It's a fair question.
The aim of reducing traffic in London is, on its face, a reasonable objective. Charging London motorists at the pumps would have had an element of fairness built into it. Driving all day in London ought to merit a heavier penalty than driving a car say... a round trip of two miles to a shop (which happens to be inside the charging zone) and back.
Sorry, but this is a daft idea. People who wanted to avoid the levy could just fill up at a station outside the affected area, yet continue to drive within it, while those heading out of London but needing to fill up before doing so would be unfairly penalised.
Notwithstanding, taxis, buses and the like, it does seem unfair that usage which is charged for is unlimited for the twenty for hour period when the journey requirement may be short and, relatively speaking, poor value.
Agreed, but that's a limitation of the current system. Full road pricing involves continous monitoring of the car's position, and can be adjusted to reflect the time spent on each type of road, and the actual level of congestion being experienced at the time. But that requires far more of the surveillance that you find unacceptable.
Public transport has always been a dirty phrase in the English language. Contrast and compare with cheap train journeys in Germany or regular buses in Switzerland. The consequence is that many people voted with their feet and at some cost to themselves they invested in private transportation. Post the Kings X fire, the willingness of the Underground service to suspend and delay services at the drop of a hat renders the system almost unusable in any reliable manner. DLR? Toytown railway system that was constantly breaking down when I relied on it to get me to Canary Wharf every day. Gargantuan buses that block the roads? Yes, very helpful they are too.
The Underground is nowhere near as dysfunctional as you make out. Of course they had to take safety more seriously following the King's Cross fire, but they do not suspend services or close stations at the drop of a hat. Millions of people rely on the Tube to travel each day, and while some may do so under sufferance, the fact is that the capital could not function without it. What cannot be denied is that it has gone for years (and in some cases decades) without the necessary investment to keep it operating at optimum efficiency, but that is now being addressed.
I'm not sure how transport is planned or funded in other cities/countries, but it is quite likely that it relies heavily on public subsidy. So does ours, but this is offset by a fare structure that reflects (if not covers) running costs and distance travelled. It may be attractive to some to be able to travel across London for a flat fare, but there are just as many, if not more, that would question why they should pay the same to travel three stops as twenty.
Are there restrictions on HGVs using London during the working day? Why is everyone trying to get to work at 8am in the morning? It cannot be beyond the wit of the people in charge of these matters to design a clean, reliable and cheap public transportation system. While in San Franscisco, I commuted by travelling a particular cable car from one end of the line to the other for 50 cents each way! No one in their right mind wants to sit in a car at Blackwall tunnel or any of the other notorious black spots such as Hanger Lane.
Yes, HGVs are restricted based on their emissions, but it is also recognised that London has to function as business centre, and roadside deliveries are an essential part of that. Many companies time these deliveries to take place overnight as a matter of course.
People have a choice to make about how they travel into and around London. Personally, I very rarely use my car, preferring to walk or cycle most of the time. Occasionally I'll use a bus if I happen to know of one that's going where I want to go, and I'll use the Tube when time is limited or the weather makes walking or cycling unattractive. The car is generally last resort unless I'm going to collect something I'd rather not carry back, and I generally only use it when I know I have somewhere to park at the other end, but I primarily use it when heading out of London, or at the weekends.
It's up to comnpanies to allow employees to stagger their working hours or to work from home where viable, to try to alleviate the rush hour congestion (both on roads and public transport). There will always be those who choose to commute by car, regardless of how long it takes, simply because they prefer to be delayed in their own space and comfort than to share that space with other human beings. That is their choice, for as long as they can afford to pay for the privilege.
Public transport is an expensive failure in London and that is fundamentally why people are using their own transportation. Travelling like cattle for exorbitant rates in unreliable and dirty public transportation is not a choice that any would willingly make. As a Londoner (born and bred) I would always use the tube to get wherever I wanted to go, efficiently and cheaply.
One could ride the buses from the starting bus garage to the terminus, for next to nothing. Each time I have the misfortune to be working in London (I moved out 20 years ago and would never move back) I am amazed at how badly the transportation infrastructure appear to have deteriorated and just how unreliable a once reliable service has become.
It's telling that you moved out 20 years ago. That means that your memories of cheap travel on the buses probably date back to Ken Livingstone's era in charge of the GLC, when he introduced his "Fares Fair" policy - using ratepayers' money to subsidise public transport, because it was felt that car users were getting an undue level of subsidy at the time (not sure how that was worked out - I'd have to read up on it). However, you're clearly no fan of Ken's, so it's odd to hear you lamenting the passing of one of his more questionable initiatives.
I think Orwell's prescience was that he envisioned a society that was very restrictive (possibly an inevitability given the increase in pollution) and rather malign; as exemplified and typified by the Blair years and the ever present ministry of newspeak spin, ( Alistair Campbell) so beloved of that government.
I don't think he was being prescient at all; more likely he was reflecting what he had seen around him durng wartime Britiain - propaganda; veiled messages; curfews and other curtailment of freedom; restrictions on what you could say, do and even buy - and imagining a society where that became the norm rather than a way of coping with an emergency. It doesn't follow that he saw it coming, though people love to jump to that conclusion. Spin has always been there, it's just that in the Thatcher, Major and Blair eras we became more aware of it - ironically due to greater openness in the way government is conducted, and greater scrutiny of the process. And I don't accept that the motives of the UK government can be justifiably described as "malign"; that's a big claim and requires substantiation.
It is when one takes that position and follows it to its logical conclusion... not to push the argument to an extreme but just to say this: If the citizenry can only be regarded as law-abiding by the authorities while they are being constantly surveilled, then I want no part of that society. CCTV is now quite visible in residential areas and I am concerned by the trend.
The "thin end of the wedge" argument. It doesn't necessarily follow that the further the wedge is driven in, the worse life becomes. I don't have a massive problem with the presence of cameras, and have never had cause to wish they weren't there. I'd love to think they weren't necessary, but that's a different matter.
