London pollution & ULEZ

What will London become when there's no cars, no shops and all the sensible people seeing London for what it is, leave?

What really is the ultimate aim of the rich and powerful for London? If was a writer I'd pen a story about London becoming the biggest walled garden in the world for the wealthy.

I hope not as they will all come flooding to the countryside and do stuff like this.

 
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What will London become when there's no cars, no shops and all the sensible people seeing London for what it is, leave?

What really is the ultimate aim of the rich and powerful for London? If was a writer I'd pen a story about London becoming the biggest walled garden in the world for the wealthy.

Look at Copenhagen where there are virtually no cars about, its a fantastic thriving city
 
What other options are there? Fuel duty doesn't apply to EV's. VED is low for EV's. EV's won't have to pay LEZ or ULEZ. The only options seem to be:

1) Increase VED on EV's drastically. This would have to be such a huge rise that it's simply not viable.
2) Force a specific charging method at home and tax electricity used for charging. There will be ways around this.
3) Pay per mile, with the added political benefit of saving children by reducing tyre, brake pollution and reducing the number of dangerous trips where someone could get hurt.

That last option is going to happen. Option two might do as well.
Fuel duty and VED are used to reduce demand for driving and for bigger cars. The taxation raised is general taxation and is not ring fenced for anything related to roads.


Therefore, there is simply no need to replace fuel duty. VED can remain, based on car size and weight. The missing taxation can come from any other source. We should start with property taxes, which would also apply to cars
 
Look at Copenhagen where there are virtually no cars about, its a fantastic thriving city

Denmark is also a much smaller country, therfore less public transport needed across the country.

Also most of the country lives near Copenhagen, so there is less travel needed too.

Which provides less issues travelling across the country. The UK is a nightmare to get a train anywhere. It costs me double to get home in train prices than it does to drive.
 
Denmark is also a much smaller country, therfore less public transport needed across the country.

Also most of the country lives near Copenhagen, so there is less travel needed too.

Which provides less issues travelling across the country. The UK is a nightmare to get a train anywhere. It costs me double to get home in train prices than it does to drive.

Yes but the post was about London which has very good public transport, it wasnt about travelling across the country. Copenhagen used to be jammed full of cars but they decided to take a different approach and many cities across the world are taking that view too. An example, Paris is looking to ban non essential vehicles from the centre altogether and has gone to great lengths to make it a cycling friendly city, so is Oslo, I think Madrid, Ghent and Amsterdam already restricts traffic. When I was in Ecuador, every Sunday they would shut off the centre of Quito to all motorised vehicles to allow people to walk and cycle the streets in safety, it was fantastic to see families with little kids cycling across the city enjoying themselves
 
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Just to add, people in Belgium, Denmark, Norway etc all still have cars, they just don’t use them for local journeys so they are not snarling up the city streets.

And our cities would be so much nicer if people didn't drive needlessly short distances.

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Is Belgium better now? I thought it was very car centric (and noticeably worse quality roads) but has been 10+ years since I last visited.
 
Yes but the post was about London which has very good public transport, it wasnt about travelling across the country. Copenhagen used to be jammed full of cars but they decided to take a different approach and many cities across the world are taking that view too. An example, Paris is looking to ban non essential vehicles from the centre altogether and has gone to great lengths to make it a cycling friendly city, so is Oslo, I think Madrid, Ghent and Amsterdam already restricts traffic. When I was in Ecuador, every Sunday they would shut off the centre of Quito to all motorised vehicles to allow people to walk and cycle the streets in safety, it was fantastic to see families with little kids cycling across the city enjoying themselves
I have to say this approach couldn't come soon enough. It strikes me around London Liverpool St, Bank, City of London just how much of inner London is devoted to cars yet during rush hour we have to contend with;

Small, uneven pavements, riddled with patchy paving, constantly blocked by shop signs, endless poles, road works signs, slow people holding everyone up. Pavements suddenly going wide to nothing, forcing queues as everyone squeezes by.

Large parts of London have the most crazy convoluted pavement layouts but as with a lot of Europe because it's a protected historical city you can't just knock it all down to start from scratch but what we do have are endless roads ripe for making life easier for the masses.

It's drives me crazy enough I simply walk on the road itself, straddling the curb wherever possible, I see it as the inner lane and is basically the only way to get around on my commute from station to office.
 
And our cities would be so much nicer if people didn't drive needlessly short distances.

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Is Belgium better now? I thought it was very car centric (and noticeably worse quality roads) but has been 10+ years since I last visited.

I went to Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels this year, hardly any vehicle traffic, straight into the city and straight out. Parking was expensive (€20 per 24 hours) but it was an easy drive if you don’t mind the cobbles in Ghent (and Bruges but that’s tiny by comparison)!
 
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I went to Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels this year, hardly any vehicle traffic, straight into the city and straight out. Parking was expensive (€20 per 24 hours) but it was an easy drive if you don’t mind the cobbles in Ghent (and Bruges but that’s tiny by comparison)!

€20 for 24 hours is not very expensive compared to central London. Speaking about a good few years back as well.
 
I hope not as they will all come flooding to the countryside and do stuff like this.

They really wouldn’t care for all my farming neighbours who are out in their fields into the early mornings as and when necessary.

And bonne chance to anyone entitled enough to think they can just interrupt a busy farmer like that over here without consequences.
 
Look at Copenhagen where there are virtually no cars about, its a fantastic thriving city
That must be partially due to how insanely expensive cars are to buy in Denmark.

 
That must be partially due to how insanely expensive cars are to buy in Denmark.


I think that is certainly part of it, the government put a huge sales tax on new cars but its also due to urban planning. They turned car parks into public spaces, pedestrianised parts of the city and put in a lot of quality connected infrastructure to enable safe cycling
 
Electric cars demonstrating zero emissions.

Sorry to resurect an old post however another post totally unrelated about this made me think about it....

you know when the media like to get their teeth into something and scream and shout something as fact, often as an agenda they are trying to push, or maybe just for click bait.

so i googled and actually found a recent post on another forum i frequent which linked this.

That widely reported ferry fire which was caused by EVs...... its funny how it was far less reported that they got it wrong, and it wasnt EVs after all!.


of course am sure some bright spark may have a theory how an EV managed to set the fire on a deck other than the one they were being stored on, and combined with the fact that the area where most of the EVs were stored was actually undamaged and the EVs were pulled out unharmed.

funny that :D
 
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One of the ev companies had been pushing the additional safety of LFP batteries, no thermal runaway possibiity (& no slave cobalt inside - see motors)
I don't know if home ebikes are yet being shipped with these too, and if that also reduces (tragic) fire possibilities during charging.

Khan was on c4 news last night being grilled on ULEZ lies (world tour like kier ? world wide mayor conf - boondoggle) on average due to ulez people will live 13/23s was it ? longer
but seemed to be a new probe into him, for playing dumber on what he knew from ulez research results - like Boris on party's
 
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