All the millionaires would be swanning around in their Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis and us oiks who can’t afford that would be priced off the road. Same with ‘congestion charging’ and road pricing, it’s a great way of getting the poor off the roads so the rich can get about more quickly.
Congestion charging works slightly differently IME. Getting in and around city centers by car is a PITA, and they're generally well served by public transport. No one's priced out of London by the congestion charge, just for example I did a job on Portman Place just off Oxford Street.
Congestion charge - £15
Parking £56 for 8 hours, and it has to be moved to another street at lunch as it's only available for 4 hours and no return within .... hours.
Driving ... 3+ hours from the M25 and back!
The £15 doesn't even really figure in that.
It probably does do its job stopping people from driving individually around London though.
Solves IRC’s problem too, you rearrange the infrastructure so it takes about the same time for a journey by car, bike or bus.
Excellent. Public transport is shite. Let's solve it by making everthing else shite as well.
By the way cars are already heavily discouraged in my local city centre -Glasgow. By expensive parking, bus/taxi only streets. Funnily enough the most heavily polluted street in Glasgow - Hope St - is mainly bus/taxi only at the monitoring point.
(Edit not sure siting the station at a taxi rank was ideaL)
https://goo.gl/maps/wJMkFHvXoTVB39HYA
Result is, along with others, I rarely go into the city centre. Out of town shopping centres with free parking and easy access off the motorways have prospered as city centre department stores closed down.
and how do you break that cycle I wonder.
Except for a very small amount of cases , I would wager that you never will.....
Most of the suggestions above are just punishing or creating hardship for car ownership.
Yep, cars and their owners are sort of the problem, if you 'punish' their use that might help reduce the problem and force people to seek alternatives...
WFH is a better solution but no all people do that.
Yep, WFH comes with the benefit of not requiring as much car use. Those that need to travel would still be free to explore all options including a car, but as we already know, car access without any real financial impediments leads to excessive car use.
If cars were too expensive for most to run, there would be a gap in the market for someone to offer some sort of alternative affordable transport... Crazy innit?
I much prefer the Dutch approach, just close the roads that cause the problems (in most cases the ones around town, rather than in/out). That way everyone get’s targeted equally.
I quite like this actually, essentially make towns and cities no go areas for cars, but I still think extra-urban car use is a significant problem and you're just moving all those 20+ mile commuters cars from town centres to park and ride locations, an improvement but not really a deterrent to daily driving.
Perhaps we need to abandon the idea of "fairness" in all of this, the world we live in already isn't fair, and it's not really looking likely to become any fairer. So criticism of measures to reduce pollution and congestion on the basis of false notions about fairness for all, are sort of empty (IMO).
OK so a single massive hike in fuel duty isn't practical, but we've got a decade or so until new ICE vehicles can no longer be sold anyway, that's a bit of a cliff edge at present.
Why not simply implement a steeper fuel duty escalator over that period, such that by 2024 a litre of diesel is heading for north of £2.50ish, by 2027 it's getting on for £5? And by the time we hit 2030 if you're still driving a V8 you're either a maniac and/or a billionaire.
For those still obsessed with the personal "freedom" and autonomy of private car ownership or those living in more rural settings, come 2030 there will have been a decade for the industry to get their act together and flog you an affordable leccy car. Of course countryside dwellers might also decide by then that rural, public transport policy is an issue that might sway them when voting...
But yeah, the best (extant) mechanism to deal with excessive car use and it's associated problems right now is still cranking up fuel duty (IMO)...
Excellent. Public transport is shite. Let’s solve it by making everthing else shite as well.
No, because if you make car driving difficult in the way the Dutch do, you only discourage driving from one suburb to another. You can still drive radially into town if you need the car, and the circumferential routes are still open to busses and bikes.
So you either:
Get the bus or cycle because it's quicker within the town.
Or.
Drive between towns as usual because that's unaffected.
The reason I picked your example is because at the moment this is exactly how we make busses work. You have to ride all the way into the town, then all the way back out again to make short trips.
The better alternative is to force cars to do that (out via the ring road rather than town center like current bus routes). Which then makes it a 1h47 drive to the garage, and a short bus ride back (because demand for busses is created and therefore they start to exist) allong the route you would previously have driven.
But yeah, the best (extant) mechanism to deal with excessive car use and it’s associated problems right now is still cranking up fuel duty (IMO)…
It's certainly the easiest - doesn't require any investment in infrastructure like ANPR and black boxes and toll charging. It's not a political winner though; in fact it's the main reason while fuel duty has been frozen for 11 years now (trumpeted by the tabloids as a victory for the "hard-working motorist").
The problem, as also mentioned previously, is the political landscape. Populist quick-win policies that favour "the hard-pressed motorist" and "the economy" means building more roads, keeping fuel duty low, making it easier to buy cars, having housing developments that are based almost exclusively on car ownership and use and basing everything on cost-benefit analysis that virtually overlooks the externalities of car ownership like pollution and congestion. And when congestion is factored in, the answer has always been to build more roads. Catch-22.
And now we're in a situation of our own making where we're painted into a corner or car use and ownership and any alternatives like rail, bus and active travel have been underfunded (or privitised, carved up and sold off) for the last 30 years so any interventions are, of necessity, going to be far harsher and far more sudden than simply phasing something in over 15-20 years.
You should see the comments on the local forum for the area where my Mum lives about the Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes...
As for Leccy motors? Where are the current incentives for the manufacturers to make them more affordable?
It's the upcoming ban on IC cars. They'll have to make them affordable one way or another because otherwise they won't sell any.
And he was absolutely correct. If you wanted to influence the behaviour of (ICE) vehicle owners you’d abolish all the other motor vehicle related taxes and just multiply the price of fuel by 10.
This would instantly make most people in the countryside destitute as they wouldn't be able to get to their jobs. And most people in towns too, to be fair.
We need intelligent solutions not stupid ones.
Yep, cars and their owners are sort of the problem, if you ‘punish’ their use that might help reduce the problem and force people to seek alternatives…
Or ignore those who complain ...
I will definitely vote No even if I am the only voting No.
Carbon emission etc ... nope. I can die from pollution or I can die from stress. I prefer the former with a big grin on my face while driving my V8 monster if I can afford one.
upcoming
A decade away, and it's only a ban on new ICE sales.
So there's still going to be ICE cars chugging out fumes on cut price fuel for another 10-15 years as it stands...
There's no real reason for electric cars to be so much pricer than ICE, fundamentally they're simpler to assemble, it's just newness tax and a desire from the manufacturers to con people into buying at least one more (essentially) obsolete ICE car before making the switch a bit too late...
This would instantly make most people in the countryside destitute as they wouldn’t be able to get to their jobs.
Would it? "Destitute"?
Or do you simply mean they would be faced with an additional challenge to deal with, like everyone else would have to. Perhaps they would find themselves with a similar need for reliable, frequent public transport to those living in towns...
We need intelligent solutions not stupid ones.
Go in then, let's have it.
I keep hearing about the problems (which I don't dispute there are), but very few other "solutions" where people don't just get to basically carry on as they are for another decade... All it really sounds like is "Wah wah wah! I wanna keep my Landy!"
Which you can, you'll just have to sell a kidney to fuel it.
The better alternative is to force cars to do that (out via the ring road rather than town center like current bus routes). Which then makes it a 1h47 drive to the garage, and a short bus ride back (because demand for busses is created and therefore they start to exist) along the route you would previously have driven.
Buses already exist along my route because it is a radial suburb to city centre route. Not many people use them though because buses are slow and uncomfortable. For example because many people have free bus travel or all day/season tickets many of the other passengers were using a bus for a 500 yard journey. As a result the bus stops almost every stop for a 7 mile journey which therefore takes 52 minutes. As the bus operators cram in as many seats as possible a bus trip is very uncomfortable for anyone over 5ft10. Rock hard suspension and potholed roads don't help either. Before I would consider actively choosing a bus over a car a starting point would be 3 wider seats across the bus and another 5" legpoom. And a return to the pre deregulation system whereby buses travelling to the suburbs did not drop passengers inside the Glasgow boundary so the bus made fewer stops.
As an example we are going to York for a few days. We have chosen to take the train (First Class) because it is convenient and comfortable even though that costs £200 for two of us versus £50 petrol by car.
If my garage was made a 1hr47 drive away by road closures I would use a different garage. If enough other consumers took similar decisions businesses would re-locate outside the city. Outside central London and similar congested inner cities public transport will never be as fast and convenient as a car. People that have cars will continue to use them over public transport.
Or do you simply mean they would be faced with an additional challenge to deal with, like everyone else would have to. Perhaps they would find themselves with a similar need for reliable, frequent public transport to those living in towns…
So in your utopia I'm going to get bus service which stops outside my house and takes me to where I need to go (and back again)? Is it going to be running 24/7 or just when I need it?
Transport policy suggestion... having a transport policy would be a good start.
As howsyoudad1 says, it won't happen without political will. It's not what the politicians say, it's what they do - fuel duty has been frozen for years, so is going down in real terms. In London, the culture is public transport, for many. Elsewhere, it's car if you can afford it or struggle if you can't. One of the most damaging things Thatcher did was destroy the system they had in Sheffield, which subsidised the buses, making them so cheap lots of people used them, so there were frequent services, so more people used them, and a virtuous circle - but subsidies were against Tory principles, so had to go.
In Sheffield (well, South Yorkshire) we had our annual revenue budget cut from £110m in 2012 to £56m or thereabouts last year (doing numbers off top of my head so years and exact amounts might vary slightly, but you get the idea).
Given that around 40% of our budget goes on paying bus companies to carry ENCTS (elderly and disabled) passengers, it doesn’t take genius to work out that the subsidies paying for the non-profitable routes have took a hammering. Having lived here most of my life I remember fondly the 2p and 5p fares, busy buses and a comprehensive network. Sure, it cost a lot to keep it running but it did work and car ownership was a lot lower back then in the late 70’s and early 80’s before the market was deregulated.
I haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if I'm repeating earlier comments:
We need to break-away from the post-war 'ownership' model as it results in a product lifecycle driven by the finance leasing model and the whim of vehicle manufacturers, rather than technology redundancy or the optimum use of resources.
Road pricing is going to happen because fuel duty and VED incomes are going to decline significantly. But if done sensibly it can be adjusted in terms of location, time of day, mode of transport accordingly. Adjustments need to be made for those coming from rural areas e.g. free parking / switching to other modes.
The biggest polluters are diesel taxis, vans. trucks and buses and investment needs to made in alternative drive systems such as hydrogen or electric.
In a post-pandemic world, jamming people onto public transport isn't going to be popular so there needs to be greater encouragement of efficient personal transport like bike, e-bikes, e-scooters.
Everyone assumes that the car 'ownership' model will be the prevailing model - with the probable costs of autonomous vehicles being prohibitive, why not simply pay for them by the hour? This is where the Uber model is heading.
why not simply pay for them by the hour
That works if all you want to carry is people and standard luggage, but not for bikes, kayaks, etc (which is about all I use a car for).
Go in then, let’s have it.
Keep up with the clean technology, hydrogen, hybrid, EV whatever, all of which should be available for people to choose at the same time.
Increase R& D to make it clean, cheap, affordable with economical sense and people will adapt without all the foolish legislation to justify their own existence.
If nobody wants your technology this can only mean the technology is rubbish and to force people to adapt to the "sub-optimal technology" through the backhand tactics. Innovation? Yeah, my foot.
Congestion? Let it be. People can sit in their clean technology vehicles as long as they wish coz they do "not" pollute since they are no longer "emitting pollutants".
You want to cycle or use alternative transport? Your choice.
The rest of the backhand legislative solutions are just restrictive (no freedom), hardship and stress.