Ultra Low Emission Zones

[Mikenoangelo]

Worth reading this explanation of the ULEZ costs for entering Mr Kahn's hallowed precincts with your elderly modern or classic less than 40 years old.

Both our "moderns" woukd pay either £12.50 or £17.50 per day. So far this is confined to the London Zone but other cities intend to follow. There's an interesting observation on the CO2 emissions cost of computers or mobile phones - perhaps they should also be banned.

https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/news-articles/what-the-ultra-low-emissions-zone-means-for-londons-classic-car-owners/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=UKNews_Weekend&hashed_email=7c4edc93153a9ce9ea0bc8a66a2a0a268af9256c72cabe2acb3df78b1208a236

Mike

[fay66]

Worth reading this explanation of the ULEZ costs for entering Mr Kahn's hallowed precincts with your elderly modern or classic less than 40 years old.

Both our "moderns" woukd pay either £12.50 or £17.50 per day. So far this is confined to the London Zone but other cities intend to follow. There's an interesting observation on the CO2 emissions cost of computers or mobile phones - perhaps they should also be banned.

https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/news-articles/what-the-ultra-low-emissions-zone-means-for-londons-classic-car-owners/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=UKNews_Weekend&hashed_email=7c4edc93153a9ce9ea0bc8a66a2a0a268af9256c72cabe2acb3df78b1208a236

Mike

Effectively from October you will only be able to get as far as the North or South Circular before you fall foul of the new charges.
After my recent experience of going to the 96 club meeting in Belgravia,I shall avoid London like the plague, from the end of the M1 to Chesham Place it was 20mph all the way, except about the first mile.
Although a Sunday morning it was a very slow journey there, and even worse on the journey back, Hyde Park has only one 20mph lane from Hyde Park Corner to Marble Arch for motorised vehicles, the buses of course have their own lane, with which I have no argument, while Mr Khan's approved method of of transport, the bicycle had free range of its own large vehicle size lane.
With such money being spent fo their use isn't it about time they started paying extra to use the roads as everyone else has to do, that along with number plates, driving licences should go a long way to them carry their fair share of the costs, I say this as an ex cyclist, but retired.
My journey from Chesham Place to the start of the M1 took me longer than my 37 mile drive home.
Brian
8227 :

[frankxhv773t]

The flip side of charging road fund license to cyclists is that they would demand roads fit for purpose. My brother lives in London and was a life long cyclist till he gave up because he just couldn't keep a bike in one piece with the battering it took from the state of the roads. 

[lancialulu]

Its worth noting that our 40 or more year old Lancias will still get charged if they do not have historic tax status on their V5.

[fay66]

The flip side of charging road fund license to cyclists is that they would demand roads fit for purpose. My brother lives in London and was a life long cyclist till he gave up because he just couldn't keep a bike in one piece with the battering it took from the state of the roads. 

Motorists have been demanding fit roads for years while paying and it hasn't made much difference to them, cyclist at least in cities have certainly been getting better facilities, even if they choose not to use them.

[GerardJPC]

London is choked by cars and buses and lorries, so sadly fairly firm measures to reduce traffic are pretty much inevitable.   Many of us have lived through an interesting period in personal transportation devices, but we have to face the reality that the means we use to fuel our vehicles has to change, and it may be that access to personal transportation devices will be less easy in the future than it has been for the last century or so.

Classic cars will mostly be fine, I think.  There aren't many of them, they have very small eco impact (and in some ways are eco positive because keeping an old device running can be greener than scrapping it and building a new device).  Legacy technologies as minority interests will probably continue.  See for example canals, steam engines, and so on.   A small supply of fossil fuels will probably continue to be available for old cars once all modern cars are using non fossil fuel propulsion.  Maybe commercial use of canals and commercial sailing vessels will make a come back.   Perhaps there could be a reverse-Beeching.

We could have chosen to do something about the mess we were making several decades ago, but we preferred to carry on regardless, so now we are where we are, and really have very little time to do something about the problems we've been building for the last few centuries.

[peterbaker]

I think the discussion should revolve about younger, future classics. I suggest paying taxes per mile travelled. 

[lendickins]

My thoughts. The charging only starts when you cross a ULEZ boundary and trigger a camera. If you live in a charging zone and did not use your car for many days (whilst parked outside your house on the road) you would not be charged. You will not have triggered a camera and it is unlikely Herr Kahn will place a camera on every side road inside the zone. Similarly, if you drive inside the ULEZ Zone (but not in the Congestion Zone), not having triggered a zone camera because you live in the zone, how will you be charged?

[Richard Fridd]

I think the discussion should revolve about younger, future classics. I suggest paying taxes per mile travelled. 

     What is the logical objection against 'pay per mile' schemes I wonder?

[GerardJPC]

My thoughts. The charging only starts when you cross a ULEZ boundary and trigger a camera. If you live in a charging zone and did not use your car for many days (whilst parked outside your house on the road) you would not be charged. You will not have triggered a camera and it is unlikely Herr Kahn will place a camera on every side road inside the zone. Similarly, if you drive inside the ULEZ Zone (but not in the Congestion Zone), not having triggered a zone camera because you live in the zone, how will you be charged?

Charges that are based on driving are not payable if the car is parked and is not driven.  If a car drives within a zone, it might or might not pass a camera.  The Congestion Charge cameras are not placed only at the zone's entry/exit points - there are also cameras at various points within the zone, and I assume that the same may be the case with the ULEZ cameras. 

[DavidLaver]

From October we'll take the £12/day hit on our "every day car", but its used less than once a week now and we could push that to less than every other week with a bit of planning.

Traffic is WAY worse with COVID as folk don't want to use public transport.  "What took 15mins is now over an hour" is a common complaint. 

The "low traffic neighbourhoods" are hugely divisive, but as we walk a lot and are now cycling a lot as well we're fans, as we are of the billion quid of upgrades to routes across the capital.  Proper protected lanes, bridges, sequenced traffic lights etc etc etc, plus all the "quiet ways" that link "no through road" (to cars....) to another to another to another to a park to a bit of a river to "are we really here ALREADY!!!".

Anyone who says "I don't like the traffic" or "pot holes everywhere" just hasn't put the work in finding the route...they ARE there.  Anyone who doesn't like hills needs to look at electric and size it to "their hill".

Something else with routes - the rate of change is really fast at the moment.  "Don't like this with those road works" and two weeks later we realised it was putting kerbs in for the bike lane.

For a taster this isn't the prettiest route but gives a good idea of what london cycling looks like now.  He could have taken a route with more river and I've a sussed a route with more parks via some cut throughs.  Lots more on his channel.  He shows the "take the pedestrian crossing" method of getting over the big roads on other films, I don't think he needed it on that one.  Anywhere that feels uncomfortable just get off and walk that bit...and when home look on the map and google earth and find the quieter road that lines up with the zebra crossing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5gmLDOeSK8&t=6s

For those who haven't cycled in London in a while - as well as the obvious "boris bikes" there are a number of electric rental bike schemes, and Brompton have some lockers with bikes to rent at surprisingly little money compared to what they cost new.

[DavidLaver]

The hope is, in a year or so when all the dust has settled, Brian can drive in to the middle of London on traffic free roads.  It took a little while but it was remarkable the change in the west end / city bit of London.  Quieter, easier to cross the road, cleaner air...

...AND quicker to drive through in a classic, or paying for the privilege.

(PS - Something else to remember - this war on London motorists is to get a bit of breathing room for the rest of the country where there really isn't an alternative to the car.  Here we do have public transport, and for all London looks huge on the map the point to point distances are pretty modest to walk or cycle and the weather is mild.  Electric is expensive, but local authorities and big business can finance it and a great many private motorists in london can afford at least something slow with short range for the "day to day car" and rent something else for "the big trips").

(PPS - a common replacement for small vans are electric cargo bikes, am seeing more and more with larger and heavier loads.  Electric bikes are also so good now that the pizza moped is starting to be a thing of the past).

[fay66]

David,
So what about the elderly or the disabled that can't ride a bike, or perhaps have difficulty walking, or simply can't afford to buy electrical forms of transport?
Or simply those who don't earn large salaries?
Seems a great idea for the younger and fitter members  of the public.
Personally I think anyone who lives in Central London and uses a car must have masochistic tendencies
Brian .
Ps,
I'm not convinced that long term Electric cars aren't a costly blind alley, once hydrogen technology catches up the writing may be on the wall.

[DavidLaver]

Electric bikes are there for the unfit, and "bike paths" and "low traffic neighbourhoods" are used by mobility scooters and wheelchairs as well (and push chairs and kid carrier cargo bikes and weird tandems and giraffe bars).

It doesn't HAVE to be electric.  Its 2015 or something for diesels and 2005 for petrol.  Its tough on the diesel owners who didn't anticipate it...but there's a heap of choice out there for petrol.

The affordability question - and many feel sorry for us facing £12/day - but if we were on benefits there was something like a £2500 scrapage scheme, and we've had several years notice and one of the letters some years back made the point we had several years to save the £800 average cost of a 2005 compliant petrol car.

Traffic was getting worse and worse anyway, and covid is no help.  Lewisham looks like down town Dubai now the number of towers going up.

Those who NEED to drive will be grateful as the roads empty as I and others switch from "car most days" to walking and cycling.  It will take a while, but that switch IS happening, and having seen how remarkable and desirable that change has been in central london I'm now excited rather than dreading the change out to the north and south circulars.

Sara needed to be in the office today and I went along for the ride.  From Greenwich to Tower Bridge road I didn't put a foot down, and we made better time than she used to on the train. 

[Neil]

I am not sure how the tax exemption is applied my Fulvia is in the historic tax class, however if I run a check on the TfL site Mr Khan reckons I still have to pay!