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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

A very regressive thing to do, but it’s par for the course for the new liberal elites. The laptop class will swallow it unconditionally, after all what’s wrong with taking a bike or public transport to work? As for the workplaces which do not have decent public transportation nearby and to which it will be physical hell to commute to by bike for many non-20 something very fit people, well, those people should have learned to code when they had the chance.

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?

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17% of 60+ year olds commute by bike in Netherlands: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/dutch-cycling-...

The idea that cycling is only for 20-year olds or that you have to be "very fit" is ridiculous.

What about the other 83%. How do they manage? I agree that superfluous use of ICE vehicles should be strongly discouraged, but people still a viable alternative appropriate for all ages and physical fitness.

Cycling rates actually increase as people get older in Netherlands: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bicycling-share-of-trips...

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...

So instead of demanding fixing housing so that people can afford living close to their workplace we should simply roll and keep driving long distances and that must be subsidised? How is that this is the stuff that the "computer elites" don't understand? How are workers the elites anyway? Just because they demand cleaner air?

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.

> 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.

The idea is that the workaround against the housing problems should not be the usage of clunkers.

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.

I agree.

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.

>there's a clear imbalance in political power between "the poor" and "the rich"

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.

How do you "fix housing"?

Build lots of homes near transit, jobs, schools, and amenities.

Your comment completely disregards the existence of low-emission and EV vehicles. The article mentions that petrol cars registered after 2006 won't need to pay the emissions charge. That's cars that are 16! years old.

Don't forget that there was a big campaign to get people on diesel cars. Turns out the "science" was wrong again and now diesel cars registered before 2016 are not compliant.

Those vehicles were implicit in the “laptop class” expression that I used, they’re some of the few who can afford them.

> I wonder what the reaction to stuff like this will be.

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.

Good effort managing to slip in some “liberal elites!!!!” catastrophising.

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.

The main people who will be impacted by this are tradesmen. You can't take a van full of tools and materials and a ladder on public transport or a bike.

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.

It's £12.50 per day.

I'm sure they can manage.

Typical tradesman rates are 250-300/day. So if they can't pass it through, it's a 4-5% pay cut. If you can accept work outside London without that pay cut, why would you continue to work in London?

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.

Any diesel van that is Euro 6 compliant won’t need to pay this, which covers any van made since late 2016. Petrol vans made since 2006 are all compliant with the ULEZ and don’t need to pay either. It’s only older, more polluting, vans that will need to pay it

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/van...

Humans hugely undervalue their time. £12.50 per day is a bargain for a tradesperson if it means they can do more work because they’re spending less time idling in traffic jams.

Modern vehicles which in my experience most tradespeople drive aren't affected either.

Fwiw I've seen plenty of tradesmen on cargo bikes in my city lately. Also makes it easier to get their tools in, can park right outside the door instead of wasting 15 minutes looking for parking for every customer. Not all tradesmen need a full car of tools for every project.

> It's crazy in my view to do this without a scheme to support replacement of older vehicles

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.

Owning a car made after 2006 isn't some massive ask, you'll probably find people driving such cars to use public transport far more often anyway.

It depends. My car was manufactured in 2005. It still works perfectly well, and for how I use it (mostly in the country, but I live in the city), it actually gets better mileage than my dad's 2021 Toyota hybrid.

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 average age of a car reached a record 8.4 years. You'd have have a car nearly twice the age of the average car to be affected by this.

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