I don't see why taxpayers should foot the bill for this, when most Londoners cannot afford to ride in London taxis (and use buses, tube or minicabs/Uber instead).
It assumes these are "additional jobs" not substitute jobs. In reality the people employed would have probably been employed elsewhere if not for this plan.
And while only the very well off use taxis to travel regularly when they could use TfL, you'd be surprised at how many less well off people use them occasionally. Especially the elderly and disabled, due to the accessibility features of London taxis.
Nope. The maximum subsidy for a car is 4,500 per vehicle[0]. The article says they're offering 7,500 per car to taxi drivers.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/plug-in-car-van-grants/what-youll-get
On the other hand, the "capable" may be weasel wording. It seems that the taxi being discussed is a hybrid with quite a short range (70 miles?). It can be recharged at a point, but can also be recharged via its petrol engine, which may run for lengthy periods if there are no quick charging points available (not many at the moment in London).
Seems like a smallish step in the right direction.
Plug-in hybrids with a decent electric range are even better.
If a factory upstream is polluting and causing a village $200 of damage a year, and if it were possible to pay the factory $100 to reduce this pollution to a $50 impact, should the village not pay? They'll net $50 in benefit.
Devil's advocate argument of sorts, but one that focuses on the absolute.
Real-life is harder. What if some of the village are employed at the factory? What if the factory produces produces the village needs but costs far more elsewhere? What if the factory employs people from another nearby poor village and your village is a comparatively rich village?
Point is: Look for win-wins and an objective framework to work in, not for multiple parties anchoring around their single issue concerns, blinkered from the bigger picture.
Talking completely in general. Not verified figures in article either.
Pushing costs onto other people and then asking them to pay to mitigate them is extortion.
My comment was partly a negative reaction to yet another subsidy being paid to taxi drivers, who are already subsidised:
- Implicitly by having a monopoly on picking up from the street
- Implicitly by being able to drive in many bus lanes (there are no carpool lanes in the UK, so an empty taxi gets to use a lane that a family of 4 cannot)
- Explicitly through not having to pay the London congestion charge (~90MM GBP per year) even though they cause a disproportionate amount of congestion
These are only tangential to this issue, but I'd like to see the costs of London taxis internalized (i.e. paid for by taxi drivers) rather than put onto taxpayers or coming at the expense of other road users
The congestion charge would cost a regular driver ~4000GBP per year, and she can't drive in a bus lane. How much do London taxis pay in fees per year? About 200GBP, right?
What is this 'fortune' you talk about? I spent a few minutes searching online, and can't find any evidence of fees, other than an annual inspection and licence, which are low 3-digit numbers.
Everyone benefits from cleaner air.