TfL funding, congestion charge etc.

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newfhouse

Resolutely on topic
I saw this article in The Guardian. The executive summary is that Transport for London needs emergency central government funding as a result of hugely reduced fare revenue, for obvious reasons. The government are trying to reduce their contribution by forcing the mayor to be associated with unpopular policies, in this case extending the Congestion Charge Zone. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that, and the politics that surround it, this part jumped out at me:
the deputy mayor Heidi Alexander said neither she nor Khan “can see how it’s right to charge people £15 to drive a mile from Wandsworth to Clapham, or Catford to Lewisham from October next year
Surely we should be dissuading able-bodied people from driving mile long journeys like that.


@Moderators Feel free to move this to the most appropriate forum :okay:
 
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Drago

Legendary Member
What's actually happening is fairly certain.

The motivation behind it all is not, and the Guardians take on it doesn't tally exactly with some others. As usual, a problem that was not political in origin becomes one because of partisan reporting.

As for getting city dwellers out of their card, I'm all for it. Carrot ain't worked so far, so whack them with mighty big stick. The problem with politicians is that they're more worried about the next election than they are about doing the right thing, and that's the bottom line here too - the right thing needs to be done, and to hell with how popular or unpopular it makes politicians. If people don't want to pay 15 sheets to drive mile, then there's a very simple solution. If Khan hasn't got the stones to do the right thing then he is morally bankrupt and shouldn't have taken the job.
 
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I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
Here here.

Just facing a similar conundrum here.

Manchester are looking to introduce an emissions based charging zone.

Bit of a problem for me with my old (some may say classic) 1994 Defender, but would never dream of driving just 1 mile unless I had to cart something that couldn't be handled in a pannier or rucksack, or maybe if it was absolutely lashing it down and the journey couldn't be delayed.

TBH, quite happy to be discouraged from unnecessary vehicle use with some financial incentivising , just need to be reassured that I am not penalised for ownership rather than use.
 

BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
Here here.

Just facing a similar conundrum here.

Manchester are looking to introduce an emissions based charging zone.

Bit of a problem for me with my old (some may say classic) 1994 Defender, but would never dream of driving just 1 mile unless I had to cart something that couldn't be handled in a pannier or rucksack, or maybe if it was absolutely lashing it down and the journey couldn't be delayed.

TBH, quite happy to be discouraged from unnecessary vehicle use with some financial incentivising , just need to be reassured that I am not penalised for ownership rather than use.

I thought that was in fact an issue with the London Congestion Charge, ie, if you own a high emission vehicle, and live within the Congestion Zone, you incur a daily charge (which is not usage based). I may be wrong, since I don't live or travel within the Congestion Zone area, so, am no expert on it.

Locally (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) had plans for Congestion Charging (Tyne Bridge), but, it would appear that local opposition and backbone lacking Councillors have put paid to the idea for now.
 

irw

Quadricyclist
Location
Liverpool, UK
I thought that was in fact an issue with the London Congestion Charge, ie, if you own a high emission vehicle, and live within the Congestion Zone, you incur a daily charge (which is not usage based). I may be wrong, since I don't live or travel within the Congestion Zone area, so, am no expert on it.

As someone who travels down to London every now and then for work (when the theatres are open!), I thought I'd check up on where the Ultra Low Emission Zone covers as I recall hearing about some changes to it a while ago. At the moment, it covers the same area as the congestion charge, which doesn't cause me any grief, as I always manage to skirt around that. As of October 2021 however, it's going to expand to the area encompassed by the North & South circular roads (but not including them).

This does cause me some inconvenience, as often I'll stay in digs within this boundary (although will generally park up at the beginning of my time there, and not use the car until I leave, utilising the public transport instead). Further digging reveals this on the ULEZ site:
Even if you make a short trip in the zone using a vehicle that doesn't meet the ULEZ emissions standards, you need to pay the daily change. However. if you are parked within the zone but don't drive, you don't need to pay the ULEZ charge.

So effectively, all my jobs in London that I need to drive down for will cost me an extra £25, so long as I don't need to use the car whilst I'm down there.

Edited to add:
Just realised, we're talking about the Congestion Charge, not ULEZ...That means it's going to cost me potentially an extra £55! Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of discouraging unnecessary journeys, but as someone who can't really afford a spangly new low emissions car, no matter how much I'd like to, that really does feel a bit OTT for approximately 3 miles driving tops, once in a blue moon, at the end/beginning of a 200 mile journey.
 
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SkipdiverJohn

Deplorable Brexiteer
Location
London
There's a simple answer to this; don't vote for a bunch of anti-motorist Lefty nutters like Khan. The fact that TfL is in the shoot financially is entirely down to gross mismanagement. During the lockdown, that complete and utter tool Khan was effectively giving everyone free travel, by still running services but not bothering collecting any fares from the passengers. Plus TfL tolerated massive levels of spurious staff absence without taking any action. Essentially, anyone who fancied a load of paid time off just said they might have the virus, and off they went on full pay no questions asked. Khan also spends a fortune of London taxpayer's money on TfL advertising & PR, much of which is politically slanted towards promoting him, not merely informing the public about relevant things.
What the government should do is take direct control of TfL away from the GLA to prevent Khan mismanaging it, and then get rid of the rest of the GLA and the office of Mayor. Livingstone mismanaged the GLC for political reasons until Thatcher eventually got so pissed off with him, the Authority ended up being abolished, and now due to Khan's emulation of Red Ken's antics it's time to kick him and the GLA into touch too.
 
OP
OP
newfhouse

newfhouse

Resolutely on topic
There's a simple answer to this; don't vote for a bunch of anti-motorist Lefty nutters like Khan. The fact that TfL is in the shoot financially is entirely down to gross mismanagement. During the lockdown, that complete and utter tool Khan was effectively giving everyone free travel, by still running services but not bothering collecting any fares from the passengers. Plus TfL tolerated massive levels of spurious staff absence without taking any action. Essentially, anyone who fancied a load of paid time off just said they might have the virus, and off they went on full pay no questions asked. Khan also spends a fortune of London taxpayer's money on TfL advertising & PR, much of which is politically slanted towards promoting him, not merely informing the public about relevant things.
What the government should do is take direct control of TfL away from the GLA to prevent Khan mismanaging it, and then get rid of the rest of the GLA and the office of Mayor. Livingstone mismanaged the GLC for political reasons until Thatcher eventually got so pissed off with him, the Authority ended up being abolished, and now due to Khan's emulation of Red Ken's antics it's time to kick him and the GLA into touch too.
As so often, your simple answers don’t correspond with a more complex reality.
Just for starters, front boarding and hence payment on buses at the height of the first wave was stopped because drivers were dying.
Thirty-three London bus workers have died after contracting Covid-19, including 29 drivers.

Your nonsense about abolishing the GLA because you don’t like the actions of the democratically elected mayor speaks for itself.
 
Location
London
There's a simple answer to this; don't vote for a bunch of anti-motorist Lefty nutters like Khan. The fact that TfL is in the shoot financially is entirely down to gross mismanagement. During the lockdown, that complete and utter tool Khan was effectively giving everyone free travel, by still running services but not bothering collecting any fares from the passengers. Plus TfL tolerated massive levels of spurious staff absence without taking any action. Essentially, anyone who fancied a load of paid time off just said they might have the virus, and off they went on full pay no questions asked. Khan also spends a fortune of London taxpayer's money on TfL advertising & PR, much of which is politically slanted towards promoting him, not merely informing the public about relevant things.
What the government should do is take direct control of TfL away from the GLA to prevent Khan mismanaging it, and then get rid of the rest of the GLA and the office of Mayor. Livingstone mismanaged the GLC for political reasons until Thatcher eventually got so pissed off with him, the Authority ended up being abolished, and now due to Khan's emulation of Red Ken's antics it's time to kick him and the GLA into touch too.
Sorry skipdiver, a way over the top response.
First, Khan is not a "lefty nutter" as you put it, quite the opposite - very moderate to put it politely. I consider him to be just a manager in many ways. If your blood gets boiling at the likes of Khan I fear for your blood vessels and health if you encounter anyone with more challenging opinions.
No, TFL is in the shoot because of a global pandemic. I seem to recall that you thought this pandemic a piece of piffle for a long time (god knows where we would all be if we had followed you on that) but you surely must have noticed something amiss of late? Ghost town London for a long time, empty buses, no one in stations, hardly anyone on trains. People told to stay at home.

TFL is a truly massive operation. Have you seen the figures for their normal time weekly fares intake? ** Where do you think all that has gone for the last 6 months of this god given hell?

Yes, for a short period buses were not taking fares. This was simply because of extreme concern about the health of drivers and passengers. It was a very short period.

Advertising TFL and its travel initiatives is not political. There are pretty strict rules about that sort of thing in this country.

Get ride of the GLA and the mayor? I remember the abolition of the GLC - an act of political spite by Thatcher that left London, a major global city, without any local democracy. And saw County Hall, the long-time home of London democracy, (including the earlier London County Council which did much good work - take a look at some of their social housing, now sadly sold off, next time you are cycling around) flogged to a hotel and aquarium outfit. God knows who owns it now. A Japanese investment outfit?

If you personally want to get rid of mayor Khan you can vote against him in an election.

While democracy still exists. Suggest you use it.

I'd get some fresh air skipdiver and ride one of your expertly maintained bikes.

And continue to give us the benefit of your expertise and knowledge in bike matters.

By the by, as part of this short term rescue package it appears that the government tried to abolish free travel for oldsters. The London version of that was introduced by that lefty nutter Boris. The current lefty nutters held firm in the face of the onslaught. Let's hope they can hold on. The pressure on them will surely mount.

** edit
Here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54568920

It says funds down £45 million a week. Please forward your down-home proposals for filling that hole with Thatcher's home economics money saving tips. Re-use tea bags?

The current deal is only for two weeks - in no time at all there is going to be another mega showdown/crisis.
 
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Paulus

Started young, and still going.
Location
Barnet,
Boris is trying to do the same to TFL as Thatcher did to the GLC.
At the start of the lockdown the government wanted TFLto continue running services at 90% although passenger numbers were down by 95%..
London Underground gets no subsidy for it's day to day operations. But was expected to run nearly all of it services. The buses were the same.
At the same time the government is paying for the main line train operating companies to continue to run their services, but remember, apart from LNER which is now under government control, all the others are privately owned. So the government is effectively giving money to private investors, but puts stringent conditions on a london wide transport system, with an elected Labour Mayor and authority.
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
Here here.

Just facing a similar conundrum here.

Manchester are looking to introduce an emissions based charging zone.

Bit of a problem for me with my old (some may say classic) 1994 Defender, but would never dream of driving just 1 mile unless I had to cart something that couldn't be handled in a pannier or rucksack, or maybe if it was absolutely lashing it down and the journey couldn't be delayed.

TBH, quite happy to be discouraged from unnecessary vehicle use with some financial incentivising , just need to be reassured that I am not penalised for ownership rather than use.
Leeds are also considering the same, where the problem lies is they don't think of an alternative way to access the city centre, there is now to my knowledge 2 park and rides, one is at Elland Rd and the other is just off the A1/M1 link road at the Cross Green industrial area, the Elland Rd one closes when Leeds United have a home game as it's next door to the ground, the other is now closed and is a drive in covid-19 test site, to my mind we should have both the carrot & the stick, ie cheaper buses/more park and rides, along with an emissions charge if you drive in, with concessions for the disabled who cannot use a bus.
York has a fantastic park & ride system that circles the city, with buses every 10 minutes, you can even park there & cycle into York if you want, it works really well and keeps a lot of traffic away from the city centre, which really can't cope with it.
The other problem is access to businesses for deliveries/contractors, some accommodation has to be made for these too as the charges only end up getting passed onto the end customer.
The rest of Britain can only dream of public transport that London has
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
I thought that was in fact an issue with the London Congestion Charge, ie, if you own a high emission vehicle, and live within the Congestion Zone, you incur a daily charge (which is not usage based). I may be wrong, since I don't live or travel within the Congestion Zone area, so, am no expert on it.

Locally (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) had plans for Congestion Charging (Tyne Bridge), but, it would appear that local opposition and backbone lacking Councillors have put paid to the idea for now.
So all the traffic jams/diversion at the Gateshead end of the Tyne bridge were for nothing, it seemed to me that they were intending to build a bus/cycle route to where you turn left at the archway business units to go onto the bridge, will that still be going ahead?.
Perhaps a better idea would be to remove the toll at the Tyne Tunnel so drivers would go that way instead.
 

Brooks

Senior Member
Location
S.E. London
We have a catch 22 in London, people have been scared by the media not to use public transport and they aren't, net result major loss of revenue. Councils trying to implement low traffic neighbourhoods are facing a very vocal backlash as people are turning to the car more than ever. Despite the walking and cycling initiatives they are not giving up the car for even the shortest of journeys.
I joined one group on Facebook and the anti cycling feeling is unbelievable. Any and all jams are being blamed on cyclists, it's comedy reading but scary they think this way.
 

hatler

Guru
We have a catch 22 in London, people have been scared by the media not to use public transport and they aren't, net result major loss of revenue. Councils trying to implement low traffic neighbourhoods are facing a very vocal backlash as people are turning to the car more than ever. Despite the walking and cycling initiatives they are not giving up the car for even the shortest of journeys.
I joined one group on Facebook and the anti cycling feeling is unbelievable. Any and all jams are being blamed on cyclists, it's comedy reading but scary they think this way.
I can confirm exactly that pattern in SW London.
 
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