Arse: according to Ken LIvingstone my car is so unGreen I'll have to pay £25 congestion charge

[TheDullWitch]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6146442.stm

It's only a blardy Volvo estate, not a 4X4 and actually I'm Mrs Public Transport and must have only driven it into the congestion zone 3 times since charges started.(And we re getting rid of it anyway in two months.)

But that ruling will just lead to lots of richer families buying a second, runabout car which doesn t have to pay the charge. Which is hardly Green. Whilst lots of poorer families will never be able to use the one big family car they need.

IorekByrnison-- actually she's NOT driving within the zone, except to get out of it to head to work. Yes, a discount, but if someone has got a band G car, she's penalized for the few minutes of driving to get out of the zone, where someone in Fulham or Earl's Court, Battersea, etc does not have to get rid of their car (or pay 125 pounds a week!!!)

Eleusis if Ken is letting in the Band A and B cars for free now no congestion charge (I read this somewhere) then emissions and traffic will be on the rise Am I the only one who realizes this? I hope not. Porsche is trying to stop the new law. Kensington & Chelsea borough too, I read.

Ken is a nut case.

they've already said it will go into public transport and look how its improved in the last few years and how cheap London fares are.

I don't have a problem with rubbish collection every 2 weeks. Why would people?

I actually wonder why the formula doesn't take into account the number of passengers a wehicle takes. For example, if a 7 seater pokes into band G, but the same family has two smaller cars that are below band G what they going to do? Well, they family will split up and they will drive two cars in instead of one. Is that helpful?

Because my rubbish stinks in two weeks.

Taxes are there for a reason. When I spent 2 years living in the US we paid as much tax as we do here, only in the US poor people starved, sick people didn't get free healthcare and elderly people didn't get free residential homes. The disabled didn't get free therapy or wheelchairs.
Hurray for taxes.
You keep saying its a 'revenue raising' exercise without any proof and making it sound like Ken is pocketing the money. It goes back into London. What else do you think the man does with it?

I didn't suggest Ken was pocketing it for personal use. I said it was revenue generating becaus what he takes in does not all go back to transportation which would solve the problem.

I most certainly never paid as many taxes in the states as I do here. In the states people generally believe in working for a living and not sponging off other who go to work for them. I had better health care there too.

How many topics shall we breeze through on this thread?

Taxes are there for a reason. When I spent 2 years living in the US we paid as much tax as we do here, only in the US poor people starved, sick people didn't get free healthcare and elderly people didn't get free residential homes. The disabled didn't get free therapy or wheelchairs.
Hurray for taxes.
You keep saying its a 'revenue raising' exercise without any proof and making it sound like Ken is pocketing the money. It goes back into London. What else do you think the man does with it?

So we all leave our cars at home and get on to an all ready overcrowded public transport system that is going to get worse when Ken lets pensioners use free transport passes before 9.30am.

Also my sister who works in london was saying her weekly pass has gone up by £40.00, this is at the same time that if your are on benefits you can get cheaper fares!!!!

I use the tube with my children after 9.30 and I use the bus 6 times a week but I love having my car as it is clean, not overcrowded and I can get a weeks shopping home without getting a bad back.

i dont crae
serve syou all right for living in lardnon init

I can't be arsed anymore. It seems drivers are too welded to their 4 wheel wheelchairs to even consider changing and bugger everyone else.
If I can be car free as a disabled person with 4 kids, one of whom is quadraplegic then anyone can. Most car owners are pathetic IMO.

Needmorecoffee-- where (in general) do you live? How far is your children's school?

p.s. I'm not pathetic and I hate 4 by 4s. I drive a small car.

I live in Bristol. One child is home edded, one goes to 2 schools, a SN one 7 miles away and a mainstream 1 mile away (I push her in her wheelchair to the mainstream). My eldest catches a bus into town to go to his school but we have cycled there many times (its 6 miles away).
Why?
Oh, and I cycle to the organic supermarket which is 4 miles away, the Children's Hozzie which we visit weekly we catch a bus to (6 miles) or we walk to the Children's clinic 2 and a half miles pushing dd's wheelchair.
I am aware that some people need cars. Like disabled people or those in villages with no bus services. But Londoners? IMO, not really.

I asked to get a sense of how pathetic I am in comparison (very, it turns out). In my defense, there is no tube stop anywere near my dc's school and there is no bus between us either. Yes, I could have picked a school within walking distance, however, but we are in temporary accomodation so that was also tricky. Anyway, you are amazing, and I'm being completely sincere in saying that. I can clearly do a lot better regarding transport/walking.

Agree NMC. Almost all car use in London is a luxury, and as collectively it has a serious negative impact, it is absolutely right that it should be costed as such.

I do plenty of complaining about public transport in London, but it's there and it works and will get you just about anywhere in Greater London. It may be more pleasant and convenient to travel in your own private vehicle from door to door, but it is rarely essential.

As I'm always explaining to my whining 2 year old: "you don't need it, you want it."

I think we all like a bit of luxury. I've just got back from town and rather embaressingly we drove. We got a motability car last week so we ca ramp dd's wheelchair onto it and I swore we would rarely use it. But its freezing cold, dd had a status epilepticus seizure last week and nearly died then was in hozzie with tonsillitis over the weekend (probably triggered the fit) and is still seriously poorly. So at 9.30 we went to catch the bus (town is about 6 miles) but I thought 'oh bugger it' cos while I rarely mind catching a bus there, waiting in the cold for the one bus an hour that is wheelchair accessible with a whiny sick child to get home, when you're exhausted is hard work.
So I drove and I am ashamed and embaressed and I wont be doing it again out of guilt.
If all 8 bus routes in this area were accessible rather than the once an hour 689 it wouldn't be an issue but First Bus (motto : First the Worst) are making no efforts to get their buses wheelchair accessible. You'd think that having 7 routes come through here they'd at least do one but nope. Bastards.
So I'm pathetic too and I've realised that just having a car sat outside makes one lazy. If we hadn'#t got it last week we'd of gone by bus and grumped a bit about the cold but we would have still gone.

Needmorecoffee - please don't feel guilty. Most of us wouldn't even consider that there was an alternative to using the car in those circumstances. You are an amazing example of what is possible.

Hope dd feels better soon.

Infuriating about the lack of access on the buses (that's one thing that has improved a lot in London lately).

I am amazed at how resilient you people are.

Our rubbish is collected every night. We drive on mostly single lane roads and yet don't pay any charge. We are not surrounded by cameras, neither for snooping on us, nor for zapping us when we go over the speed limit. Our equivalent of council taxes are a fraction of yours. Last time I was in London, a return ticket on the tube for Zone 1&2 was over 5 pounds! Here in France, a day ticket on the busses between Monaco and France is 1 euro (less than 1 pound).

Do you not see that you are being overcharged for a service that is not even adequate?

You're in France? I was amazed at how cheap, clean and comfortable the trains were getting across country. Put ours to shame.
Its the same in Germany. Clean and cheap trains with, get this, buggy parking and a children's play area!
Why can't we do the same here

I heard once that the UK trains are the most expensive in Europe. I'm sure if they were cheaper more people would get on them.

Could someone explain to me who owns what in the UK rails system. AS I understadn it the train companies (i.e. Southwest Trains) own the trains and are responsible for running them. Who owns the stations? What about the tracks? And why are UK trains so much more than other places? Are they subsidised in France?

I think there's a company that owns the track. Then train companies that run services and own some of the stations.
Very confusing trying to book a ticket now.

Is that railtrack?