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Stop expanding the ULEZ to all the London boroughs in 2023

Seems the ULEZ charge will be the least of your worries in Khan's Kingdom:

You may well be right. Citizen Khan is certainly following the advice of the C40 Clan as per this section
  • Integrate the relevant top pollution-reducing actions that are within our city and under our control into city Climate Action Plans. For example, by rapidly expanding zero emission public transport; creating low or zero emission areas; supporting walking/cycling; implementing vehicle restrictions or financial incentives/disincentives, such as road-use or parking charges; reducing truck, non-road machinery and city-owned vehicle emissions; cleaning up construction sites and equipment; reducing industrial emissions; reducing emissions from wood burning; expanding affordable access to clean energy for cooking and heating; restricting pollution from solid waste burning; and expanding greening.
 
You may well be right. Citizen Khan is certainly following the advice of the C40 Clan as per this section
  • Integrate the relevant top pollution-reducing actions that are within our city and under our control into city Climate Action Plans. For example, by rapidly expanding zero emission public transport; creating low or zero emission areas; supporting walking/cycling; implementing vehicle restrictions or financial incentives/disincentives, such as road-use or parking charges; reducing truck, non-road machinery and city-owned vehicle emissions; cleaning up construction sites and equipment; reducing industrial emissions; reducing emissions from wood burning; expanding affordable access to clean energy for cooking and heating; restricting pollution from solid waste burning; and expanding greening.
So basically he knows that Londoners love their vehicles because they’re convenient, safe and reliable despite the traffic. Armed with this information he will not improve buses, the roads, or the underground but he will shaft you where it hurts.

He is happy for you to ride in a polluting taxi yet he penalises other polluting vehicles and then he stands by while the suppliers of public transport hold the commuters to ransom by going on strike.

You couldn’t make it up.
 
So basically he knows that Londoners love their vehicles because they’re convenient, safe and reliable despite the traffic. Armed with this information he will not improve buses, the roads, or the underground but he will shaft you where it hurts.

He is happy for you to ride in a polluting taxi yet he penalises other polluting vehicles and then he stands by while the suppliers of public transport hold the commuters to ransom by going on strike.

You couldn’t make it up.

And those polluting vehicles choking everyone with their CO2 are immediately rendered safe by the payment of £12.50. It's a miracle, I tell you.

Follow the science.
 
And those polluting vehicles choking everyone with their CO2 are immediately rendered safe by the payment of £12.50. It's a miracle, I tell you.

Follow the science.

The £12.50 ULEZ charge is meant to be significant enough to discourage owners of older Diesel cars from driving them inside the Zone. If the ULEZ charge isn't a significant enough cost to constitute a deterrent, as your post appears to be suggesting, then why are people up-in-arms about it? Well, that answer is that they are upset because it IS a deterrent and it does stop them from driving their old Diesel cars into the Zone. Hence it works as intended by reduces NOx pollution.
 
The £12.50 ULEZ charge is meant to be significant enough to discourage owners of older Diesel cars from driving them inside the Zone. If the ULEZ charge isn't a significant enough cost to constitute a deterrent, as your post appears to be suggesting, then why are people up-in-arms about it? Well, that answer is that they are upset because it IS a deterrent and it does stop them from driving their old Diesel cars into the Zone. Hence it works as intended by reduces NOx pollution.
Except that it doesn’t reduce pollution, at best it simply transfers it to the edge of the zone, while providing local government with a tax income from non-residents who are therefore not voters and some extra public transport revenue which still isn’t enough to cover the cost of buses and trains which spend most of their time running empty.

Ah, but pollution has reduced in the centre, you cry. Yes, but that’s not due to Zulez but other improvements like Euro 4, 5 and 6, and changes to pollutants across the whole environment.

Ulez is simply a greenwashed tax on non-voters

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The £12.50 ULEZ charge is meant to be significant enough to discourage owners of older Diesel cars from driving them inside the Zone. If the ULEZ charge isn't a significant enough cost to constitute a deterrent, as your post appears to be suggesting, then why are people up-in-arms about it? Well, that answer is that they are upset because it IS a deterrent and it does stop them from driving their old Diesel cars into the Zone. Hence it works as intended by reduces NOx pollution.
Why aren’t the dirty polluting vehicles just banned completely?
 
The £12.50 ULEZ charge is meant to be significant enough to discourage owners of older Diesel cars from driving them inside the Zone. If the ULEZ charge isn't a significant enough cost to constitute a deterrent, as your post appears to be suggesting, then why are people up-in-arms about it? Well, that answer is that they are upset because it IS a deterrent and it does stop them from driving their old Diesel cars into the Zone. Hence it works as intended by reduces NOx pollution.
Khan knows there will always be a certain amount of drivers more than willing to pay the £12.50.

I know a lot of drivers that have simply factored the payment into their family budget but unfortunately it means other aspects of their life will suffer.

Kahn needs these people. Without these people he is screwed.
 
You could argue that tax on fuel is already a pay-per-mile strategy.

So, when the public are forced off the road, who is going to pay the lost revenue?
Would forcing cars off the road be a net loss in revenue? Less cars means less damage to the roads, so lower maintenance costs.

£11 billion was spent on the UK’s roads in 2022/23. During the same period, VED raised £7 billion. (Of course that income doesn’t include the £25 billion from fuel duty.)
 
Would forcing cars off the road be a net loss in revenue? Less cars means less damage to the roads, so lower maintenance costs.

£11 billion was spent on the UK’s roads in 2022/23. During the same period, VED raised £7 billion. (Of course that income doesn’t include the £25 billion from fuel duty.)
But is £11 Billion spent every year??
 
Would forcing cars off the road be a net loss in revenue? Less cars means less damage to the roads, so lower maintenance costs.

£11 billion was spent on the UK’s roads in 2022/23. During the same period, VED raised £7 billion. (Of course that income doesn’t include the £25 billion from fuel duty.)

Plus the continuing stream of taxes on new car sales.
 
Except that it [ULEZ] doesn’t reduce pollution, at best it simply transfers it to the edge of the zone …
Let’s not forget that the point of ULEZ is to reduce pollution in a concentrated area for the benefit of those people who live and/or work in London. Those people who previously would have driven their non-compliant vehicles into London aren’t now instead going to be driving round and round the Chilterns to do the same mileage.

Yes, there will be some who take a longer route to get to their desired destination, rather than cutting straight across a corner of the zone. But I would think that there will be more who are incentivised by the charge to make changes; whether that be eventually getting round to changing their car, using public transport more, or some other means of avoiding the excessive payment.

Even if there was no overall reduction in pollution, with it all being transferred to the edge of the zone, by being spread over a greater area it becomes a less intrusive problem. In total, less people will be inhaling lower concentrations of NOx and small particulates.
 
But is £11 Billion spent every year??
Not every year. It was up to £13 billion not long ago.

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Would forcing cars off the road be a net loss in revenue? Less cars means less damage to the roads, so lower maintenance costs.
Doesn’t that argument miss the economic benefit of the car journey itself?

The vast majority of car journeys are not for recreational purposes, but rather either directly for or an enabler for economic activity. As such, forcing those journeys “off the road” would reduce economic activity and thus be a net cost.
 

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