London's Ultra Low Emission Zone to cover entire city
autocar.co.uk
autocar.co.uk
I drive a 2014 vehicle which is exempt from this regulation entirely and there is no daily charge. I bought it in 2017 knowing full well that this was going to happen. It's a modest 1.0L 3-cyl petrol. It's comfortable, cheap to run and has a decent safety rating.
The problem is really that people have got used to buying oversize, overpowered luxury vehicles when they really need to either not bother and use public transport or downsize to something with less of an environmental impact.
My neighbour has a 4.8L Porsche Cayenne. No one needs one of those on this planet and wanting one is no longer an excuse to own one.
I want a small car with an interior comparable with that of the S-class, does not exist. Closest thing is the 911, which is still quite wide and not all that comfortable.
If I want an "appropriate" sized car for London, I'll have to drive some shitbox.
Yes, building a small car with a large interior remains a challenge...
Maybe ask Dr Who for help.
But no, I was talking about the quality of the interior and not leg or head room.
The A-class was unfortunately built to be an economy car, slightly improving the interior materials doesn't solve that. You can't option it with fancier seats, suspension or insulation.
I'm just pointing out that the current vehicle market forces anyone seeking a comfortable, low-NVH car to get something quite large.
EDIT: HN ratelimits prevent me from replying below, so here you go:
> You can drive whatever car you like in London, but you'd have to pay both congestion charge and ULEZ charge
I know! I very happily pay these charges and want them to be vastly higher.
> Alternatively, you might need to be less fussy about what you call "comfortable"
No, why? I didn't work this much to be less fussy about comfort.
I just think it'd be nicer for everyone if there were cars on the market that filled my needs without wasting absurd amounts of space on a rear seat that gets used a couple of times a year.
Regulators should address this by imposing taxes on vehicle size.
>The whole point of dealing with climate change and pollution is that we all have to make some compromises...
I detest frivolous use of fossil-fuel private jets and all flights of them should absolutely be taxed to the roof and the funds used for climate mitigation.
However, if you’re a bigshot person who can have outsized influence (like POTUS or some billionaire or something) then by all means attend the relevant conferences and make an impact.
If your beef is that the conferences are not effective then that’s something we can discuss, but don’t distract by talking about the way people arrive, unless it’s to propose some kind of carbon/pollution tax in which case I wholeheartedly agree.
>I always dislike this line of argument, it feels unproductive.
Real work, hard work and sensitive work does not happen over zoom, but face to face.
I also got to try the bizarre Aston Martin Cygnet, just a Toyota with fairly little lipstick on it.
Any petrol car that is compliant with Euro 4 and any diesel car that is compliant with Euro 6 is ULEZ compliant.
The big impact would be on diesel vehicles since due to the NOx emissions cap they need Euro 6 which isn’t only stricter but newer so older diesel cars aren’t compliant whilst pretty much every petrol car from 2007 or so would be.
So tradesmen vans and other work vehicles would likely to be severely impacted by this which will increase the prices to the end consumer since they’ll just roll over the daily ULEZ charge.
Your plumber isn’t going to buy a new van especially since the enlargement of ULEZ is going to crash its value they will however pass the ~£20 charge onto you the next time you call them like they already do with the inner London ULEZ.
I don't mind costs being passed down. My plumber has an electric van and his rates are far more reasonable than most in the area. Delivery vehicles in this part of London are moving over to electric as well.
So then he's sparingly using the inefficient vehicle in a way that he enjoys? Seems legit.
I mean, one could always demand that others do marginally more efficient things at the expense of their marginal happiness. But there's no limiting principle. The logical conclusion of this particular line of thinking is that we all must ride electric scooters with studded tires in the dead of winter.
(I looked into buying a car when I lived in Manhattan for particular sorts of trips. This was after using a car share for a couple of years. Then the pandemic happened and I really wished that I had a car. Point being: the densest public transit in America and car sharing currently does not do away with the compelling convenience of private vehicles).
It would really be helpful to have a second car for those rare occasions, and I can get a second hand Micra with 12 months MOT for under £1k. I'd drive it about 400 miles a year, which would use say 60 litres of petrol a year and cause about 90 tons of CO2, costing about £30 in petrol tax for the pollution it causes. Fair enough.
However I'd have to pay vehicle excise duty of £180 a year, meaning the actual tax per mile is about 50p/mile rather than 8p/mile.
But this is where it gets bad. If I ignore the sunk cost of the car and the VED, the per-mile cost becomes lower than the bus, thus it is far more sensible to drive than take the bus.
In my opinion VED should be rolled into petrol pricing, or just road mileage pricing -- take an odometer reading at the MOT and charge 5p/mile, 10p/mile, 50p/mile, whatever. It's crazy that the tax per mile is an order of magnitude higher for a car used once a week to go 5 miles than a car driven 100 miles a day.
It sounds like he drives significantly less than the average family of 4. Isn't he therefore consuming less than them, in a 20 year old Kia Carnival?
Perhaps that will help?
I can't comment in any more detail as I don't know how much engineering work is required for these types of changes.
What is really occurring is geofencing. In Oxford, you will not be able to travel from one zone to another... Its just a trial... right?
I'm the name of saving the world you are cheering on constraints on movement - we are moving into a virtual existence where the physical becomes an open prison.
Of course, China continue to open coal power stations etc, while in the west we kill our old yet functional power stations and increase the electricity butted we need. The West is committing hari kari. And call it 'good'! Its insanity.
How anyone can cheers these anti-human changes on, and even ask for more, beggars belief. You must be coding the dystopia, work in government, or some such, I think.
I'm cheering this on because they are constraining the future. This is putting pressure on society to adapt slowly and not pushing it out until we fall off a cliff (war). Electric cars are merely another crutch to carry on our bad behaviour as a species. Especially luxury ones.
We need to start reshaping society around less transport. The fossil fuel glut and geopolitical situation around where we get it from is already causing us serious problems and this will only get worse. We need to drive efficiency and renewable energy and energy self sufficiency first.
You state this as fact, without even checking with them what the problems are or how they know they’re there.
Perhaps check if you are yourself consuming distorted information from self-serving outlets?
That’s without even starting to calculate the cost of climate change.
You fundamentally misunderstand the issue at hand. This is about reducing local emissions, which you achieve by taking these measures. How a car is manufactured or the energy required to manufacture it is of no concern here, unless the plant would be in London of course.
If like me you don't own a car, you already live in a de facto "geofenced" world. I physically cannot get from my city to the city next door by bicycle in a reasonably fast and safe manner, even though they are less than 10 miles apart. Why? Because the roads aren't safe enough. What should be a pleasant 40 minute journey through the lovely British countryside, is instead a nasty 2 hour trudge through zigzagging housing estate streets and terrifying close passes with lorries on A-roads. Or I could take the train, but it only comes once an hour and there are still annoying trips to and from the stations.
Even within my city there are zones where one has to make a 3-4 mile detour on a bike to get between places that are less than a kilometre apart, because the direct path is a 50mph motorway and there are literally no bike paths or canal towpaths or even pedestrian paths to get directly from one to the other. This wasn't done on purpose, just sheer carelessness and car-centric myopia. But that doesn't make it any less infuriating, that I pay for these roads with my taxes yet am unable to use them.
Why don't I deserve to have my journey be reasonably direct and safe, just because I don't have a car?
And then there are the people who want to ban escooters and rip out bike lanes and so on -- I bet you think that's just common sense and not the cruel assault on liberty and mobility that it really is.
For my part I welcome the ULEZ and things like it. Every car taken off the road is a car that can't smash into me.
remindme 5 years, lol.
The way you choose to live btw - everywhere by bike, public transport, uber, or wherever - is the biggest part of the trick. You believe you are choosing to go along with the provided plan; quite wise really.
If you love cycling, great. Your grannie or child might not. So people in just the next town, are, as you say, now out of bounds to you. And you are happy about it.
You already have less freedom of movement than your parents did, and are happy about it. The plans are quite detailed about all the other things you will get a chance to be happy about. Online everything, micromanagements of resources.
As long as you are able to maintain a rosey outlook about it all, you're free, right? Just don't choose outside of the (shrinking) menu, and you'll be fine.
So really, everyone can use nice transport and rent the occasional car, the only thing that’s not sustainable is for the majority of people in a city to drive a car for the majority or sometimes all of their trips.
Checking my local council's upcoming plans for bike lanes and public transport regeneration, I'm pretty confident it will be "more". They're a sluggish lot, our council, but they'll eventually get round to doing the right thing.
>If you love cycling, great. Your grannie or child might not
I find it absolutely hilarious that of all the examples you could use, you say "grannie or child". Tell me, which two demographics are statistically the least able to drive anywhere? That's right, the very old and the very young. The very old, because of physical and visual impairments that make them unfit to drive (and often, but not always, unfit to cycle). And the very young, who are unable to drive either because it's illegal (<18s) or because they have no money (students and underemployed school leavers).
For your information, neither of my grandmothers can drive. And I'd prefer if you didn't just assume that I only cycle because it's an eccentric hobby (I actually do it for health and economic reasons, not for fun).
>So people in just the next town, are, as you say, now out of bounds to you. And you are happy about it.
I'm not at all happy about it, I believe I used the word "infuriating". It is insane that two cities, both >150,000 people and less than a stones throw from each other, have no safe cycling link. But, at least there are plans to build one, soon(tm).
> The plans are quite detailed about all the other things you will get a chance to be happy about. Online everything, micromanagements of resources.
My eyes are about to roll out of their sockets. I'll take the safe bike lanes and breathable air, thanks.
But not everyone is one. Not everyone wants to be forced to cycle, even if others think its good for them.
Cycling is not driven by what people want - around my way bike lanes are basically empty, while traffic is congested. I do cycle by the way. I just don't like being forced to.
The same councils that once built roads are now paying to get rid of them. Give it 50 years and they'll be putting them back again. Hard graft, that is.
Glad your council is acting so sagely, according to your view. It isn't acting sagely according to mine. But, just as long as you love how you're being governed, that's great, isn't it?
>Cycling is not driven by what people want - around my way bike lanes are basically empty, while traffic is congested. I do cycle by the way. I just don't like being forced to.
I hear this all the time, it's bullshit. This has been studied, when you build proper bike lanes and related infrastructure it increases the amount people cycle. When people are polled, a huge percentage of people say they would like to cycle more but are worried about safety. So they're either building shit bike lanes where you live or you're just inattentive or lying.
(And occasionally I bike down certain roads and there isn't a car in sight. What entitled motorists, we build these lovely roads for them and they don't get used, grumble grumble)
These sorts of things (bike lanes, LTNs, ULEZ, etc) are actually quite popular. This is 100% clear from how people actually vote in council elections. It's really just a loud minority of affluent Clarksonoid motorists that get up in arms about it. Local governments are steadily realizing they can just call your bluff and win.
They are also not a network, just some roads have a part painted for cycling. Or parked on, which is the usual scenario.
As far as I am aware, it is illegal in the UK to drive on the pavement.
Prevent that and you cut vehicle ownership in towns and cities dramatically, thus reducing congestion and pollution
Although people can park in bike lanes without parking on the pavement when sections of existing roads is marked as bikes, we should ban parking on all these features, set the fine high and enforce it to clear all the illegal parking.
Is there any talking with you?
> But then what about all the places where literally the only way to get to them is by car?
Right. Councils, governments have designed the transport system around cars. They did this, spending our money to do so.
Now they are spending more money (on things you like) and you are happy. But the new system can't possibly work. Most people won't cycle to places. Is it wrong to expect the 'social contract' we were promised to remain intact? Shouldn't we agree to change? Isn't that how things are meant to work?
Is it ok, for the governance structure to tear the status quo up, and partially implement a new system, at our expense, and with a loss of service? Did you ever get an opportunity to vote on this? No. The reason is that these are all sustainable development plans from the UN. Councils write their implementations based on the UN templates. This is why it is the same story everywhere.
Plainly you are from the 'government is there to help' school of thought - the case for global cooling, no warming, no change, has been made to you, and you are convinced something must be done (despite the lack of any personally verifiable evidence).
But you can surely see this is authoritarian? No one has chosen this. The governance structure provides all the information and the solutions - judge, jury and executioner. Surely you can see that in aggregate we lose freedom of movement and money - as someone else said above - we are constrained. (They were happy about the constraint - they want to be constrained! It's insanity.)
Even if you as a cyclist gain more cycle lanes.. Isn't the point of life to live freely, as you like - is government there to lightly imprison us or help us achieve more freedom? All of us?
I think it is clear which direction we are moving in. And it amazes me that well-meaning people are cheering and demanding other people's losses. All this on the basis of information that cannot be personally verified, even if there appears to be consensus.
You do realise that the very worst of us want to govern us? That they want power to force us? They have education, media, nudge units, etc all sorts of tricks and narratives to engineer our consent, regardless of reason, if it furthers their agendas.
Anyway, I'm blathering - all the best.
here's an idea: why don't you actually go to your local council meetings and find out how your city is actually run. there's a lot of graft and incompetence and pandering, but I assure you the UN depopulation plans are nowhere to be found.
"Drivers of cars made before 2006 must pre-pay a £12.50 fee online if they drive past this point, or an £80 fine if they forget to go online and pay"
Imagine that on a roadsign... That would kinda make sense...
But the actual roadsigns look like this:. https://media2.zipcar.com/drupal-presales/files/inline-image...
As a driver, will you understand what you have to do if you drive past that sign without lots of local knowledge?
Eg. "No left turn on school days, except permit holders, except for access".
Whose school days? What kind of permit? Where do I have to be going for it to count as "access"? Do I need documentary evidence of the access, for example a receipt from a shop down that road? Left turns may not be allowed, but are u-turns allowed? How about driving 50m past, u-turning, then turning right?
Am I allowed to stop the car to look up the school dates on my phone? Or would I then be stopping in a no stopping zone?
Driving anywhere unfamiliar around London as a non-taxi-driver seems fraught with fines despite a driver's honest best efforts to stick to the rules.
There are sometimes signs which only apply at school times, they say things like "School 20 when lights show" - I think I've seen them in Scotland
Surely a vehicle like mine is the one that should be taxed!
I guess that's the whole point, to discourage car usage. On the other hand, as someone who doesn't own a car on purpose, to have the city where I live in being constantely polluted and invaded by so many cars has caused me great health and stress issues.
The idea that my children are risking illnesses because we are forced to breathe such toxic air from motorists makes me feels impotent and I wish it was just a matter of cognitive load for me, but instead I'm always worried about my kids' health and I realize they are growing up in spaces designed for Cars and not for people.
It almost feels like a dystopia to me, as kids all over the world are getting preventable illnesses thanks to car pollution and we live in concrete hellscapes.
I've been parking outside the zone and undergrounding it in for a long time, it's just now able to be further out than Hammersmith. I love it.
The actual criteria would not be useful on a sign. It's not "made before 2006". It's "ULEZ compliant", or "Euro 4 (NOx)". https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/car...
And you can just check your vehicle by license plate: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/check-your-vehicle/
> or an £80 fine if they forget to go online and pay"
"Actually £160 but it's £80 if you pay within 14 days"
The sign will end up like the one in futurama: https://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldanarchists/comments/64pam...
The government of London attempted to subsidise public transport in the 1980s, but that was considered illegal after the council of the London Borough of Bromley argued that a public transit tax would be unfair since the Tube doesn't reach that far. I could see a similar challenge happening today.
The scrappage ("upgrade") scheme applies to non compliant cars and vans, with a focus on low incomes, charity and small businesses, it starts in January and feels reasonably generous: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/scrappage-schemes
The scheme pays more if you replace an ICE with an EV or take a public transport pass which further supports the goal of improving London's air. As a London resident, parent and driver I'm strongly supportive of improving our air.
In Hackney, for example, which is already in the zone and has been for at least a few years, >70% of households do not have a car.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63754724
"Some 60% of those who responded to the public consultation into the expansion plans were opposed to it, with 70% of residents in Outer London against the idea, and 80% of workers in Outer London opposed."
The consultation was on the ULEZ expansion only. Without more context justifying the dismissal of the consultation, this is clearly an undemocratic move.
Elections are how we decide how to run the city. Khan said he was going to extend it, he won handsomely, and now he's extending it. I don't know how you can call that "extraordinarily undemocratic" unless you have an agenda.
Please assume good faith - I could obviously have made the same accusation to you. Given you've thrown the first stone though I think you should consider your own possible biases.
For mine: I support extending the ULEZ but not when it is done in such an arrogant, undemocratic way.
My bias is for reducing pollution but against the undermining of the voices of people involved in local decisions - especially when, as here, they are explicitly asked.
My questioning of the decision therefore seems consistent with the context and free of "agenda"; your response rather less so.
Dartford crossing, London - forgot to pay
Heathrow drop off - forgot to pay
ULEZ Old Street - forgot to pay
Mersey Gateway bridge, Liverpool - forgot to pay
It seems like a deliberate design pattern to make revenue.
I can't exactly login and pay whilst driving.
That's kinda the point: disincentives, that will make people think twice about how they choose to live.
Over time, changes like these will make people reconsider, and perhaps not move to places without public transit or where schools are far away. Or municipalities will have to change, offer these things or people will abandon them. Either way, it slowly fixes things.
Simple, large popular movements demanding it in the 70s. Before that their transportation was as car-centered as it is today in the US.
Adding a new train line cost $2bn over budget and about 5 years longer than planned.
I walked a mile to school in outer London in the 90s and it was absolutely fine.
In Bromley (which is also getting the ULEZ extension) the buses go pretty far into the sticks.
Places like Keston, Downe and Biggin Hill have good TFL bus access while being basically rural villages. Seriously, look up Downe on a map. It's in the middle of nowhere.
But I agree, it'd be nice if the charge was 100GBP per day and I was the only person on the roads.
I doubt that public health costs of a single vehicle used for a single day add up to anywhere near that much - perhaps only 1% or less of that.
You'll save lots of money, have an healthier and more active lifestyle, plus there are plenty of cheap last-mile vehicles available to supplement lacking public transportation.
What does this money go towards in terms of offsetting the environmental damage done by these cars? How would people feel if the money paid into these schemes went towards money off newer, more environmentally friendly cars?
I believe there was a government scheme for this, but I think it ended earlier this year.
Given our world population, there is no sustainable future where people can privately own cars, period. The sooner we accept it and we start working on alternatives, the Better.
On a more general note, for every strong political action (which this one is) there usually is a reaction just as strong, if not more. I wonder what the reaction to stuff like this will be. A Boris 2.0? An exodus out of London? (where to? there’s where the jobs are). More petty crime?
Even if I could afford to buy the 2022 model year of my car, it would still be quite a significant expense and I honestly doubt it would be better for the environment, since I don't drive every day.
The idea that cycling is only for 20-year olds or that you have to be "very fit" is ridiculous.
Another thing that quickly disproves this idea that cycling is only for young people...
It has little to do with age - and more to do with viability.
If you live an American lifestyle, and you live 5+ miles from a grocery store - cycling is not a great option.
If you live in a city like Chicago or New York or... Amsterdam - there's really no reason it can't be viable - except in the US case a lot of places that could be cycling utopias are severely lacking infrastructure.
In Netherlands, commute rates drop to their lowest for people in late 20s and early 30s because this is usually when they have jobs / living situations that require commutes too far for a bike - though how much of this is due to choice vs lack of adequate housing in cities (global problem) is unclear.
60s are not "old" in Netherlands. At 60, people aren't old and frail - they're not much different from people in mid to late 40s.
The average person doesn't start to get frail until late 70s - and at this point - you probably shouldn't be driving either...
The air in London is terrible despite being one green city. Wouldn't be better if Londoners kick out the actual elite who own all the housing and extract passive income from the working people? Many of the people that Londoners pay for the privilege of having a roof are corrupt people from all over the globe ripping of their citizens and buying properties in London.
Something tells me these people not only drive "compliant" (= new) cars, but on the odd chance they didn't, they probably wouldn't even notice the £12.5 tax.
So if the people who cannot afford a new or the fees, can start looking for an actual fix of the problems. Or they can blame computer elites I guess but I hope not.
However, in practice, the housing problems as well as alternatives to it, like public transport, are very much "political issues" in that they require politicians to do something.
Which is an issue because there's a clear imbalance in political power between "the poor" and "the rich". The former absolutely "demand" better housing and public transport, at least in my neck of the woods, but there's hardly any actual progress.
I don't buy that. The UK is a proper democracy and everyone has about the same political power - which is a single vote. Sure, the rich can influence how those choose to vote but its not an absolute power at all. Mislabelling IT workers as elites and demanding clunkers when you can't find a house with reasonable transport options are not unfixable.
The reaction will be that motorists will drive petrol vehicles registered after 1 January 2006 or diesel vehicles registered after 1 January 2016 or EVs. These vehicles don't incur a ULEZ charge.
This will be passed through to householders in the form of higher prices and fewer tradesmen available to work when needed - on fact this is already a problem in London and will contribute further to rent inflation. It's crazy in my view to do this without a scheme to support replacement of older vehicles which would enable people to switch to newer less polluting vehicles in a much more cost neutral way.
Those higher costs will hit those least able to afford them most so I agree it is regressive.
I'm sure they can manage.
So it will likely end up being passed through, which means it has an inflationary impact of 4-5% on day rates (which are going up already due to broader inflation), which in turn squeezes customers (especially households) further. It's poor timing for such a policy when inflation is already squeezing households significantly.
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/van...
Good news - FTA:
> A £110 million scrappage scheme has also been announced, to allow those living within the expanded ULEZ to get money towards a compliant car. Van owners will be allowed to use the cash to retrofit their vehicles to make them compliant.
This measure:
- Only applies to petrol vehicles over 17 years old and diesel vehicles over 7 years old
- Offers scrappage grants for those on low incomes or with disabilities
- Is generally not considered to be a “strong political action” and has reasonably broad support as par as polling can tell.
So, in other words, this seems like a reasonably proportionate effort to reduce local air pollution and there is not massive opposition.