ULEZ Letter

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Don't be silly. Ken Livingstone tried to introduce 10p tube fares, got taken to court by a Tory Council and won with some of the most political court judgements in history (ruling that the GLC's legal powers to subsidise fares out of the rates had to be exercised reasonably - i.e. not in accordance with the manifesto the people had voted for), and Thatcher then changed the law so no fares (tube in London or bus anywhere) could be subsidised from the rates.

(The Tory Council - Bromley - argued that they would be paying for a subsidised tube service that didn't touch their borough. That was after the Tory government blocked the GLC from subsidising British Rail fares, including to Bromley. Remember - THIS IS THE TORY WAY to deal with local government. Bricks without straw.)

Yes, but as they are Tories I don't suppose any of that is unexpected really.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

If he had the balls to make it a £50 a day ulez charge, but also make tfl free to use I might start to believe this was about air quality.

Have you ever considered running as a liberal democrat candidate?

 

[hampshireblue]

Paying £5 to drop off / pick up at airports doesn't seem to have been absorbed by taxi drivers.

That's because it's on a meter and therefore charged separately. I know a private hire driver and their prices went up by £5 to account for the drop off charge at Heathrow, so passed on indirectly.

 

[metalblue]

Can you stop following me around like a bad smell.

You don't have anything to contribute other than bloviating.

Unless you can give me 500 words on why children should get asthma, and people should die from air pollution because of stubborn arseholes unwilling to replace their dirty cars.

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah: Air pollution a factor in girl's death, inquest finds

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah was "living on a knife edge" before her fatal asthma attack, the inquest heard.

www.google.com

Woah there, as tempting as it is on emotive subjects let’s not get into sensationalism. The little girl didn’t die from air pollution.

That’s not to say air pollution in some of our cities isn’t a problem to some degree and adversely impacts people with other health conditions. I can visit some of the less developed parts of the world as part of my job and you can literally taste the pollution, my breathing and health is noticeably impacted in a very short space of time. So pollution does cause significant problems in people, in the UK our air isn’t too bad but could certainly be better in places.

I’ve no issue whatsoever with the stated objectives of ULEZ. I doubt anyone has.

 

[BrianW]

The bottom line is that reaching Net Zero by 2050 (as both main parties agree is necessary, even now) will take painful adjustments and changes in people's way of life.

People don't like either painful adjustments or changes in their lifestyle, especially if the latter is seen as downwards.

Not an easy problem for politicians to resolve and a recipe for unpopularity. Of course people will kick against it, especially those that reject scientific evidence and have convinced themselves that climate change is a big con and an excuse for governments to rip them off.

 

[blueinsa]

The bottom line is that reaching Net Zero by 2050 (as both main parties agree is necessary, even now) will take painful adjustments and changes in people's way of life.

People don't like either painful adjustments or changes in their lifestyle, especially if the latter is seen as downwards.

Not an easy problem for politicians to resolve and a recipe for unpopularity. Of course people will kick against it, especially those that reject scientific evidence and have convinced themselves that climate change is a big con and an excuse for governments to rip them off.

No one I would suggest is against painful change, it’s the way government and business will monetise that painful change most kick back against.

 

[BrianW]

I think many people are against painful change. And in a capitalist society, the only way to prod people from A to B is to make A more expensive. If you don't, they'll stick with A.

Naturally, this is not popular, because humans are humans. You could argue that another way around it would be to improve public transport massively and halve train fares. But that would have to be financed. It would mean higher taxes, at least to begin with and probably forever.

One way or another, this is costing us.

 

[blueinsa]

If as suggested this is an existential threat to mankind and of such urgency, why is it only going to happen if it costs the man in the street?

The pandemic saw what government can do re finance when needed and yea, taxpayers will foot that bill for years to come but at the time of need, funds where provided to ensure what was needed done, got done.

Is it not ok to think government the world over should step up here?

 

[metalblue]

Because the number of very polluting cars entering London has dropped from 35,000 a day to 12,000 a day over the decade since it's come in, the amount of NOx pollution in the City has nearly halved, and we want to do everything we can to get non-compliant cars off the roads ASAP because they put out about 4x as many pollutants as a modern (ie post-2006) car.

The taxpayer shells out £3.7Bn a year for treatment of pollution related illnesses to Londoners every year.

Before this latest expansion, over 75% of residents were in favour. Expanding it is always controversial, but when the 98% of drivers who are unaffected realise they're unaffected and it makes them less like to die from cancer, they'll support it again.

£3.7bn? Are you sure? NHS states that UK wide it’s £160m per year (this includes both acute and social care costs) where there is robust evidence linking pollution and health rising to £550m where there is less robust evidence. Who is this “we” btw? Do you work for the mayor or TFL?

I think where people get annoyed is not in the principles of clean air, it’s they get told to do x and it’ll all be good so spend money doing x only to be told it’s not good and to now do y. Y is currently go electric, ignoring manufacturing environmental impacts and battery life cycles / accident damage / where the electricity comes from we also know that even electric cars generate particles from tyre and brake wear that can have negative health impacts, some research has suggested it’s worse than fossil fuel car exhausts in some cases, although you would expect these to be more disbursed outside the cities rather than in those current exhaust emission hot spots where traffic is going to be stationary/slow. Today the EV is our saviour, 10-15 years from now EVs are going to be public enemy number 1.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

£3.7bn? Are you sure? NHS states that UK wide it’s £160m per year (this includes both acute and social care costs) where there is robust evidence linking pollution and health rising to £550m where there is less robust evidence. Who is this “we” btw? Do you work for the mayor or TFL?

I think where people get annoyed is not in the principles of clean air, it’s they get told to do x and it’ll all be good so spend money doing x only to be told it’s not good and to now do y. Y is currently go electric, ignoring manufacturing environmental impacts and battery life cycles / accident damage / where the electricity comes from we also know that even electric cars generate particles from tyre and brake wear that can have negative health impacts, some research has suggested it’s worse than fossil fuel car exhausts in some cases, although you would expect these to be more disbursed outside the cities rather than in those current exhaust emission hot spots where traffic is going to be stationary/slow. Today the EV is our saviour, 10-15 years from now EVs are going to be public enemy number 1.

Yep, I imagine issues around sustainability of current ev's, the thorny issue of how their 'clean' electricity is made, and the ethical issues around the mining of materials needed for batteries will make them the four star/ diesel satan of the 2030's. Much like vaping as the 'miracle cure' to nicotine use is now coming under scrutiny.