ULEZ - Ultra low emission zones for central and inner London

Soldato
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Cambridge is neither in top 10 polluted nor congested cities, has a labour council, and they are discussing it last week
I see, in london ev's are only exempt from standing congestion charge until 2025, bicycle after that

planning to enable business/employment in other areas of the country where it would be nicer to live is the solution, but, currently, just a vicious circle.
 
Associate
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It's a strange one, I did understand the congestion charge, but the ULEZ thing just seems like a gimmick if I'm honest, and now it's just 'avoid London' that's the default in most scenarios - and that will be a loss of a lot of income for smaller companies and (positively) a real boost for other cities. With the knife crime culture, the CC and now the ULEZ charges - I think I can see Bristol / Manchester / Leeds / York / Newcastle starting to get MUCH more traction.
 
Soldato
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Not sure if anyone's been following the news recently but there are two new proposals that will get approved.

- Heathrow Airport will introduce a ULEZ type system
- Once the 3rd runway is built it will ban cars entirely and everyone will need to use Public Transport
- London to introduce 15mph speed limit

If you ask me it just gets ridiculous, why don' they just ban cars? or do they just want to fleece motorists out of their pockets as much as they can.

Either way I think if you live in London, enjoy driving while you can.
 
Soldato
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The Heathrow thing has been talked about for ages. First they were claiming we'd all be driving electric cars, now they are saying they want their own ULEZ, then they would be charging to keep cars away, now it's banning cars all together. It's so Heathrow can pretend that the third runway won't cause any more pollution, when it definitely will.

The 15 mph thing in London sounds like nonsense. It's slow enough in parts of London that if they limited the speeds to 15 on even the quick bits, no one would get anywhere. What is a 45 minute journey now could take you a couple of hours. Some boroughs have already dropped to a 20 mph limit in some areas due to pollution and road safety, but these are often residential areas anyway.
 
Associate
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The Heathrow thing has been talked about for ages. First they were claiming we'd all be driving electric cars, now they are saying they want their own ULEZ, then they would be charging to keep cars away, now it's banning cars all together. It's so Heathrow can pretend that the third runway won't cause any more pollution, when it definitely will.

The 15 mph thing in London sounds like nonsense. It's slow enough in parts of London that if they limited the speeds to 15 on even the quick bits, no one would get anywhere. What is a 45 minute journey now could take you a couple of hours. Some boroughs have already dropped to a 20 mph limit in some areas due to pollution and road safety, but these are often residential areas anyway.


Trouble is the pollution has increased in those areas esp with humps
 
Soldato
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Not sure if anyone's been following the news recently but there are two new proposals that will get approved.

- Heathrow Airport will introduce a ULEZ type system
- Once the 3rd runway is built it will ban cars entirely and everyone will need to use Public Transport
- London to introduce 15mph speed limit

If you ask me it just gets ridiculous, why don' they just ban cars? or do they just want to fleece motorists out of their pockets as much as they can.

Either way I think if you live in London, enjoy driving while you can.

Square mile to introduce 15mph limit (good luck driving much faster anyway). Not London.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-n...become-first-uk-region-with-15mph-speed-limit

Click bait articles are using "London" in their headlines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London#/media/File:City_of_London_in_Greater_London.svg
 
Soldato
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Does anyone that isn't a taxi, courier or delivery person drive in that part of town?

To be fair I'm really surprised some parts of London are not fully pedestrianised like Oxford/Regent Street.
 
Soldato
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Does anyone that isn't a taxi, courier or delivery person drive in that part of town?

To be fair I'm really surprised some parts of London are not fully pedestrianised like Oxford/Regent Street.

Well it's within the congestion charge zone anyway. So can't imagine many do.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/discounts-and-exemptions?intcmp=2133

Maybe if you can get the cleaner vehicle discount you might be a little annoyed. But then again 15mph for medieval streets is about par anyway (even at night when it's pretty free from traffic).
 

fez

fez

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If you ask me it just gets ridiculous, why don' they just ban cars? or do they just want to fleece motorists out of their pockets as much as they.

ive just thrown £12.50 at them because I don’t know if I went inside the zone or not.

The fact they know if you have been inside the zone but won’t let you check tells you everything you need to know about it.

You either wing it and risk and £80 fine or you pay them potentially £24 to insure against it. Oh and if you want to pay automatically to avoid having to check? That will be £10/year.

you can’t get it refunded and they basically say “if you pay this and didn’t need to or have entered the wrong registration we will take your money and don’t care”

Utter pricks.
 
Soldato
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ive just thrown £12.50 at them because I don’t know if I went inside the zone or not.

The fact they know if you have been inside the zone but won’t let you check tells you everything you need to know about it.

You either wing it and risk and £80 fine or you pay them potentially £24 to insure against it. Oh and if you want to pay automatically to avoid having to check? That will be £10/year.

you can’t get it refunded and they basically say “if you pay this and didn’t need to or have entered the wrong registration we will take your money and don’t care”

Utter pricks.

It's currently the same as the congestion charge zone. There are very clear signs at every entry point. Far clearer than every other type of road sign.

You need to pay more attention when driving.

Next you'll be complaining about being caught driving wrong way down a one way street or in a bus lane.

The congestion charge goes towards funding TFL, one of the best city transport systems in the world (especially the London bus network). I drive in London nearly every day and will support any mayor or London assembly that seeks to improve TFL.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-2271-1617#:~:targetText=All revenue generated by the,in the Capital's transport infrastructure.

The ULEZ charge is hardly a massive money spinner.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-1483-1920

It is to discourage old diesel vehicles (and really old petrol vehicles) that have quite visibly polluted London's for a long time.
 
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fez

fez

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It's currently the same as the congestion charge zone. There are very clear signs at every entry point. Far clearer than every other type of road sign.

You need to pay more attention when driving.

Next you'll be complaining about being caught driving wrong way down a one way street or in a bus lane.

I'm not complaining that I have to pay it, i'm complaining that they don't give you any way to tell if you have to pay it. Its cynical and clearly to either get more money from fines or scare people into paying it when they don't need to. I never drive in the centre of London usually so I am not looking out for signs for ULEZ. It didn't even cross my mind until I got home. You drive there all the time so unsurprisingly you have this in mind.

I'm sure you could tell us every sign you drive past behind the wheel as you are so super observant but not all of us are quite such special drivers. I don't know if we went into the zone but I know we were in the right area for it. We were following google maps and it was very busy and lots of people were wandering into the road without paying much attention. We had other things to consider.

Its not too much to ask to be able to enter your number plate and have their system tell you what you owe.
 
Soldato
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Hertfordshire
Cambridge is neither in top 10 polluted nor congested cities, has a labour council, and they are discussing it last week
I see, in london ev's are only exempt from standing congestion charge until 2025, bicycle after that

planning to enable business/employment in other areas of the country where it would be nicer to live is the solution, but, currently, just a vicious circle.

Cambridge park and ride is good, we use it every time we go. Same with Truro now as well.
 
Soldato
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I'm not complaining that I have to pay it, i'm complaining that they don't give you any way to tell if you have to pay it. Its cynical and clearly to either get more money from fines or scare people into paying it when they don't need to. I never drive in the centre of London usually so I am not looking out for signs for ULEZ. It didn't even cross my mind until I got home. You drive there all the time so unsurprisingly you have this in mind.

I'm sure you could tell us every sign you drive past behind the wheel as you are so super observant but not all of us are quite such special drivers. I don't know if we went into the zone but I know we were in the right area for it. We were following google maps and it was very busy and lots of people were wandering into the road without paying much attention. We had other things to consider.

Its not too much to ask to be able to enter your number plate and have their system tell you what you owe.

I rarely drive in the congestion charge zone. There are massive congestion charge signs printed on the ground at entry points (as well as signs everywhere as you approach). I can't see how you can miss them. The are the clearest roads signs you can get compared to any other road marking.
 

fez

fez

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I rarely drive in the congestion charge zone. There are massive congestion charge signs printed on the ground at entry points (as well as signs everywhere as you approach). I can't see how you can miss them. The are the clearest roads signs you can get compared to any other road marking.

Then we probably didn't go inside it. Why can't I check that? You are just completely ignoring the actual issue I have with the system. They can tell you when you have entered the zone so why don't they let you check?
 
Soldato
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Then we probably didn't go inside it. Why can't I check that? You are just completely ignoring the actual issue I have with the system. They can tell you when you have entered the zone so why don't they let you check?

Because there isn't 100% coverage (although it is probably close to it now since they intrduced Auto Pay).

So it relies on people also admitting they drove within the congestion charge zone.

You don't for example pay for parking only if you are caught.
 
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Soldato
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There is no way of them knowing you are the owner/keeper of the vehicle.

You would be effectively publishing online a database of all the cars that enter a few square miles of London, that would have fairly obvious problems when it comes to privacy and security.
 
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