Do you support the ULEZ expansion?

[icecream99]

Just curious as it is due to start at midnight tonight and could potentially cause a lot of chaos. I don't support it.

YANBU - I DON'T support ULEZ expansion

YABU - I DO support ULEZ expansion

@grass321 there was a blanket ban in the case of seatbelts and smoking indoors. Would you prefer that for Ulez? I don't care but accept this gives people time to adjust their habits.

Agree completely, plus clean air is one thing, but at what cost?

Really if someone is that desperate for clean air, move out of the city. You know when you live there air quality is worse.

Reality is it'll cost the economy, people won't go to certain shops because of the cost of driving, and they have less money to spend.

Plus it's forcing people to use an underground system that has massive levels of pollution.

Eh?

Would you prefer that for Ulez? I don't care but accept this gives people time to adjust their habits.

Yes. As a few of us have said on this thread, at least it would have the desired effect on emissions rather than being a money grab.

We're ending up with a lot of perfectly decent cars being scrapped (including mine) on supposed environmental grounds but without the benefit of much better air quality. Add in the Imperial study and the cost-benefit analysis of the current scheme looks rather questionable.

Exdonkeylover, and how do you think people without cars go shopping?

@grass321 you'd have to get rid of your car if you drove in Ulez. So what? My last car was registered in 1988, I got rid of it in 2006 more than 20 years before Ulez came in because it wasn't worth it.

It was a perfectly decent car but it was costing me too much money.

It wouldn't be Ulez-compliant now but I got rid of it a long time ago. If I bought a new one afterwards it would probably be compliant. But I didn't.

Cars in general are not 'perfectly decent'

don't be silly. Yes they can but I have decided on the whole that they are not so that's why I don't drive one.

Yes you make a good point

Is there capacity for all the extra people plus it's fine for them to be all squashed together with germs and pollution.

This is so not a good point on so many levels but I am going to watch the telly now and then go to bed.

People can't always choose where they live.

Spending half an hour twice a day on the Underground doesn't expose you to anything like as much pollution as spending most of your childhood next to the South Circular. Besides it's not forcing people to use the Underground, other options exist, including heavy rail, DLR, trams, buses and cycling.

I think that "it's forcing people to use an underground system that has massive levels of pollution" is the daftest argument I've seen in this thread, and that takes some doing.

Peak mumsnet.

I think that "it's forcing people to use an underground system that has massive levels of pollution" is the daftest argument I've seen in this thread, and that takes some doing.

The air quality on the tube isn't great in fairness. Tangential but the noise pollution (or whatever the correct phrase is) has become seriously unpleasant on parts of the underground.

Travelling east on the central line around Bank is probably the worst but the screeching seems to be a common feature on many lines. It's bad for passengers but must be awful for the drivers.

All those bleating about the "exemption" for those who can afford £12.50 a day and how wealthy people are exempt.

Well firstly not may very well off people have the kind of shit old bangers that are not compliant.

And secondly, I agree with you let's just ban non compliant cars altogether, no get out at all. Glad you are on board with that.

There is nothing environmental about scrapping perfectly good cars. Also how can the interior possibly be recycled, it just ends up in landfill.

Then forcing people to buy electric cars full of metals that are excavated in Africa using child labour and environmentally poisonous methods.

This is just a tax on the poorest.

If that creep khan cared about air quality he would improve it on the tube and not drive around in an entourage of range rovers!

And don’t get me started on chopping down trees to make cycle lanes!

If you all care about climate change so much why are you harassing the poorest and not campaigning to ban private jets? Biggin Hill is now in the Ulez zone. No tax on all the planes though!

Rukes for thee and not for me!

I agree. The carbon footprint and emissions, not to mention the human misery that it takes to make an electric car are probably far far worse than driving an older car for a few more years. But ulez has nothing to do with the environment. Genuinely amazes me that some people believe it is.

Who’s “forcing people to buy electric cars full of metals that are excavated in Africa using child labour and environmentally poisonous methods”

The poorest don’t have cars in the first place.

People who do have non-compliant cars can buy old petrol cars from the 2000s that will comply or diesels that are up to 6/7 years old.

Sadiq Khan’s Range Rover is because he gets death threats. It is said to comply which isn’t unlikely as all cars under 5/6 years old comply.

“The poorest don’t have cars”.
Hmm. Is that you Marie Antoinette?

I think the rights and wrongs of banning vs imposing charges on use is a complicated discussion. But I do think it’s noteworthy that ULEZ was originally a center-right idea. The idea was “Instead of imposing solutions by banning the wrong cars, let’s imitate the way markets work by making the wrong type of cars more expensive so that the private sector will be incentivized to come up with solutions.”

Now that it’s in place and has been imposed by a Labour mayor, right wingers have (mostly) decided they hate it. I really don’t know what the solution is; some people on the right just seem to have opposition defiance disorder these days. which is weird, as the Tories are not even in opposition yet!

Do you think people who can’t afford to eat or heat their homes are running a car?

Do you think people who can’t afford to eat or heat their homes are running a car?

In some cases, yes. My brother has been on a zero hours minimum wage contract for a good five years at a national retailer's warehouse in Yorkshire.

He drives a very old Honda Jazz as he can't get public transport for some of his night shifts and it's too far to cycle. He does a lot of the maintenance himself using secondhand parts. When he comes down to visit us, it's also a lot cheaper for him to drive than buy four train tickets.

Chessington - you do realise it's not just central London.

And before the public transport is entirely different in London argument starts, we live near a tube station and our last tube is around midnight and starts at 5.30. There's no night bus service anywhere near me.

Even the day buses are very limited, so if you want to go into London by tube, that's fine. But getting around by bus within the local area (and within the ULEZ) is pretty much impossible.

Again for the hard of understand the vast vast majority of car are ULEZ compliant. For those than arent there are grants to replace them. Grants funded by all London tax payers BTW - so us non car owners are paying for this - you're welcome!

For those than arent there are grants to replace them.

Not for those of us just outside the ULEZ. And frankly £2,000 doesn't go that far even if you are, given the hit to the second hand value of non compliant cars.