London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

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thatapanydude
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by thatapanydude »

Quite simply ridiculous !! Has anyone ever explained why road users are bearing the full brunt of cuts in a situation where the over-spending has come on rail, buses and general poor management by TfL.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Truvelo »

ChrisH wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 14:57 ...and a pretty complex look-up to DVLA or other databases to show whether a motorist has registered their car in London or not.
And I suspect a lot of drivers who commute into London from outside will register their cars there to get around the charge.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by c2R »

The following things are also worth mentioning:
* Londoners use roads outside London, either directly (like when they junction hop on the M25 to get between Enfield and Heathrow), or indirectly when all the products that they use arrive by road
* London is extraordinarily wealthy, whereas much of the country is not - it is only right that London subsidises freight routes through poorer parts of the country
* Where London leads others could easily follow - say Cumbria decides that it needs some more money - why not just charge anyone coming in to visit the lake district £3 the moment they step off a Highways England road?
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by WHBM »

Here's what we've been hit with to subsidise the profligate London local authorities :

- Residential parking, hitherto free, to be £200 per year (unless you have an electric car), from 1 January. 5 weeks notice.

- Congestion charge pushed out to the North Circular. £15 a day.

- ULEZ pushed out to the North Circular. Another £15 a day.

Our school has two Transit school buses. They don't do much but do the swimming bath runs each day. Now faced with the cost of replacing them both.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Herned »

jackal wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 14:54 London keeps most of its business rates, raising billions per year. If that is instead sent to the Treasury, as is the case for other regions, they can keep their VED.
It isn't the case for other regions, it happens in a number of authorities. One of the principles of the scheme is to be revenue-neutral, so removing other sources of funding at the same time
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Micro The Maniac »

c2R wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 17:10 * London is extraordinarily wealthy, whereas much of the country is not - it is only right that London subsidises freight routes through poorer parts of the country
To be fair... small parts of London are extraordinarily, extraordinarily wealthy - but many parts of London are arguably some of the most deprived areas of the Country!
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Micro The Maniac »

WHBM wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 20:11- Congestion charge pushed out to the North Circular. £15 a day.
Plan scrapped.
- ULEZ pushed out to the North Circular. Another £15 a day.
Announced several years ago...

That doesn't make it any better a plan...
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Vierwielen »

Micro The Maniac wrote: Fri Oct 23, 2020 06:51
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 13:46 Yes, I think we are on a similar page - there needs to be a 'sub-trunk' category of strategic roads that aren't of national significance but an area would be stuffed without.
At a risk of agreeing with Bryn, which would never do :shock:, if only we had a hierarchy of road designation/numbering. For example:
  • Ax/Axx for the strategic roads (SRN?)
  • Axxx/Axxxx for regional roads (MRN?)
  • Bxxxx for local main roads
  • Cxxxx for local "distributor" roads, and
  • Uxxxx for residential roads
  • etc
I'm sure there is a system for deciding what number a road gets (other than "nothing better was available") but I do hold the view that a roads number should reflect its importance. Otherwise, what is the point in having the different conventions?
In other words, introducing a few other levels between "Primary" and "Secondary". You could of course look at what he French do:
  • A - [National] Autoroute
  • N - Route nationale (non-autoroute)
  • D - Route departmental
  • C - Route communale
This indcates clearly who has the responsibility of maintaining the road (I have yet to see anything at the regional level). At the same time the French like to keep their road identifiers short, so certain "D" numbers are replicated at various parts of the country - but if you saw a note about the D1 in Calais, you would not confuse it with the D1 in Marseilles. (A bit like the A34 in the UK - one part of it from effectively Oxford to Southampton and the other part just south of Manchester, except that used to be a single road.
Last edited by Vierwielen on Tue Apr 13, 2021 21:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Chris Bertram »

You may also find V - Vicinale, but that really only covers urban streets. The French like to number as many roads as they can get away with.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Chris5156 »

c2R wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 17:10* Londoners use roads outside London, either directly (like when they junction hop on the M25 to get between Enfield and Heathrow), or indirectly when all the products that they use arrive by road
* London is extraordinarily wealthy, whereas much of the country is not - it is only right that London subsidises freight routes through poorer parts of the country
Londoners do use roads outside of Greater London, just as motorists in every other district of the UK will use roads outside their owl locality. That is why, since motoring taxes were first introduced, the concept has been that everyone pays in to the central pot, and the central pot pays for all roads. VED goes to the Treasury and the Treasury pays out for trunk roads and dishes out classified road grants to local authorities.

Unfortunately London motorists pay VED but VED is ringfenced for trunk roads, and trunk roads do not exist in Greater London (barring stub-ends of three motorways and a bit of M25 that passes through like a transit corridor). The Treasury also pays no classified road grants to TfL or the Boroughs, the function of passing grants to the Boroughs having been delegated to TfL and TfL receiving no such grant themselves.

So, unlike every other region of the UK, London pays in to the roads pot, but gets very little out.

It's one thing for the richest region to subsidise the rest of the UK; this, however, just feels like a strange and unjustifiable anomaly to me. If Londoners must pay for roads outside London, but people outside London pay nothing for roads within the GLA boundaries, then why shouldn't the GLA charge an entry fee for non-residents? It's like Switzerland asking foreign drivers to pay for a vignette.

Ultimately, though, I suspect this idea is less a serious proposal and more likely a bit of posturing. It's part of a negotiating process between a Mayor and authority who are looking for more money, and a Government who are using the Coronavirus-related funding crisis in London to make a fairly blatant power grab.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Scratchwood »

Chris5156 wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 00:34
c2R wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 17:10* Londoners use roads outside London, either directly (like when they junction hop on the M25 to get between Enfield and Heathrow), or indirectly when all the products that they use arrive by road
* London is extraordinarily wealthy, whereas much of the country is not - it is only right that London subsidises freight routes through poorer parts of the country
Londoners do use roads outside of Greater London, just as motorists in every other district of the UK will use roads outside their owl locality. That is why, since motoring taxes were first introduced, the concept has been that everyone pays in to the central pot, and the central pot pays for all roads. VED goes to the Treasury and the Treasury pays out for trunk roads and dishes out classified road grants to local authorities.

Unfortunately London motorists pay VED but VED is ringfenced for trunk roads, and trunk roads do not exist in Greater London (barring stub-ends of three motorways and a bit of M25 that passes through like a transit corridor). The Treasury also pays no classified road grants to TfL or the Boroughs, the function of passing grants to the Boroughs having been delegated to TfL and TfL receiving no such grant themselves.

So, unlike every other region of the UK, London pays in to the roads pot, but gets very little out.

It's one thing for the richest region to subsidise the rest of the UK; this, however, just feels like a strange and unjustifiable anomaly to me. If Londoners must pay for roads outside London, but people outside London pay nothing for roads within the GLA boundaries, then why shouldn't the GLA charge an entry fee for non-residents? It's like Switzerland asking foreign drivers to pay for a vignette.

Ultimately, though, I suspect this idea is less a serious proposal and more likely a bit of posturing. It's part of a negotiating process between a Mayor and authority who are looking for more money, and a Government who are using the Coronavirus-related funding crisis in London to make a fairly blatant power grab.
Agreed, and the party politics of the situation don't help either with London elections next year and the Labour Mayor wanting to blame the GLA's problems on the national government, and the Tory government wanting the Labour Mayor to be seen as the cause of the problem. And it's an entirely logical product of devolution, that the devolved government will want to get more money for itself, at the expense of other parts of the country.

The current financial crisis at TfL/GLA, and the shambles about Hammersmith Bridge has rather highlighted anomalies and questionable decisions made when the GLA was setup, and the responsibility divide between national government, the GLA and the London local authorities.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by vlad »

Vierwielen wrote: Sat Dec 12, 2020 22:30 (A bit like the A34 in the UK - one part of it from effectively Oxford to Southampton and the other part just south of Manchester, except that used to be a single road.
It's not "just" south of Manchester. You know it runs for about 90 miles south before being assimilated into the M42, right? :)
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Vierwielen »

vlad wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 20:15
Vierwielen wrote: Sat Dec 12, 2020 22:30 (A bit like the A34 in the UK - one part of it from effectively Oxford to Southampton and the other part just south of Manchester, except that used to be a single road.
It's not "just" south of Manchester. You know it runs for about 90 miles south before being assimilated into the M42, right? :)
You are quite right - I have often travelled the section between the M4 and the M40, occasionally the section from the M4 southwards, but I have little need to use it north of the M40 (or as you rightly say, the M42).
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by fras »

The A34 is quite weird now, being once the Southampton to Manchester Trunk Road. From Southampton it eventually dumps you at Jn 9 of the M40. HOwever if you persist, and have "the knowledge", you can follow the old route which is renumbered A44 to a roundabout near Chipping Norton where it becomes the A3400. I must have passed the signs for the Rollright Stones over a hundred times on my motorcycle trips from Birmingham to Aldermaston to see my parents. I finally saw them this year on a day out when the lockdown was eased !
The A3400 continues all the way to the M42, then after the junction, becomes the A34 again. YOu have to get through Birmingham and then its the road to Walsall, and carries on all the way to Stafford, and Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Congleton. When you get to the M60 Manchester Ring Road you take the KIngsway, a 1920s new road that had trams along the reservation, finally taking the Birchfield Road into Manchester.

Edit
Sorry, seem to have gone a bit off-subject. Nostalgia is nice when you can remember things.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by thatapanydude »

I can't find a thread of the London mayor elections yet (not able to start one), so here will do.

I don't know if any of you have seen Shaun Bailey's policies for roads pricing but they are very promising. He will reverse the extension of the congestion charge back to pre-covid levels (5 days a week, 7am to 6pm, £11.50) and scrap the ULEZ extension to the N and S Circular (you can find the manifesto online - don't want to be too politically partisan). In a case like this it seems obvious the government would help him out more readily as it would be a loss of not so significant income to TfL, but I have to say I courage him for taking these steps.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Scratchwood »

thatapanydude wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 15:01 I can't find a thread of the London mayor elections yet (not able to start one), so here will do.

I don't know if any of you have seen Shaun Bailey's policies for roads pricing but they are very promising. He will reverse the extension of the congestion charge back to pre-covid levels (5 days a week, 7am to 6pm, £11.50) and scrap the ULEZ extension to the N and S Circular (you can find the manifesto online - don't want to be too politically partisan). In a case like this it seems obvious the government would help him out more readily as it would be a loss of not so significant income to TfL, but I have to say I courage him for taking these steps.
There's a big inconsistency though in his manifesto
4) Improving air quality
7) Reversing the ULEZ zone extension, which is a major policy designed to improve air quality

Replacing all of London's buses with electric buses (4) will of course help air quality, but they're already Euro VI whereas the ULEZ extension is about removing much older vehicles from inner London
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Bryn666 »

Scratchwood wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 17:40
thatapanydude wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 15:01 I can't find a thread of the London mayor elections yet (not able to start one), so here will do.

I don't know if any of you have seen Shaun Bailey's policies for roads pricing but they are very promising. He will reverse the extension of the congestion charge back to pre-covid levels (5 days a week, 7am to 6pm, £11.50) and scrap the ULEZ extension to the N and S Circular (you can find the manifesto online - don't want to be too politically partisan). In a case like this it seems obvious the government would help him out more readily as it would be a loss of not so significant income to TfL, but I have to say I courage him for taking these steps.
There's a big inconsistency though in his manifesto
4) Improving air quality
7) Reversing the ULEZ zone extension, which is a major policy designed to improve air quality

Replacing all of London's buses with electric buses (4) will of course help air quality, but they're already Euro VI whereas the ULEZ extension is about removing much older vehicles from inner London
Doubt it matters, he's twenty points behind Sadiq Khan. Londoners on the whole don't want more cars in the capital.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

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Bryn666 wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 19:20
Scratchwood wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 17:40
thatapanydude wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 15:01 I can't find a thread of the London mayor elections yet (not able to start one), so here will do.

I don't know if any of you have seen Shaun Bailey's policies for roads pricing but they are very promising. He will reverse the extension of the congestion charge back to pre-covid levels (5 days a week, 7am to 6pm, £11.50) and scrap the ULEZ extension to the N and S Circular (you can find the manifesto online - don't want to be too politically partisan). In a case like this it seems obvious the government would help him out more readily as it would be a loss of not so significant income to TfL, but I have to say I courage him for taking these steps.
There's a big inconsistency though in his manifesto
4) Improving air quality
7) Reversing the ULEZ zone extension, which is a major policy designed to improve air quality

Replacing all of London's buses with electric buses (4) will of course help air quality, but they're already Euro VI whereas the ULEZ extension is about removing much older vehicles from inner London
Doubt it matters, he's twenty points behind Sadiq Khan. Londoners on the whole don't want more cars in the capital.
Apart from their own.
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

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Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 20:40
Bryn666 wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 19:20
Scratchwood wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 17:40
There's a big inconsistency though in his manifesto
4) Improving air quality
7) Reversing the ULEZ zone extension, which is a major policy designed to improve air quality

Replacing all of London's buses with electric buses (4) will of course help air quality, but they're already Euro VI whereas the ULEZ extension is about removing much older vehicles from inner London
Doubt it matters, he's twenty points behind Sadiq Khan. Londoners on the whole don't want more cars in the capital.
Apart from their own.
London has the lowest rate of car ownership in the UK, at 56%...
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Re: London Congestion Charge Possible Expansion

Post by Having a cuppa »

Question. I have an MG from the 1970s back in the UK. Its not running, but after COVID and everything, I plan on getting it fixed up. Considering it is a vehicle from the 70s which runs soon four star/leaded petrol and probably produces at least 300 grams of CO2 per kilometre, does anyone know how much Sadiq will charge me? The car is located in Zone 3/4, below the Thames and I don't plan on driving it within 1 mile of the SQUARE MILE.
My car gets 90 leagues to the firkin and that's the way I like it!
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