This issue of my ire keeps coming up on this thread by people who disagree with ULEZ.
I don't have any ire towards drivers, or people who use private jets or helicopters or even rich young men in Knightsbridge who drive Lamborghinis - which was something a PP thought I should get angry about. It's Whataboutery and pointless - how many people drive Lamborghinis in the scheme of things? They're probably compliant anyway.
I want all people to cut down on unnecessary motorised journeys for the benefit of public health and making neighbourhoods more agreeable. That's whether the journeys are in a ULEZ-compliant vehicle or not. So that's my reason for supporting LTNs and other traffic calming measures such as 20mph speed limits in residential streets and around schools, hospitals and shopping areas where lots of people will be on foot.
Free public transport is an interesting idea. There is already a TFL Freedom Pass for over-60s in London boroughs. I think there might be a similar scheme for under-12s, but I don't have an under-12 so I don't know for sure. I'm actually still looking forward to my Freedom Pass.
Those are excellent ideas from the perspective of easing financial burdens on groups who are, on average, likely to be on lower incomes or have more pressures on their income such as families with dependent children. I know we can all think of pensioners who live in million pound+ houses and shop at Waitrose, but I'm talking about on the whole.
But giving free public transport to everyone would cost a lot of money. I'm not against it in principle but as you suggested it, so it's only fair to ask how you would pay for it?
So how would you? People get up in the air about the hole in TfL's finances already and accuse Sadiq Khan, rightly or wrongly, of using the ULEZ charges to plug the gap. I sense another £1 million legal challenge from the outer London boroughs and interested parties outside London over free public transport.
If we somehow could afford it out of national and local taxation, and people voted for it rather than political parties demonising it as a tax on the lives of ordinary hard working people, would you make people use it or penalise them for not using this fantastic resource that the rest of us are subsidising and selfishly causing unnecessary congestion and pollution?
I don't think it's a goer, but like I said, you suggested it...
There are already cycle schemes - lanes and hire bikes - available to those who want to use them, but haven't you noticed that they invoke fury from car drivers and people writing in newspapers about pore old car drivers. We're not even talking about "closing off chunks of the road network when the consequences are so dire and the benefits so narrowly concentrated" as you said. We're only asking all road users to share the space safely but lots of car drivers, though not all, don't want to do that.
I don't cycle because I would be a danger to myself and others. I walk, take public transport, including the occasional taxi and if I need a car I hire one. Of course it's not a crime to drive a car. I've never said so. People should drive one whenever they need to or sometimes just for the joy of setting off in a nice car to do whatever they want.
In the last 20 years I've hired a car in this country about three times a year to visit my mother-in-law. It takes about three hours in a car. We're being selfish there because it's do-able by public transport - fast train down there then a slow bus. it takes about five hours and we have done it, but a car is much easier.
She always took public transport when she visited us. Though she was a competent driver, she couldn't be bothered in London. Then her eyesight became too dangerous to drive - glaucoma - and she couldn't drive, not even pottering about locally. My mother-in-law, who died this year aged 96, was a sensible woman and didn't want to harm herself or others so she made that choice. She walked and used public transport in her properly rural area - it was a small town so had many amenities but travelling through the county was not particularly easy, so I do know about that.
She also had a long white stick with a roller ball on the end; God help anyone who got in the way of that white stick - she was a very assertive person of restricted sight as all people with disabilities should be against people who aren't looking where they are going or don't care who they inconvenience even though they would swear blind they do. She'd have used a wheelchair if necessary, as would my own mum who died aged 90. They were proud women but practical.
I wouldn't force anyone to walk or take the bus instead of their car if they didn't want to do that. But I do ask them to pay any additional charges and comply with road restrictions. Same as I don't expect to meet cyclists over the age of about 10 on the pavement.
I would prefer to use carrots, but sometimes you need sticks too.
I rarely get filled with ire, I do get frustrated though, especially with people who say: "It doesn't work for me; it doesn't work in all situations; look at that rich bastard over there; what about the little old lady?" Often they are using others as human shields for their own selfish behaviour.
One size never fits all but saying that means we'll never try anything new. We should do the things that benefit the most people while making reasonable adjustments after a bedding-in period and also expecting people to make reasonable compromises.