A Sad Day For London

The congestion charge was originally introduced to reduce the number of cars on the road in London. Carbon emissions had nothing to do with it. The decision to have higher charges for more polluting cars was a sop to the Greens in the Assembly.

No shit - That is why i agreed with the initial charge - it was an inclusive tax rather than an exclusive tax, and worked well at deterring people from making unnecessary trips, and opting for public transport where possible - the proposed changes are bollox as outlined in my original rant, because they do little to deter car use in central London, because everyone will be running around in their Lexus hybrids, rather than looking at alternative transport.

And the hypothetical you give is a little specious: the main outcome of the reformulated policy would have been to persuade people to buy smaller cars, which would indeed have a beneficial influence on overall emissions levels. Of course heavier users are going to produce more carbon than lighter users, no matter what they drive - do you really think that nobody in the world is smart enough to work that out but you?

**No i dont - which is why i said ** either nobody thought of this obvious flaw in the plan, in which case God help us all, or as is far more likely one of the bright young things at Kens elbow raised his hand in a meeting to point out this problem only to have his concern dismissed as an inconvenient truth.

Oh, and how much carbon would have have burnt on your way into the CC zone, by the way?

Well my daily drive takes me 150 m into the congestion zone from fulham to The Boltons, where the veichle is parked up off road. That would be a £25 daily charge for a minute amount of polluting - begining to see my point?

You then say:

"either go the whole hog and pedestrianize most of central London with goods access during restricted hours, bring all taxis (the heaviest polluters on our roads) into a decent emissions limit, and make Public Transport the only viable option, or carry on and put sensible road pricing options into action and make the citys traffic work while gradually phasing in emissions and traffic controls. The current restrictions are far more easy tax revenue for the government than they are beneficial restrictions that we the people can see and reap the benefits of."

Pedestrianising central London - are you joking? Road pricing while phasing in emissions and traffic controls - erm, congestion charge? If that's not a form of road pricing, what is?

What i am talking about is sensible road pricing that includes all vehicles and takes into account their use, necessity to local business, and time spent on the road - not a blanket tax that penalizes more people than it benefits. The west end could easily be pedestrianized, with electric trams servicing the major arteries such as oxford st and picadilly - if you can be bothered to google it you will see that there have been numeroud positive studies into this.

"I can understand the green issues of a number of us on here, and i always choose human powered transportation when i can, but i too live in the real world, and for one have had enough of political grand standing disguised as environmental policy's with revenues that have failed to ever be truly recycled into public transport, or environmentally friendly transport systems."

Let me see - erm, over the last 8 years we've gone to having fewer cars, more buses, more cycles on the roads. More cycle lanes at that, whether you like them or not. I'm confused. Is that not transport policy in action? Maybe it's not as noticeable over in Fulham?

I am not denying that thing have got better, but it has been a very poor return on the promises that were made . . . the only decent cycle lane i have seen is on New Cavendish St where it is barrierd in, otherwise i cant see them because they have cars in them or are just red paint on a pavement - until they are effectively enforced they are of little benefit. The bendy buses are rubbish, we have more buses but not a comparable uptake in bus usage, and the western extension has merely resulted in turning Hammersmith and Fulham into a rat run, ever seen Barons Court/ West Ken between 4 and 8 in the evening, more like a car park than a road network.

Stupid thing is I don't particularly like Ken (though I would have rather have had him than Boris). But I don't see how we're ever going to have a decent debate about transport and environmental policy in this country when people so willfully close their eyes to the facts in the name of partisan political purity. No hint of difficult political choices - always compromises - that the rest of us have to make in our reality-based world.

And that pretty much what i was saying - to me there is little real difference in having Boris or Ken at the helm, whoever we got would be stuck in a bureaucratic mire, and we will continue to see progress on traffic systems and public transport with either as we live in an age that demands it, but until the government nationally gets its act together theres not much change going to happen round here, so i did the sensible thing based my vote on which candidate would have the greater effect on my daily life