Bye Bye Rachel Reeves

[GG.]

And all these schemes have resulted in a massive drop in air pollution which also results in less illness and better health. It’s not like an indiscriminate tax, it’s actually having a massive benefit for everyone who lives in London.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-lo ... 584488.amp

CC made no difference. ULEZ has and has more intellectual coherence to it than the CC which still bites if you're driving around in an EV.

The drop you're talking about it most noticeable right in the centre so again, the justification for the expansion is shakier.

All of the money raised should however be re-directed into making the bus fleet fully EV or hydrogen. They are still a long way off that and ignore that TfL is a part of the pollution they're looking to prevent and strangling traffic with cycle lanes must negate the benefit of moving people from cars and buses onto bikes.

[Jobbo]

CC did make a difference - it reduced traffic enough that I was able to drive into London for work.

[Rich B]

And all these schemes have resulted in a massive drop in air pollution which also results in less illness and better health. It’s not like an indiscriminate tax, it’s actually having a massive benefit for everyone who lives in London.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-lo ... 584488.amp

until they go down and use the tube!

Pollution is only bad when the public create it.

Exactly, and it’s only bad when poor people create it. It’s fine for rich people - they just pay a comparatively tiny sum of money and they can happily create as much of it as they like, wherever they like.

[Gavster]

And all these schemes have resulted in a massive drop in air pollution which also results in less illness and better health. It’s not like an indiscriminate tax, it’s actually having a massive benefit for everyone who lives in London.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-lo ... 584488.amp

until they go down and use the tube!

I'm proudly on the Elizabeth Line which has the cleanest underground air of any line in London. Although it's not techincally the Underground, it is underground

Pollution is only bad when the public create it.

Machines create pollution, when the public use them. Therefore using those machines less, or more efficiently, or using less polluting versions is a win. It's not complicated and fewer people get asthma and heart disease.

[jamcg]

Not central government but Labour nonetheless - TfL just announcing the central London congestion charge will now increase from 15 to 18 pounds a day. That's starting to get penal rather than the level of a "charge".

That was shared last week. It’s a pretty clear statement, along with the ULEZ: We don’t want cars and polluters in London unless they are rich enough to give us money - then it’s fair enough.

Same energy

[Mito Man]

Yep. TFL don’t give 2 shits about pollution but it’s a nice excuse to raise money. If they cared they would lead by example, only maybe 2 years that EV buses are being widely adopted now. The money they raise from the charges isn’t ring fenced for green projects, it just disappears into the inefficient mismanaged debt laden machine. They try to pretend it is being used to decarbonise public transport but that is just a natural progression as old buses reach end of service the replacements are EVs which you’d think they would be regardless as it’s 2025 ffs.
The charges are now so necessary they cannot afford to be without them which in some ways is comforting as London can now never be free from private car ownership but it’s at the cost of further dividing the haves from the have nots.

[Gavster]

It's the polluter pays principle which underpins a lot of pollution and climate change mitigation strategies, bceause it's effective, it works.

Also I feel the TfL buses criticism is unfair. The fleet of Boris buses are being withdrawn from service early, after barely a decade of use, specifically to upgrade to a zero-emissions fleet. They were originally ordered in 2009 when EV technology was a shadow of what it is today. They are leading by example by culling the fleet early, and that's brought additional costs to TfL to do that, because London buses should last a lot longer than 13 years.

[Mito Man]

It isn’t that simple, they had a pretty short lifespan, like 14 years and that’s including a major refurbishment. Covid happened and they never bothered with much of the fleet, and being horrifically unreliable hybrid tech with knackered batteries it wasn’t even economically viable to repair them. So they just bin them off as they die. Less culling the fleet early and more culling by necessity. And hence their timeframe to electrify all buses over the next 10 years because that’s when the last of the diesel busses will naturally be at the end of life.

[GG.]

It's the polluter pays principle which underpins a lot of pollution and climate change mitigation strategies, bceause it's effective, it works.

The thing is its a glib and superficial idea (as most of these things are). The polluter pays in some circumstances and in others those costs are just passed straight on back to everyone else. A good example was the knackered pre-ULEZ flatbed transit that was belching out diesel fumes that I walked past yesterday. Yes, in theory it pays ULEZ but we know that the builder has effectively just charged it back to their client. Same with the Uber central London surcharge which passes costs back to the rider (even for EVs) and electricity green levies, etc. etc. etc.