture to the supermarket in person when I could have my shopping delivered.

Lol...a lot of them still own cars. That's different though. They really need theirs... everyone else just owns them for fun!

So what - still improves the environment for everyone if they don't use it. What do you do?

Why can’t the rest of us have the same grace period as black cabs. Stop the new registering of any car not compliant in the zone and then give 3-5 years notice for people to change their current cars.

^^ This. Even 2-3 years would help. But 9 months?!!!

So what - still improves the environment for everyone if they don't use it

Creating loads of pollution and depleting the Earth’s resources to manufacture a car that isn’t going to be used doesn’t seem particularly environmentally friendly to me.

The reason you are not getting the same grace period is that the number of private cars on the road grossly exceeds the number of black cabs which are a form of public transport. The idea is to get rid of vehicles which pollute; or penalise those who want to maintain them. It's not equivalent because the problem is polluting private cars, not cabs where the manufacturers have already started to provide standardized vehicles.

There is this bizarre rhetoric that cars are a human right and cycling is only for the rich middle class. Is this based on decades of daily mail bashing??
So many people here spouting the same shit when it literally makes no sense. It is cheaper multiple times over to cycle even with a wagon and 2 kids than it is to run a car over the year, particularly with petrol increasing all the time.
Yet according to this thread working class people ‘don’t have time’ to put a helmet on their kids!!
There is literally zero logic that cycling is for the well off and driving is for the poor.

Sorry if you think your car is a protected species, it’s not.