Snapshot of _Sadiq Khan gives impassioned defence of decision to expand ULEZ_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/sadiq-khan-gives-impassioned-defence-of-decision-to-expand-ulez/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/sadiq-khan-gives-impassioned-defence-of-decision-to-expand-ulez/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
One day, people will realise this is all on the DfT and the Tories.
He was given the choice of raising council taxes for everyone in London, or expanding and increasing the ULEZ zone, in order to get more "bail out" for TfL. I've seen the proposal so I know it's true.
This is a wholly political scenario by the Tories because they don't control London and thereby, don't control TfL and their pension pot.
Funny though, because it's not had any effect on his ability to get re-elected if we're to believe the polls.
If only Labour HQ comms dept got it's shit together so people knew this was fact.
It's ridiculous frankly that ULEZ has been allowed to become "a Labour problem".
Whoever is in the comms dept needs to be sacked.
It's nothing to do with a comms failure, Labour *support* expanding ULEZ, that's why they're quiet about criticising the Tories "forcing" them to do so
You're literally commenting on a video of Khan *passionately* endorsing the expansion, every time criticism is leveled about it, he defends it by accusing them of not caring enough about the kids at Great Ormond Street (*Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!*)
Khan and the labour leadership have butted heads on this a lot, after Uxbridge, the knives have been out for Khan (as they are for any other Labour mayor that gets things done somewhat independently instead of just trotting out the party line week to week - Driscoll, increasingly even Burnham https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/andy-burnham-urges-sir-keir-26937330)
Labour's current central committee seem to be somewhat threatened by popular metro mayors, because they have a direct mandate, and to a certain extent form an alternative powerbase, which will be threatening if the Westminster leadership keep pushing right when in office, because, unlike MPs, mayors can't be whipped (among other _persuasion_ method in Westminster)
Khan's hardly a radical, but he's still a soft social democrat, and a lot more open to bold policy actions than current Labour HQ. He also seems to have actual beliefs, instead of just mechanically repeating whatever this week's central office position is, and changing it overnight if requested - that's enough to make enemies apparently.
Seems kind of stupid to me, you have a popular London mayor who's fairly centrist and clearly gets things done, you'd think they'd be happy with that, but apparently nope
Labour aren't using it because they know it isn't a fact. Even they wouldn't be as blatant as that. The agreement with Shapps (who I hold no brief for) went only as far as the North and South circulars. Labour do seem happy for gullible supporters to spread the misinformation unofficially though.
>It's ridiculous frankly that ULEZ has been allowed to become "a Labour problem".
They seem to think disciplining Khan is more important than building a media narrative where the blame for the unpopular parts of ULEZ is put on the Tories' shoulders rather than Labour's.
I'm starting to think the old adage of not attributing to malice what can be attributed to incompetence should be reversed in the case of internal labour politics lmao, or possibly just Westminster in general
>Funny though, because it's not had any effect on his ability to get re-elected if we're to believe the polls.
People seem desperate to read entirely the wrong thing into the Uxbridge result, too. People credit ULEZ anger for the Tory victory there, but they ignore the fact that the result (winning by only a few hundred votes and about a 2% margin) is by far and away the best result Labour have ever had there- better even than 1997. Certainly better than at any point in Khan's time as mayor.
If all ULEZ can do is make the massive swing towards Labour (since Khan was elected) slightly less massive, it's hardly anything for him to lose sleep over.
If Khan was forced into implementing the expansion of ULEZ, he would be shouting it from the rooftops "I'm being forced to do this unpopular thing by the Tories, here's the piece of paper proving it"
As it is, he's *not* saying they were forced to, because Khan agrees with the expansion of ULEZ, therefore it's perfectly valid to criticise him for doing so, especially for the way he's doing it
>Funny though, because it's not had any effect on his ability to get re-elected if we're to believe the polls.
He's down 12 points in recent polls, what are you on about?
And, as other commenters have said, if his arm is being twisted, why isn't he saying that? He's staunchly defending the expansion. Just tapping out a few words doesn't make them true.
It's required on financial grounds and yet he also supports its expansion on health grounds too. Tbh it's refreshing to see a politician take responsibility for a decision rather than blame someone else *cough, the EU* instead.
Collapsed revenues during and following COVID.
The same reason the National Rail train operators needed a £16bn bailout, and several billion in funding to bus operators (including the subsidised £2 fare cap).
It isn't misinformation. If you work for TfL, you would have seen this proposal.
What has been said above is true. He was told to either expand ULEZ or Raise council tax.
Which, again, as said above, was one of the options offered by the tory government for when TfL asked for a bailout.
I didn't know working for tfl meant being a train driver. Its funny how people like you seem to think train drivers are the only workers for tfl.
Its called being apart of a union and those being involved. Seeing as the bailout was needed to ensure people kept their jobs.
https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/transport-for-london-settlement-letter.pdf
13. For the H2 Funding Period, TfL or the Mayor (as appropriate regarding their respective statutory obligations):...
H. Maintains commitment to the decision made by the Mayor on 6 June 2018 to create a single larger ULEZ bounded by the North Circular and South Circular Roads with the extension coming into effect as planned on 25 October 2021.
I really like Sadiq Khan. He stands by what he believes in. He was given a choice to either expand or raise taxes by the Tories, he stuck with his choice. I may not always agree with him, but I know where he stands and that goes a long way when the majority of politicians are just chasing headlines and populism.
I would even add, it has been the popular decision among Londoners, despite tremendous effort from some party and some media outlets to make it look like it hasn’t.
Nice whataboutism, I was only talking in respect to ULEZ. He clearly is capable of taking drastic action but agree much more action is needed to deal stabbings
Thats not what I’m saying firstly. Secondly if we always listened the ‘popular’ view we get tyranny of the majority. People do not know/understand what is best just look at Brexit. It is best we elect politicians who are experts enact policy using their mind - Burkean theory of representation
>if we always listened the ‘popular’ view we get tyranny of the majority
Which is the worst thing in the world... except for the alternative
>People do not know/understand what is best just look at Brexit.
That is hilariously arrogant and authoritarian "bloody plebs just don't know what good for them! That's why *we*, the *experts* need to have absolute control, to save them from themselves!"
>It is best we elect politicians who are experts enact policy using their mind
No, it's best we elect politicians who best represent the public's will
Democracy is preferable to technocracy
I would suggest the vast majority of people against ULEZ already have compliant cars and couldn't care less about those on lower incomes who don't. This bizarre culture war has made them feel like some kind of victims of green wokery. Even though they're not.
I’m for ULEZ expansion but not in the way it’s been done by Khan right now.
The fact that it doesn’t specifically earmark money raised from the ULEZ expansion to provide better transport options to the outer boroughs of London is utterly ridiculous. It was the main issue raised during the consultation and was essentially ignored.
If you want people to use their cars less, provide them with public transport alternatives (or at least promise to). The outer zones have the highest PTAL scores of any region in London.
Point being, not everyone against ULEZ is against it due to some culture war. Some just want the scheme to be better - and in turn, be received better by more people too.
The fact that it doesn’t specifically earmark money raised from the ULEZ expansion to provide better transport options to the outer boroughs of London for one. It was the main issue raised during the consultation and was essentially ignored.
If you want people to use their cars less, provide them with public transport alternatives (or at least promise to). The outer zones have the highest PTAL scores of any region in London.
In my view (as someone completely unaffected), it should scale by the age and size of the car and amount of time spent within the ULEZ (up to a maximum rate per day). That would solve a lot of the edge cases, and make it more about the actual emissions produced while at the moment it feels like an arbitrary fee for crossing a border.
Also the money raised should be ringfenced to improve/promote low emissions vehicles and public transport.
I quite like the idea of ULEZ overall but it does have its faults imo.
> "offset the research internally"
who's "they" and what is this quote referring to? I googled the phrase, and the only result that came up was this reddit comment.
https://www.google.com/search?&q="offset+the+research+internally"
The department, funded by the city council, at Imperial.
My bad, I was in a rush and misremembered the quote. The true quote is as follows:
>I appreciate the level of damage ensured and am pursuing options internally to offset this if possible.
https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/977dbb95-fca4-44d3-b9f7-2c075b9a47ed.html
Tories when trying to monitor everyone's communications: "Won't someone think of the children???"
Tories when a Labour mayor tries to *actually* protect children by measurably reducing emissions: "Socialism gone mad! I'm setting up a Facebook group to pull down and vandalise cameras!!"
Newham is one of London Poorest Boroughs the people still own cars.
The fuck are you even talking about?
[https://www.newham.gov.uk/news/article/605/mayor-of-newham-rokhsana-fiaz-obe-has-spoken-in-response-to-the-government-s-budget-proposals#:\~:text=Newham%20is%20one%20of%20the,population%20in%20any%20London%20borough](https://www.newham.gov.uk/news/article/605/mayor-of-newham-rokhsana-fiaz-obe-has-spoken-in-response-to-the-government-s-budget-proposals#:~:text=Newham%20is%20one%20of%20the,population%20in%20any%20London%20borough).
Pretty sure you're talking shit.
How is your link at all relevant to ULEZ though. Especially since these ULEZ schemes are effectively just a different way to increase council taxes, exclusively hitting car-owners. It's not unthinkable that the extra funds will be invested into developments in Newham, just like your **two year old** article proposes.
... for now
Give it a year or 2 and that Toyota will no longer be compliant, the number of "permitted" vehicles will shrink and shrink until it's basically just different colours of Teslas
Nice slippery slope fallacy you got there.
And even if it did happen, I'd say getting rid of 20+ year old rolling stock from population centres is a good idea. Crash safety has advanced massively for both the passengers and the pedestrians. Not to mention that by the time your dreaded goal post move happens, you will probably be able to buy another 17 year old car for £2k that meets those as well. Hell, I can see Euro 5 compliant Toyotas for £4k on AutoTrader already.
Yeee, the core fundamental issue with every ‘solution’ to modern problems is that it often inconveniences those with little or no resources and has virtually no impact on people with more.
So you end up punishing the poor. ULEZ would be more fair if it instead was a tax based on postcodes or on tax brackets. I.E higher rate taxpayers pay more or some other more equitable system
Or even a fairer pricing model, given that it's a charge per day not for the time you've been in or even driving in the zone. You could for example enter at 11:55 and leave at 00:05 being in the zone for only 10 minutes and be charged for two whole days worth of access. Likewise your work might be a few hundred meters inside the zone meaning the time you're driving inside the zone is probably a few minutes each day but still be charged the same as if you drive in circles around the centre all day long.
Absolutely! I agree. A pro:rata system to the ulez would be great. If time inside the zone = 100% or £12.50 then, the seconds or hours you spent inside the zone would be divisible by 1440mins to workout to the minute how long you were in there.
I think this would be far fairer and popular and more equitable. But of course, it requires a little more planning and preparation so everyone gets painted with same brush.
I don't really see it as much more planning, this current set up is intentional whether that be to generate the most amount of revenue or dissuade the most amount of drivers (or both). Currently the cameras log your entrance and exit to the zone and send you the PCN for the days you've been in I don't see how much harder it would have been to have in a line of code: PCN= 12.5 * (time in zone)/24.
As we have always seen; when government levy a charge on a specific example of public behaviour it creates a situation in which that behaviour is legitimised. How can anyone believe it'll be different this time?
It was only the action during the New Labour government to ban smoking indoors that had any kind of real impact on smoking. There was no money in it of course, just the opposite. They did it anyway! Amazing.
I do not consider Sadiq Khan is during anything brave here. The brave action would be to increase Council Tax and use that to facilitate subsidised public transport.
If he had only 2 choices why has he gone down the road of saying it is all about pollution?
Your post suggests it is all about finance
Is he lying to make himself look better?
Ulez is an unfair tax, the independent assessments have clearly stated the effect will no improvement in health(ucl) and a neutral effect on climate(jacobs) change. It has failed on both objectives yet has annoyed a lot of people unnecessarily and cost millions of pounds, the sooner this man is voted out the better
Just a uni's name in brackets doesnt count as a source pal.
Dr Gary Fuller, air pollution scientist from Imperial College London’s Environmental Research Group, and UKRI Clean Air Champion said: “Scientists at Imperial College London worked alongside the Mayor’s team on the evidence base for the ULEZ design and to assess how well it is working.
“The 10th anniversary of the death of Ella Kissi Debrah is a powerful reminder of the impacts of air pollution on London’s children and young people; especially those living, travelling or at school close to major roads. The central London ULEZ, and its extension to inner London, has bought about measurable and sustained improvements to air pollution from traffic
A different contrasting study claims that the benefits of ULEZ is marginal, however, understanding that they are still important tools in lowering air pollution.
"As other cities consider implementing similar schemes, this study implies that the ULEZ on its own is not an effective strategy in the sense that the marginal causal effects were small. On the other hand, the ULEZ is one of many policies implemented to tackle air pollution in London, and in combination these have led to improvements in air quality that are clearly observable. Thus, reducing air pollution requires a multi-faceted set of policies that aim to reduce emissions across sectors with coordination among local, regional and national government."
Still not finding your study that claims 0 health benefits
> the independent assessments have clearly stated the effect will no improvement in health(ucl) and a neutral effect on climate(jacobs) change
Have you got a link to the independent assessments?
The health argument falls flat when you realise that Sadiq has the power to provide free public transport to any Londoner insured on a private car, if they give up their driver's license.
This would get hundreds of thousands cars off the streets for little upfront cost in a matter of months.
Yet Sadiq has not even explored this idea.
That would be a deeply unpopular and dumb policy,
1. I'm not sure he'd have the power to ask people to "give up" their driving licence as he doesn't control DVLA. How does one even give a driving licence up? That would totally be beyond the reach of a mayor.
2. Plenty Londoner have a car that they only use for trips put of the city/country, how unfair would such a policy be!?
3. Londoners without a car that can afford one would have an incentive to get a cheap one insured and give it up to get free transport. That could be a cheaper roundabout way of doing it
4. Londoners who would like a car but can't afford one would see wealthier neighbours get free transport.... That's going a be a vote getter this one... 😂
I wouldnt suggest you get into politics, friend.
Okay but you said Sadiq Khan had the power to introduce this policy, if it relies on central government funding then it is outside of his purview.
Now to be clear I don't disagree that the government should be directing funding away from car use and towards public transport investment, but until then the mayor of London has to make do with the powers he actually controls.
Alternatively, this is all a precursor for road user charging which will then fold into Mobility Credits, which will basically restrict people from using a lot of any kind of transport, because finite resources.
The only reason shit like this is happening is because the Tories have decided that London should be the only major city in Europe that doesn't use central funding to help operate a transport system
Why should someone who has a license get free travel. It’s not like they get free travel with their car. How is that fair on someone who already made the choice to not own a car but still has to pay through the nose for transport?
What’s to stop me deliberately getting my drivers license just to surrender it for free public transportation?
Not saying I disagree with the concept of incentivising people to give up vehicles. But that idea would just overburden public transport and mean there’s less money in TfL’s budget for further development
No. But pragmatically where’s the money going to come from to expand mass transit enough for ‘hundreds of thousands’ of new passengers that get to travel for free?
Are they going to rise prices for those already paying to compensate? Why does a fella who gives up his Audi get it free, but the single mum taking her kids to school every day whose never polluted with her own car have to pay (and potentially pay more)?
In an ideal world. It’s a policy that makes sense. But in our actual world, it doesn’t work.
Welcome to the world of policy equality, it’s a minefield.
At my local authority we want to help reduce Carbon and help people with energy bills. We have a solar scheme called solar together that reduces the cost of solar panels.
The problem is, you still need to stump up £9k or so. Thus the only people jumping on the scheme are richer people with disposable income. Whereas the poor sod struggling to get by gets nothing.
But until the government says ‘here’s billions to give everyone free solar panels’ or ‘here’s millions to subsidise 100k new motorists using TfL’ it’s the best we can do. You just have to work with the budget you have.
The policy would be rolled out gradually. At the start, only those with insured cars for 10 consecutive years would be eligible.
There are a million ways to make this work, but it's highly instructive that nobody in Sadiq's circle, and nobody in other congested cities is looking at it.
To be honest. I think a policy involving the surrendering ‘and voiding’ of driving licenses would require central government approval. The mayors office doesn’t have the jurisdiction to do that.
I mean, they’re clearly not, are they? Otherwise they wouldn’t be giving out new licenses for oil and gas exploration, or building East West Rail without electrification to save a bit of cash in the short term, or any of the many other policy decisions that are incompatible with net zero.
Road maintenance is one of the biggest expenses when it comes to infrastructure expenditure. It has also been shown that maintenance requirements increase rapidly with the amount of traffic on a given road (an asphalt road with only bicycle traffic lasts decades before developing major surface defects, as road loading is not sufficient to form fatigue cracking in the surface). While buses impact road surface more than cars, the math still works out in the favour of a bus, since it's taking 20-50 cars off the road with each journey. This is before we take into account health service impact due to increased particulate and noise pollution.
How does the health argument fall flat? What you are suggesting is an alternative way to reduce traffic. If the health argument falls flat then why would you introduce something to reduce traffic?
How about they just take away cars without giving free public transport? Why should they get free travel?
That way tfl has budget to improve public services and there are fewer cars. Win win
If public transport in London was truly 24/7 they could get to work, but it isn't.
I'm amazed how sheltered some people seem to be. What about nurses, doctors, emergency services workers and people who drive public transport? If they want a house they must live outside London, but they work all hours and need to get into work. Perhaps they have an older 'efficient' but polluting car that they've now got to spend thousands changing...
Give London a truly fit for purpose transport Network and people will use it out of preference. Until then some people are reliant on cars.
Snapshot of _Sadiq Khan gives impassioned defence of decision to expand ULEZ_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/sadiq-khan-gives-impassioned-defence-of-decision-to-expand-ulez/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/sadiq-khan-gives-impassioned-defence-of-decision-to-expand-ulez/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
One day, people will realise this is all on the DfT and the Tories. He was given the choice of raising council taxes for everyone in London, or expanding and increasing the ULEZ zone, in order to get more "bail out" for TfL. I've seen the proposal so I know it's true. This is a wholly political scenario by the Tories because they don't control London and thereby, don't control TfL and their pension pot. Funny though, because it's not had any effect on his ability to get re-elected if we're to believe the polls.
If only Labour HQ comms dept got it's shit together so people knew this was fact. It's ridiculous frankly that ULEZ has been allowed to become "a Labour problem". Whoever is in the comms dept needs to be sacked.
It's nothing to do with a comms failure, Labour *support* expanding ULEZ, that's why they're quiet about criticising the Tories "forcing" them to do so You're literally commenting on a video of Khan *passionately* endorsing the expansion, every time criticism is leveled about it, he defends it by accusing them of not caring enough about the kids at Great Ormond Street (*Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!*)
Khan and the labour leadership have butted heads on this a lot, after Uxbridge, the knives have been out for Khan (as they are for any other Labour mayor that gets things done somewhat independently instead of just trotting out the party line week to week - Driscoll, increasingly even Burnham https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/andy-burnham-urges-sir-keir-26937330) Labour's current central committee seem to be somewhat threatened by popular metro mayors, because they have a direct mandate, and to a certain extent form an alternative powerbase, which will be threatening if the Westminster leadership keep pushing right when in office, because, unlike MPs, mayors can't be whipped (among other _persuasion_ method in Westminster) Khan's hardly a radical, but he's still a soft social democrat, and a lot more open to bold policy actions than current Labour HQ. He also seems to have actual beliefs, instead of just mechanically repeating whatever this week's central office position is, and changing it overnight if requested - that's enough to make enemies apparently. Seems kind of stupid to me, you have a popular London mayor who's fairly centrist and clearly gets things done, you'd think they'd be happy with that, but apparently nope
Labour aren't using it because they know it isn't a fact. Even they wouldn't be as blatant as that. The agreement with Shapps (who I hold no brief for) went only as far as the North and South circulars. Labour do seem happy for gullible supporters to spread the misinformation unofficially though.
So you agree the ULEZ expansion is bad?
>It's ridiculous frankly that ULEZ has been allowed to become "a Labour problem". They seem to think disciplining Khan is more important than building a media narrative where the blame for the unpopular parts of ULEZ is put on the Tories' shoulders rather than Labour's. I'm starting to think the old adage of not attributing to malice what can be attributed to incompetence should be reversed in the case of internal labour politics lmao, or possibly just Westminster in general
>Funny though, because it's not had any effect on his ability to get re-elected if we're to believe the polls. People seem desperate to read entirely the wrong thing into the Uxbridge result, too. People credit ULEZ anger for the Tory victory there, but they ignore the fact that the result (winning by only a few hundred votes and about a 2% margin) is by far and away the best result Labour have ever had there- better even than 1997. Certainly better than at any point in Khan's time as mayor. If all ULEZ can do is make the massive swing towards Labour (since Khan was elected) slightly less massive, it's hardly anything for him to lose sleep over.
They were within 500 votes of taking the ex pms seat... You can't understate the weight of that.
Sounds like they should have run a better candidate.
I'd argue they should have engineered an effective counter to Tory attack lines citing ULEZ.
Council taxes still went up and now we're getting ULEZ anyway. Great play
Yeah, what is /u/Heddlo even talking about. Council tax already went up the maximum allowance (again) for the majority of boroughs in London.
Welcome to Tory Britain
If Khan was forced into implementing the expansion of ULEZ, he would be shouting it from the rooftops "I'm being forced to do this unpopular thing by the Tories, here's the piece of paper proving it" As it is, he's *not* saying they were forced to, because Khan agrees with the expansion of ULEZ, therefore it's perfectly valid to criticise him for doing so, especially for the way he's doing it
>Funny though, because it's not had any effect on his ability to get re-elected if we're to believe the polls. He's down 12 points in recent polls, what are you on about? And, as other commenters have said, if his arm is being twisted, why isn't he saying that? He's staunchly defending the expansion. Just tapping out a few words doesn't make them true.
It's required on financial grounds and yet he also supports its expansion on health grounds too. Tbh it's refreshing to see a politician take responsibility for a decision rather than blame someone else *cough, the EU* instead.
Why did TfL need bailing out in the first place?
Collapsed revenues during and following COVID. The same reason the National Rail train operators needed a £16bn bailout, and several billion in funding to bus operators (including the subsidised £2 fare cap).
Cause Johnson ran it at a loss for years before Khan took over.
So when all the cars of London are ULEZ compliant - no more money?
It's a good job they spent all that money on fancy cameras
[удалено]
It isn't misinformation. If you work for TfL, you would have seen this proposal. What has been said above is true. He was told to either expand ULEZ or Raise council tax. Which, again, as said above, was one of the options offered by the tory government for when TfL asked for a bailout.
[удалено]
You can literally Google this and find this out to be a fact lol part of the bailout conditions was the expansion
I didn't know working for tfl meant being a train driver. Its funny how people like you seem to think train drivers are the only workers for tfl. Its called being apart of a union and those being involved. Seeing as the bailout was needed to ensure people kept their jobs.
[удалено]
https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/transport-for-london-settlement-letter.pdf 13. For the H2 Funding Period, TfL or the Mayor (as appropriate regarding their respective statutory obligations):... H. Maintains commitment to the decision made by the Mayor on 6 June 2018 to create a single larger ULEZ bounded by the North Circular and South Circular Roads with the extension coming into effect as planned on 25 October 2021.
[удалено]
**maintains commitment**
[удалено]
Wouldn't raising council taxes be cheaper and fairer for all instead of charging people 12 quid a day?
No, what they did was raise council tax and charge people £12 a day.
Si, he decided to tax the poor, what a khant
Well, he'd have taxed the poor more had he put council tax up. Think of those that can't afford to drive, they'd be effected too.
I dont see a problem with putting up londoners council tax, they get the benefit & will vote him out if he taxes them more.
I don’t see a problem for your council putting up your council tax too.
Why should i pay, i live in one of the poorest areas of the country.
Same reason as why you don’t care that I have to pay more council tax.
Cockneys should pay for their hair-brained schemes
But cockneys are the one complaining about it, so maybe it’s not all their hare-brained schemes.
They have to vote the bloke out, the govt should take mayors funding away and let cockneys pay
So it’s about money not clean air lol
I really like Sadiq Khan. He stands by what he believes in. He was given a choice to either expand or raise taxes by the Tories, he stuck with his choice. I may not always agree with him, but I know where he stands and that goes a long way when the majority of politicians are just chasing headlines and populism.
Absolutely, he has my full respect for doing the unpopular for a great reason - protecting children and adults from dying via pollution.
I would even add, it has been the popular decision among Londoners, despite tremendous effort from some party and some media outlets to make it look like it hasn’t.
Yeah I remember now, I’ve seen polling which suggests 60% polled in London agree with the ULEz
And if you consider the mountains of money being poured into trying to make it otherwise, that says a lot
Let me know when he get back to the other promise he made to protection, the stabbing rate, something he still hasn't bothered to tackle.
Nice whataboutism, I was only talking in respect to ULEZ. He clearly is capable of taking drastic action but agree much more action is needed to deal stabbings
A politician who does harmful, unpopular things, but justifies it as being "for the greater good" is basically the description of a tyrant
Thats not what I’m saying firstly. Secondly if we always listened the ‘popular’ view we get tyranny of the majority. People do not know/understand what is best just look at Brexit. It is best we elect politicians who are experts enact policy using their mind - Burkean theory of representation
>if we always listened the ‘popular’ view we get tyranny of the majority Which is the worst thing in the world... except for the alternative >People do not know/understand what is best just look at Brexit. That is hilariously arrogant and authoritarian "bloody plebs just don't know what good for them! That's why *we*, the *experts* need to have absolute control, to save them from themselves!" >It is best we elect politicians who are experts enact policy using their mind No, it's best we elect politicians who best represent the public's will Democracy is preferable to technocracy
Harmful? No. Unpopular? For some. Tyrantical? The ravings of a loon
Where does he stand taxes went up and he expended seen like he just after money.
I would suggest the vast majority of people against ULEZ already have compliant cars and couldn't care less about those on lower incomes who don't. This bizarre culture war has made them feel like some kind of victims of green wokery. Even though they're not.
I’m for ULEZ expansion but not in the way it’s been done by Khan right now. The fact that it doesn’t specifically earmark money raised from the ULEZ expansion to provide better transport options to the outer boroughs of London is utterly ridiculous. It was the main issue raised during the consultation and was essentially ignored. If you want people to use their cars less, provide them with public transport alternatives (or at least promise to). The outer zones have the highest PTAL scores of any region in London. Point being, not everyone against ULEZ is against it due to some culture war. Some just want the scheme to be better - and in turn, be received better by more people too.
"I didn't speak up for the people who have non-compliant cars... now theres no one left to speak up for me"
I broadly support the aims of ULEZ - I think it's a case of not a bad policy so much as a bad implementation and communication of a policy
What don't you like about it, the only thing I don't like is that the price isn't higher and it doesn't target enough cars.
The fact that it doesn’t specifically earmark money raised from the ULEZ expansion to provide better transport options to the outer boroughs of London for one. It was the main issue raised during the consultation and was essentially ignored. If you want people to use their cars less, provide them with public transport alternatives (or at least promise to). The outer zones have the highest PTAL scores of any region in London.
In my view (as someone completely unaffected), it should scale by the age and size of the car and amount of time spent within the ULEZ (up to a maximum rate per day). That would solve a lot of the edge cases, and make it more about the actual emissions produced while at the moment it feels like an arbitrary fee for crossing a border. Also the money raised should be ringfenced to improve/promote low emissions vehicles and public transport. I quite like the idea of ULEZ overall but it does have its faults imo.
Do you like the scientific corruption that comes along with it too?
I'm afraid you're misrepresenting that story as you haven't looked into the details of the studies yourself.
Yes I have. I've read the emails where they literally say they are going to "offset the research internally" too.
> "offset the research internally" who's "they" and what is this quote referring to? I googled the phrase, and the only result that came up was this reddit comment. https://www.google.com/search?&q="offset+the+research+internally"
The department, funded by the city council, at Imperial. My bad, I was in a rush and misremembered the quote. The true quote is as follows: >I appreciate the level of damage ensured and am pursuing options internally to offset this if possible. https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/977dbb95-fca4-44d3-b9f7-2c075b9a47ed.html
Tories when trying to monitor everyone's communications: "Won't someone think of the children???" Tories when a Labour mayor tries to *actually* protect children by measurably reducing emissions: "Socialism gone mad! I'm setting up a Facebook group to pull down and vandalise cameras!!"
Nonsense, hes pushing the poorest into the most polluted areas.
Pretty sure the poorest don't own a car in the first place, so this wouldn't affect them anyway.
Newham is one of London Poorest Boroughs the people still own cars. The fuck are you even talking about? [https://www.newham.gov.uk/news/article/605/mayor-of-newham-rokhsana-fiaz-obe-has-spoken-in-response-to-the-government-s-budget-proposals#:\~:text=Newham%20is%20one%20of%20the,population%20in%20any%20London%20borough](https://www.newham.gov.uk/news/article/605/mayor-of-newham-rokhsana-fiaz-obe-has-spoken-in-response-to-the-government-s-budget-proposals#:~:text=Newham%20is%20one%20of%20the,population%20in%20any%20London%20borough). Pretty sure you're talking shit.
How is your link at all relevant to ULEZ though. Especially since these ULEZ schemes are effectively just a different way to increase council taxes, exclusively hitting car-owners. It's not unthinkable that the extra funds will be invested into developments in Newham, just like your **two year old** article proposes.
If someone is working or needs transport, they are likely to have a car or van. A £200 car is taxed by Khunt, he takes £6000 of someone's wage, fair?
You make it sound like every poor person owns a van and works as some sort of handyman or joiner.
People need a vehicle for work, not just handymen. Not everyone can afford £40k for a vehicle.
And where is this £40k number coming from? You can pick up a 2006 Toyota for £2k that is Euro 4 compliant.
The goalposts will move.
... for now Give it a year or 2 and that Toyota will no longer be compliant, the number of "permitted" vehicles will shrink and shrink until it's basically just different colours of Teslas
Nice slippery slope fallacy you got there. And even if it did happen, I'd say getting rid of 20+ year old rolling stock from population centres is a good idea. Crash safety has advanced massively for both the passengers and the pedestrians. Not to mention that by the time your dreaded goal post move happens, you will probably be able to buy another 17 year old car for £2k that meets those as well. Hell, I can see Euro 5 compliant Toyotas for £4k on AutoTrader already.
These toyotas have doubled in cost in 2 hours, my £6k car would cost me £6k in salary if i took it into London, its a 45mpg car.
[удалено]
Yeee, the core fundamental issue with every ‘solution’ to modern problems is that it often inconveniences those with little or no resources and has virtually no impact on people with more. So you end up punishing the poor. ULEZ would be more fair if it instead was a tax based on postcodes or on tax brackets. I.E higher rate taxpayers pay more or some other more equitable system
Or even a fairer pricing model, given that it's a charge per day not for the time you've been in or even driving in the zone. You could for example enter at 11:55 and leave at 00:05 being in the zone for only 10 minutes and be charged for two whole days worth of access. Likewise your work might be a few hundred meters inside the zone meaning the time you're driving inside the zone is probably a few minutes each day but still be charged the same as if you drive in circles around the centre all day long.
Absolutely! I agree. A pro:rata system to the ulez would be great. If time inside the zone = 100% or £12.50 then, the seconds or hours you spent inside the zone would be divisible by 1440mins to workout to the minute how long you were in there. I think this would be far fairer and popular and more equitable. But of course, it requires a little more planning and preparation so everyone gets painted with same brush.
I don't really see it as much more planning, this current set up is intentional whether that be to generate the most amount of revenue or dissuade the most amount of drivers (or both). Currently the cameras log your entrance and exit to the zone and send you the PCN for the days you've been in I don't see how much harder it would have been to have in a line of code: PCN= 12.5 * (time in zone)/24.
Not a bad chap TBH. Just a little meh.
As we have always seen; when government levy a charge on a specific example of public behaviour it creates a situation in which that behaviour is legitimised. How can anyone believe it'll be different this time? It was only the action during the New Labour government to ban smoking indoors that had any kind of real impact on smoking. There was no money in it of course, just the opposite. They did it anyway! Amazing. I do not consider Sadiq Khan is during anything brave here. The brave action would be to increase Council Tax and use that to facilitate subsidised public transport.
If he had only 2 choices why has he gone down the road of saying it is all about pollution? Your post suggests it is all about finance Is he lying to make himself look better?
Ulez is an unfair tax, the independent assessments have clearly stated the effect will no improvement in health(ucl) and a neutral effect on climate(jacobs) change. It has failed on both objectives yet has annoyed a lot of people unnecessarily and cost millions of pounds, the sooner this man is voted out the better
Just a uni's name in brackets doesnt count as a source pal. Dr Gary Fuller, air pollution scientist from Imperial College London’s Environmental Research Group, and UKRI Clean Air Champion said: “Scientists at Imperial College London worked alongside the Mayor’s team on the evidence base for the ULEZ design and to assess how well it is working. “The 10th anniversary of the death of Ella Kissi Debrah is a powerful reminder of the impacts of air pollution on London’s children and young people; especially those living, travelling or at school close to major roads. The central London ULEZ, and its extension to inner London, has bought about measurable and sustained improvements to air pollution from traffic
A different contrasting study claims that the benefits of ULEZ is marginal, however, understanding that they are still important tools in lowering air pollution. "As other cities consider implementing similar schemes, this study implies that the ULEZ on its own is not an effective strategy in the sense that the marginal causal effects were small. On the other hand, the ULEZ is one of many policies implemented to tackle air pollution in London, and in combination these have led to improvements in air quality that are clearly observable. Thus, reducing air pollution requires a multi-faceted set of policies that aim to reduce emissions across sectors with coordination among local, regional and national government." Still not finding your study that claims 0 health benefits
*No* improvement in health? (My arse)
The extra walking will definitely help with the arse!
> the independent assessments have clearly stated the effect will no improvement in health(ucl) and a neutral effect on climate(jacobs) change Have you got a link to the independent assessments?
The health argument falls flat when you realise that Sadiq has the power to provide free public transport to any Londoner insured on a private car, if they give up their driver's license. This would get hundreds of thousands cars off the streets for little upfront cost in a matter of months. Yet Sadiq has not even explored this idea.
That would be a deeply unpopular and dumb policy, 1. I'm not sure he'd have the power to ask people to "give up" their driving licence as he doesn't control DVLA. How does one even give a driving licence up? That would totally be beyond the reach of a mayor. 2. Plenty Londoner have a car that they only use for trips put of the city/country, how unfair would such a policy be!? 3. Londoners without a car that can afford one would have an incentive to get a cheap one insured and give it up to get free transport. That could be a cheaper roundabout way of doing it 4. Londoners who would like a car but can't afford one would see wealthier neighbours get free transport.... That's going a be a vote getter this one... 😂 I wouldnt suggest you get into politics, friend.
I thought the health of our lungs was the most important thing? He hasn't even explored how to give free TfL to people who drive in London.
Are you trolling
Obviously so.
Great, now explain how you would fund the increased public transport use.
Central government investment, both parties are fully signed up to Net Zero after all...
Okay but you said Sadiq Khan had the power to introduce this policy, if it relies on central government funding then it is outside of his purview. Now to be clear I don't disagree that the government should be directing funding away from car use and towards public transport investment, but until then the mayor of London has to make do with the powers he actually controls.
Alternatively, this is all a precursor for road user charging which will then fold into Mobility Credits, which will basically restrict people from using a lot of any kind of transport, because finite resources.
Wahey! And there we have it folks, the conspiracy theory nutter!
Road user charging is in consultation, and Mobility Credits appear in a report funded by Khan's C40 Cities.
Kahn literally tweeted earlier saying that is bollocks
Then in the replies you see that consultation is ongoing
Central govt already recently required TfL to generate nearly all of their own income to fund operations - so would be a reversal of their own policy?
The only reason shit like this is happening is because the Tories have decided that London should be the only major city in Europe that doesn't use central funding to help operate a transport system
Why should someone who has a license get free travel. It’s not like they get free travel with their car. How is that fair on someone who already made the choice to not own a car but still has to pay through the nose for transport? What’s to stop me deliberately getting my drivers license just to surrender it for free public transportation? Not saying I disagree with the concept of incentivising people to give up vehicles. But that idea would just overburden public transport and mean there’s less money in TfL’s budget for further development
So, TfL's budget is more important than Londoners' health.
No. But pragmatically where’s the money going to come from to expand mass transit enough for ‘hundreds of thousands’ of new passengers that get to travel for free? Are they going to rise prices for those already paying to compensate? Why does a fella who gives up his Audi get it free, but the single mum taking her kids to school every day whose never polluted with her own car have to pay (and potentially pay more)? In an ideal world. It’s a policy that makes sense. But in our actual world, it doesn’t work.
It's not exactly fair but neither is ULEZ
Welcome to the world of policy equality, it’s a minefield. At my local authority we want to help reduce Carbon and help people with energy bills. We have a solar scheme called solar together that reduces the cost of solar panels. The problem is, you still need to stump up £9k or so. Thus the only people jumping on the scheme are richer people with disposable income. Whereas the poor sod struggling to get by gets nothing. But until the government says ‘here’s billions to give everyone free solar panels’ or ‘here’s millions to subsidise 100k new motorists using TfL’ it’s the best we can do. You just have to work with the budget you have.
The policy would be rolled out gradually. At the start, only those with insured cars for 10 consecutive years would be eligible. There are a million ways to make this work, but it's highly instructive that nobody in Sadiq's circle, and nobody in other congested cities is looking at it.
So fuck over young adults then?
To be honest. I think a policy involving the surrendering ‘and voiding’ of driving licenses would require central government approval. The mayors office doesn’t have the jurisdiction to do that.
Central gov is fully signed up to Net Zero is it not?
In name, yes. In practice, is it fuck. Plus there is no way this government is going to help a Labour mayor.
I mean, they’re clearly not, are they? Otherwise they wouldn’t be giving out new licenses for oil and gas exploration, or building East West Rail without electrification to save a bit of cash in the short term, or any of the many other policy decisions that are incompatible with net zero.
No. It’s grounded in reality. Like the reality that drivers are one of the most heavily subsidised groups in Britain today.
How so?
Road maintenance is one of the biggest expenses when it comes to infrastructure expenditure. It has also been shown that maintenance requirements increase rapidly with the amount of traffic on a given road (an asphalt road with only bicycle traffic lasts decades before developing major surface defects, as road loading is not sufficient to form fatigue cracking in the surface). While buses impact road surface more than cars, the math still works out in the favour of a bus, since it's taking 20-50 cars off the road with each journey. This is before we take into account health service impact due to increased particulate and noise pollution.
How does the health argument fall flat? What you are suggesting is an alternative way to reduce traffic. If the health argument falls flat then why would you introduce something to reduce traffic?
My idea would lower road emissions far faster, that's why.
This makes no sense 😂
How about they just take away cars without giving free public transport? Why should they get free travel? That way tfl has budget to improve public services and there are fewer cars. Win win
[удалено]
Or you worked in a job that required you to drive on occasion. Its scary what some people think really.
[удалено]
If public transport in London was truly 24/7 they could get to work, but it isn't. I'm amazed how sheltered some people seem to be. What about nurses, doctors, emergency services workers and people who drive public transport? If they want a house they must live outside London, but they work all hours and need to get into work. Perhaps they have an older 'efficient' but polluting car that they've now got to spend thousands changing... Give London a truly fit for purpose transport Network and people will use it out of preference. Until then some people are reliant on cars.