To wonder what all the fuss is about ULEZ

[Winterday1991]

Hardly anyone is affected, only if you have a very old car. No, you should not be free to pollute the air by driving around in a polluting vehicle and so should have to pay a penalty to do so.

It annoys me as everyone agrees we need to tackle climate change, but no one wants the hit on their life/ change their lifestyles.

At least its merely a fee in London. My car is 2016 and its a £60 quid fine in Scotland, no option to pay 12.50 which i would suck up now and again. Cant afford a new car and would rather run this one til its done. The bonkers thing is now when i go to the other hospital site i now need to do a 3mile detour to get there , pretty sure that's no help to the environment!

ULEZ is expensive! Maybe that’s the point - but it simply feels like another way to control people.
For now it’s ok to say travel with 4-5 people in the car to share the fuel & ULEZ charges but it’s usually not practical to do so!

In reality, I see that it will simply be another way to control people by preventing them from travelling any further than they can walk, cycle or reach on public transport.

There’s never any money to pay for public services but there’s money to pay to the railway companies to stop them increasing wages or improving services.
There’s money to give to water companies to enable them to pay huge bonuses while borrowing billions of pounds - but there’s no money to build reservoirs or improve the infrastructure.
There’s money to pay to private companies to run the NHS and keep 80% of the money but the government refuses to simply put that money straight to the point of need to pay for wages and equipment.

Whatever it is, ULEZ is not going to be managed in a way that benefits most people. It will put wads of cash in the pockets of the already wealthy and will control the little people, even more, until we don’t even have the right to travel to another town to use their dentists or GP services when ours are overwhelmed due to bad planning and luxury house building!

That’s only my opinion and I SUPPORT ULEZ! In principle, improving air quality is fabulous! In reality, it will be badly managed and will probably benefit nobody.

Nobody (unless disabled) needs a private car in Central London (I realise the ULEZ is the outer boroughs).

If you need to go in for a specific reason with the car, you can pay a toll. Everyone else can use the plentiful public transport.

It’s a complete lie that hardly any cars are affected it is 10%. That is not insignificant but it's not many relatively speaking. 90% are not affected.

I am personally disgusted by people who think they should be able to continue to pollute the atmosphere.

@angela99999 bring it on. Then we'll find out how many people "need" to use their cars.

You're disgusted about people having to get to their low paid job in the outer boroughs?

And while you say it's only 10% of people (personal experience would make that much higher.. roughly 25% of cars in my street won't be ulez compliant), those 10% are going to be lowest paid 10% who can't afford to change their car. The HCA's and hospital cleaners or porters as an example. The wealthy will always be fine.

What about shift workers at Heathrow who may work night shift or nurses.

Public transport doesn't work and Zoe of them come in from Bucks or Surrey

Some people have no idea

Some of them

They already pay via road tax, tax on petrol and them cars have valid MOTs

Home carers can’t use public transport.

Any night workers in hospitals, factories, supermarkets etc.

Office cleaners work either late or really early.

Evri couriers, some Amazon and parcel force ones are using private vehicles. Restaurant and takeaway deliveries too.

Plenty of people are scoffing at tradespeople not being well paid, but there are plenty of them doing things like repairing small domestic appliances - they still need to have tools and parts.

Private nurseries - you think the staff are getting off a bus at 7.25 just before it opens?

There is a lovely place to live near me it’s called Pratts Bottom. It has a popular primary school, pubs, garden centre….. some people would call it idyllic. It is also OFFICIALLY in Greater London and will be in the new ULEZ from the end of August. So what? “Use public transport”. It is served by bus after all…..
How convenient is this timetable? This is the bus to get to the station if you work in central London. This is the bus to the hospital. This is the bus to the supermarket. This is the bus to college. This is the bus to visit family. So VERY convenient. Who needs to use a car when there are SIX yes SIX buses every day!

Any comments @Winterday1991 ?

The charge is incredibly expensive and reduces people’s mobility. I can’t think why people are pissed off 🤔

Also do those buses actually run to timetable every day? We have a local bus service that constantly cancels buses due to lack of available drivers. It’s so dire the local residents group is constantly complaining their kids are late to school daily. Guess what other residents tell them to do instead?

You’ve guessed it. Drive them by car 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

It was interesting on recent thread (about whether 60k was a low wage) how "invisible" a lot of low paid workers are.

And another thread where posters couldn't believe anyone earned less than 30k in London. 🙄
A lot (although not all) of unsociable hours jobs are low paid, as you've described. Some tube terminals are within the ulez zones. It's feasible the tube or train driver and other station staff might need to drive themselves there or back to actually run the first or last tube of the day.

another example of an individual needing a car in London . A poster recently was asking where to live in London as her husband was a doctor and was required to be at one of 2 hospital within 30 minutes if he was on call. I imagine journey times would vary dramatically depending on time of day but I don't suppose if he was called at 3am, his first option is to wait for a night bus and hope it got him there, instead of simply driving!

This is only the beginning. Next we have the pay per mile.
It's going to be about the same charge as road tax they say. For the first year I bet it will be, after that the sky's the limit.

I stay off threads like that, they’re always full of people saying they’re not highly paid because they’re in London and their high wage doesn’t pay for what they think is a high wage lifestyle.

But they completely ignore that the lifestyle choice it’s paying for is living in London... a lot of the people on low wages can’t live in London, they can’t afford to, they travel in... and some of them have to do it by driving. Either because they need to drive to do the actual job or because where or when they work isn’t linked to where they can afford to live by public transport.

I think they should have:

-given more notice ahead of implementation, or at least started with a lower charge for outer boroughs that was less punative before ramping up.
-provided temporary exemptions for certain categories of vehicles which are particularly hard to replace (eg minibuses)
-had a more generous scrappage scheme
-allowed access to the scrappage scheme to people who live outside the London boundary but can prove regular essential travel into London (e.g. work, education, healthcare).

Yes, public transport may be fine if there is a good service where you live and if you work during normal hours. Many people don't, and often they have very low paid jobs so can't afford additional ULEZ charges.
I'm getting on a bit and always use pubic transport when I can, but since the strikes in Greater London the service still hasn't got back to being as regular or frequent as it used to be. I take my GC to school by public transport, but who can blame me from sometimes using my car if the display tells me that there is a long delay and I won't be able to get them there in time?
The same goes for the trains, recently we were going out to a celebration on Saturday afternoon and we found that all the trains on our line were cancelled without warning. We had to take a very convoluted journey by three buses which took us an hour and a half instead of the 25 minutes we were expecting.
This is in Greater London, just nine miles from the centre, not some far-flung suburb or country area.

Always remember that it was the Conservatives that made the mayor implement the ULEZ wirhout the resources to do it properly. Never forget that it is the Conservatives that put far more effort into wealth creation for their mates who own public transport than into creating a system that works.

And you and the poster you quoted are only talking about Co2 emissions, not Nox and PM2.5 etc which is what ULEZ is about.

it will simply be another way to control people by preventing them from travelling any further than they can walk, cycle or reach on public transport.

@MrsKnows Are you talking about the conspiracy theory of 15-minute cities where we will all be controlled like mindless worker bees to remain close to our nests?

I live somewhere like that. It's the original ULEZ area. It's not perfect but it's a joy being able to walk to the doctors, dentists, shops, restaurants, cinema, river and parks in less than 15 minutes. I can't imagine why people fear it. It's the unknown, probably.

Tomorrow I am going to a different cinema and that will involve a 30-minute bus ride. It should take 20 minutes but there is a tube strike and there will be more cars on the road. I might even walk - that will take 50 minutes, but it's a nice walk and will do me good.

After the film my friend, who will be travelling in by an un-strikebound rail line - will go for dinner. And then home. It will take her an hour, tops. I'll get the bus which at about 10.30pm should take 15 minutes. We are looking forward to it.

Soon, I have a hospital appointment with a consultant. Because of various strikes, BMA, ASLEF and RMT, it will be over Zoom. That will be okay for me. I'd normally take 30-minute door-to-door tube to a world class hospital. It won't be okay for other people but that cannot be laid at the door of ULEZ and Sadiq Khan or the Just Stop Oil people or LTNs though I'm sure people will try.

Maybe I am being controlled by a cabal of the shadowy international elite but it is working out okay for me so far so I'm content to exist in ignorance.

I can also take public transport, AKA planes, all over the world if I wish and can get to the airports on the train.

Much better than people from outside insisting they have the right to drive where I live and breathe.

So no one thinks of trades people, plumbers, electricians etc who need to drive their vans and are affected by this? I believe Lammy told them they should go on the Tube!

Not all trades people drive old bangers.

The same goes for the trains, recently we were going out to a celebration on Saturday afternoon and we found that all the trains on our line were cancelled without warning. We had to take a very convoluted journey by three buses which took us an hour and a half instead of the 25 minutes we were expecting.
This is in Greater London, just nine miles from the centre, not some far-flung suburb or country area.

@angela99999 My mum lived at the eastern end of the Central Line, so not actually in Greater London, but our plans to meet up at the weekend were often buggered by Planned Maintenance Works and Replacement Bus Services.

As neither of us drove, we were frustrated about one weekend every month. It just wasn't worth her coming to visit me in Central London.

But what can you do? It's not like they can shut down the elderly bits of the line in the eastern and western suburbs in the week when people need to get to work and on the whole my mum and I would prefer passengers not to be flung out of the train in a tragic derailment.

But this was never a surprise. Same with strikes.

The Central Line is brilliant now. I wish she could have lived to see it.

They don’t need to be, my DP’s 5 year old work van had to be replaced, he’s not self employed so not coming out of his pocket.

But it wasn’t that old and definitely not a banger 😂

@Winterday1991

I haven’t RTFT but the OP’s opening post has really hit a nerve with me.

I live just inside the ULEZ expansion zone, in a suburban area where I need a car for a wide variety of reasons. When the zone expands I will be charged £12.50 every day that I drive my car off our drive. This includes: going to the supermarket, driving my son to his three times a week karate training (no direct bus), hospital appointment, doctor’s appointments (I have chronic lung problem), driving OUT of the zone to work (30 mile journey not possible on public transport), driving out of the zone to visit family, driving out of the zone to go on holiday..etc etc, you get my drift.

I have a 13 year old diesel car, bought at the time when the government were persuading us to buy diesel. I fully intended to get another 5 years or so out of it. I cannot afford to buy a new car, and it would be wasteful when my current car works fine.

My lung condition probably isn’t bad enough to get an exemption, but even if it was there are masses of people in the same situation as us.

The whole expansion scheme is unfair without a scrappage scheme and basically operates as a tax on people who can’t afford to buy a newer car. It won’t stop me driving because I need to. So it is deeply flawed and as another PP said simply exports emissions and negative environmental impacts elsewhere. I cannot see the logic in forcing me to replace a perfectly useable car with either a newer fossil-fuel burning one or an electric car which it has been shown has a larger negative global environmental impact once you take into consideration manufacturing and mining. Just looking at emissions in your immediate vicinity is short sighted to say the least.