£35.50 to take a car into London 😲

[whatdoidonowffs]

Confirmed the Blackwall tunnel and the new Silvertown tunnel will become toll tunnels in 2025
£4 per crossing 😡😡 add that to the congestion and ULEZ charge hardly worth going to work !!

@HowardTJMoon I don't actually think that's true for the trains, I know that the Elizabeth line, Picadilly Line and Heathrow express all have their last train around 11.30pm/midnight and then don't start up again until around 5am. Gatwick Express is similar.

That being said, for the vast majority of flights, the train is clearly the best option. For very early or late flights, get a taxi - driving your own car and then parking at LHR/LGW even for a short trip is almost always going to be more expensive than taking a cab.

Actually I've just read a Zola novel set in the food market in the middle of Paris in the 19th century. They seem to have had a massive problem with large noisy carts delivering food to the market to feed the urban population of the day, and also for all the massive building works that were going on in those days with railways and the Haussmann rebuilding of the city - lots of discussion in the novel about how they all had to come in in the hours of darkness so they could be out of the city again before sunrise to avoid congestion and tolls.

Plus ca change, as Zola would (probably) have said...

Thameslink goes to Gatwick all night. My DD got there around 3am-ish just a few weeks ago.

I'll take your word about Heathrow. I know I've got there on the tube at stupid o'clock in the past but luckily I've not had to do that for a while. But coaches and night busses definitely run all night.

Funny that your post mentions a car but now you're driving an HGV.

The OP doesn’t mention a car anywhere.

That's ok if you live near a tham@eslink station. Not quite so easy if you live around romford or upminster for example.

@TimeandMotion it is literally in the title of the thread.

That doesn't make much sense, it depends how far you live from the airport! We've just paid £140 parking for two weeks a LGW in the 'holiday special'. It's £95 each way in a cab. Fight too early for PT

TBF, it was even worse in those days.

The sound of iron hooves and iron wheels on cobbles had lasting negative effects on the mental health and the hearing of 19th century urban inhabitants, and streets were covered in horse crap, horse pee and the occasional rotting dead horse (they tended to drop in harness, and were quite hard to tow away as a single corpse, so a common tactic was to leave them to putrefy, because as the tissues softened it became easier to hack bits of the corpse off and take them away to the knackers' yard to be boiled down).

They never show that in Austen adaptations, funnily enough!

OK, fair point, but OP doesn’t say “my car”.

What's your point?

You're talking about getting to Gatwick in the middle of the night, right? From Romford? OK, just drive. You're already starting inside the ULEZ so that's a wash either way plus, of course, the vast majority of cars in/around the ULEZ are already compliant. No-one would go from Romford to Gatwick via the CC zone so the CC cost is irrelevant. Similarly I can't see any reason to go through the Blackwall/Silvertown tunnels so the charges for that is also irrelevant but even if you chose to it'd be the shock! horror! off-peak rate of £1.50. The obvious route would be to go round the M25 and cross at the Dartford crossing which is, of course, entirely free in the middle of the night.

I really don't understand what you're complaining about.

I'm not complaining about anything. Merely pointing out there ISNT public transport everywhere in London during the night as a PP said. I don't live in Romford btw but it's the nearest but of London I know

I have lived in London for 24 years and have flown from Gatwick, Stanstead and Heathrow many many times. I have also got very early morning Eurostar trains from St Pancras more than I care to remember.

Not once have I ever driven.

Oh. Look at that - N15 night bus from Romford to Ludgate Circus, 3min walk to Blackfriars, Thameslink train to Gatwick. Runs all night.

Cabs. We have these things called cabs in London. Every local mini cab office worth its salt will do fixed price journeys to the major London airports.

Often more expensive than the flight lol. Just looked up an Uber from romford to Gatwick and it's £75. So £150 return. Bit steep if you bought a £60 return flight lol

These of use who live further out in Essex definitely can't get public transport easily.

🤷‍♀️ if you live in Essex why do you need to drive through London to get to Gatwick?

Or even use Gatwick at all?

Because flights go from Heathrow and Gatwick? Tell me where else I should catch them then? I'm talking long haul not a hop to Europe

And I'd rather be able to get public transport than drive tbh. Airport parking costs a small fortune

Not all flights leave at anti social hours indeed most don't.

It is perfectly possible to get public transport to Gatwick and Heathrow from many places, including Romford.

You do not need to drive through Central London to get to either Gatwick or Heathrow.

Stanstead Airport exists.

If you lived in Romford, why would you drive through Central London to get to Heathrow? Obviously bollocks.

Yes, the young gardener who does our communal areas (outer SW London) had to buy a newer van for all his kit, and his charges went up. Couldn’t honestly blame him.

My heart bleeds. From Romford you've got five international airports within 50 miles. You've got trains, busses, coaches, night-busses and taxis. You're three miles away from your nearest tube station. And you're complaining that if you need to get to Gatwick in the middle of the night you've only got three or four options to choose between.

Try living outside the M25, or even outside the south east, and see what your options are for getting to Gatwick then.

It's most as if most of the people complaining about the CC and ULEZ in London don't live in London or have very little knowledge of it.

What a surprise.

I am astounded how many people who aren't living in London begrudge efforts to give Londoners better quality air, just because it will occasionally cost them a few extra quid when they wish to get to an airport or have a day out.

This! It’s absolutely nuts.
How dare Londoners get better air quality than they currently have. What about all the poor people driving into central london to work in a shop and pay ULEZ and the CC charge every day?! 😂