A10 Broxbourne Clean Air Zone

[c2R]

A Clean Air Zone charge of £10 is being proposed on the A10 through the borough of Broxbourne.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... s-49675893

The problem with this sort of thing, if it's going to apply to strategic roads or roads within the MRN is that you could end up driving through so many of them that you'd never remember which ones you'd driven through to have to pay. This can surely only work if the ANPR is used to automatically take payment from a centralised account rather than fining you if you don't proactively go any pay. Otherwise how would you know what poxy tiny boroughs you'd driven through that might levy a charge in order to ensure you pay?

So for example, with this one it will encourage traffic to diver through Harlow and down the M11, or through Hertford and down the A10 instead. So will we see Harlow District council and East Herts council start their own separate schemes? It's total nonsense.

[Berk]

I’m very surprised to hear this:

Hertfordshire County Council and Broxbourne Borough Council had drawn up proposals including a toll to use the A10, lower speed limits and junction improvements but were told the measures would not make quick enough changes to air quality.

So basically they need to bring the changes in (almost) overnight?? The other problem is, once again they plan to make local residents exempt. Why not promote more active travel and public transport use instead??

[Chris Bertram]

I’m very surprised to hear this:

Hertfordshire County Council and Broxbourne Borough Council had drawn up proposals including a toll to use the A10, lower speed limits and junction improvements but were told the measures would not make quick enough changes to air quality.

So basically they need to bring the changes in (almost) overnight?? The other problem is, once again they plan to make local residents exempt. Why not promote more active travel and public transport use instead??

Local residents vote locally. Outside people just have to grin and bear it.

[Big Nick]

If the traffic was moving instead of sitting at the various junctions and turn-offs and traffic lights therein, the air quality would probably be better. North of that suburban section it's nearly always free-flowing, south and you're in London itself where you expect not to be moving fast.

[Berk]

^^This. I think this is going to become an issue which cities are unable to ignore in the next few years.

It’s all very well choking average speeds due to unintended, or deliberate measures (ped crossings, lower limits, traffic calming, equal green time at minor road junctions).

But this is making air quality in cities steadily worse. And not everyone is making short car journeys. Or lorry journeys, come to that.

[Bryn666]

Hence the answer is to make the short single occupancy trips needless rather than to induce additional trips by widening the roads in urban areas.

It's a straight forward concept but appears to be beyond the grasp of political figures who are afraid of a few gammons.

[WHBM]

What have we already got in London :

- Congestion Charge
- ULEZ Charge
- Boris bikes
- Buses replaced by hybrids at £0.25m each.
- Electric taxis introduced.
- Huge advertising campaign.
- All the Euro emission vehicle improvements, up to Euro 6 now

Yet none of this seems to have made a blind bit of difference to air quality.

[Alderpoint]

.. none of this seems to have made a blind bit of difference to air quality.

According to a report in the Guanard: Air pollution failling in London.

[A303Chris]

I'm lucky I can afford the latest Euro 6 vehicle, and as a result have a Cric Air 1 sticker in my car for France. Therefore I am not subject to a charge if the A10 schemes comes in.

What I find wrong is people who can not afford to change a car but need a vehicle for work, have no effective public transport especially if they work shifts and nights. Doing as many TA's as I do within the Home Counties, most services outside the many urban areas don't start until after 7am end by 6pm and for commuting are not effective. And the ironical thing is councils pull the services as they are not viable, then are going to charge people to get to work.

I cycle when I can to work, five miles each way, but with the nature of my job I have to drive and apart from going into Central London, Public Transport is just not viable, quick or convenient enough for 90% of my journeys. I live outside a bus stop and my office is 400 metres from the stop at the other end. Services are every 30 minutes, but even the worst journey by car in rush hour is still quicker and more convenient than by bus.

Personally I believe this is just a back door way of taxing the motorist even more.

[WHBM]

And the ironical thing is councils pull the services as they are not viable, then are going to charge people to get to work.

But these are connected. They pull the services because they haven't got the money/squander what they have got. They look for extra opportunities for revenue because they haven't got the money/squander what they have got.

[DB617]

I'm lucky I can afford the latest Euro 6 vehicle, and as a result have a Cric Air 1 sticker in my car for France. Therefore I am not subject to a charge if the A10 schemes comes in.

What I find wrong is people who can not afford to change a car but need a vehicle for work, have no effective public transport especially if they work shifts and nights. Doing as many TA's as I do within the Home Counties, most services outside the many urban areas don't start until after 7am end by 6pm and for commuting are not effective. And the ironical thing is councils pull the services as they are not viable, then are going to charge people to get to work.

I cycle when I can to work, five miles each way, but with the nature of my job I have to drive and apart from going into Central London, Public Transport is just not viable, quick or convenient enough for 90% of my journeys. I live outside a bus stop and my office is 400 metres from the stop at the other end. Services are every 30 minutes, but even the worst journey by car in rush hour is still quicker and more convenient than by bus.

Personally I believe this is just a back door way of taxing the motorist even more.

I think this is the difference between certain types of politics and the policies that come with it. One policy will give grants, incentives and bonus schemes to those who embrace clean air strategies, while also improving from their end (building or subsidising electric charging infra and improved multi modal solutions) ways to avoid using cars at all. Others, and this is by far the more common in the UK, will punish people who do not, or cannot, comply with the new strategy. I do think that a probably unwanted side effect of CAZ/LEZ schemes is lumping additional financial burdens on those who cannot afford to replace their vehicle and have no choice but to use it because of their circumstances, like disabilities and dodgy shift patterns. If you really want to fix the problem for low income drivers, you need to come up with an equally cheap and utilitarian solution to their now-too-expensive-to-drive smoky old diesel.

I just don't see how a clean air policy could possibly help local low income residents who are forced to commute. Imagine you can barely afford your car, food and electric and gas bills and then someone decides to levy a £10 a week (and that's generous) tax on you for owning that car which is your only way to work. For the city, clean air is very important and a high priority. For the individual, it falls by the wayside next to things like eating two meals today. We must not forget that.

[Berk]

I'm lucky I can afford the latest Euro 6 vehicle, and as a result have a Cric Air 1 sticker in my car for France. Therefore I am not subject to a charge if the A10 schemes comes in.

What I find wrong is people who can not afford to change a car but need a vehicle for work, have no effective public transport especially if they work shifts and nights. Doing as many TA's as I do within the Home Counties, most services outside the many urban areas don't start until after 7am end by 6pm and for commuting are not effective. And the ironical thing is councils pull the services as they are not viable, then are going to charge people to get to work.

I cycle when I can to work, five miles each way, but with the nature of my job I have to drive and apart from going into Central London, Public Transport is just not viable, quick or convenient enough for 90% of my journeys. I live outside a bus stop and my office is 400 metres from the stop at the other end. Services are every 30 minutes, but even the worst journey by car in rush hour is still quicker and more convenient than by bus.

Personally I believe this is just a back door way of taxing the motorist even more.

I agree with you that “just charging the motorist because they can” is neither fair, nor productive. It doesn’t automatically produce efficiencies.

However, it has to be said these charges are only being paid by motorists who own or drive older cars. And these cars are old. More than 12/13 years old. I don’t have a problem with people driving older cars per se, but they still don’t meet the latest emissions standards, and never will.

When I was a child, you’d see people driving rust buckets built in the 70s, and the smoke and emissions they belched out were pretty foul. The fact that 80s/90s/00s vehicles may be slightly cleaner doesn’t alter the fact that standards have changed, tightened even.

People expect cleaner air, even if they live along a corridor like the A205, and it’s not unreasonable to expect authorities to do something about that. Hence the court case, and new regulations like this.

The fairest way to improve air quality would be to introduce charges, but ensure that proceeds are earmarked towards a scrapping subsidy scheme, so that drivers who would be worse off by trading in, aren’t. They benefit, we all benefit.

[Berk]

And the ironical thing is councils pull the services as they are not viable, then are going to charge people to get to work.

But these are connected. They pull the services because they haven't got the money/squander what they have got. They look for extra opportunities for revenue because they haven't got the money/squander what they have got.

Bumps in the road. Pinch points in the road. Things that go flash-flash. Annoying, expensive new layouts and iterations of junctions.

Mass replacement of traffic signals after only 10 years use. Possibly including new puffin crossings.

New roundabouts on rural roads, where previously there were none - and the roads that might connect to it haven’t even been designed, let alone got planning permission. Signalised junctions on rural roads.

Expensive kerb widening schemes for shared use foot/cycle paths that are shunned by cyclists. One way systems that funnel traffic along a given route, requiring diversions to get back on track.

There is no accountability for these things. Because councillors either aren’t interested in scrutinising them or have a mistaken belief that they are effective, or desirable.

Slowing down traffic increases pollution. And pollution kills kids - slowly, but surely.

[fras]

So in future, every time you go out in your car, you have to go on the internet to find out what tolls will afflict you en-route and at your destination. We seem to have got into a state of complete insanity in this country where every habitation of any size from hamlet to city can impose its own toll.

[WHBM]

There is no accountability for these things. Because councillors either aren’t interested in scrutinising them or have a mistaken belief that they are effective, or desirable.

This is not the only aspect. Transport for London is very significantly a commercial organisation, selling bus and Underground travel and looking to get revenue etc to more than cover what they budget for it. To put them in charge of roads, whether the Red Route network, the ULEZ, Congestion Charge or whatever, is surely inappropriate because they look to both collect increasing revenue from their various schemes (breaching the ULEZ limits is apparently OK if you pay TfL), but also to divert road users to their commercial services.

One day there's going to be a successful legal challenge to all this.

[c2R]

So in future, every time you go out in your car, you have to go on the internet to find out what tolls will afflict you en-route and at your destination. We seem to have got into a state of complete insanity in this country where every habitation of any size from hamlet to city can impose its own toll.

That's one of my main problems with this, if it has to happen it needs coordinated payment and registration, every two bit Council operating independent schemes as with parking will be a nightmare.

Similarly, this scheme will cause massive diversions of traffic through alternative routes to London such as via Hertford and Harlow....

[Big Nick]

Similarly, this scheme will cause massive diversions of traffic through alternative routes to London such as via Hertford and Harlow....

Not a problem for me as the only reason I go to that area is the Brookfield Shops. The massive supersize Tesco, M&S, and all the shops next door like Boots, Argos, Next, River Island, Top Shop etc....

That's why hundreds of thousands of car journeys are made on the A10 there every week. It's a local destination. There are buses that go there from Harlow and Hertford and other places but they barely scratch the surface of the visitor numbers.
Who wants to rush around shopping because the only bus back leaves in under 2 hours? Most people would rather take the car, take their time and take as much shopping home as possible.

[c2R]

Granted the retail sheds are a destination, but the queues to the m25 from broxbourne junction from 7.30 to 9 every weekday morning aren't that....

[fras]

All of this has come about because the thick and stupid Blair government decided CO2 emissions were so important it over-rode every other emission from vehicles. The scientists advising the government would seem to have either been on the pop, or smoking illegal substances, or maybe the government consultancy money was too good to miss. "This is what we have decided, now go away and find something scientific to back it up. BTW the pay is £1500 a day"

Hence we find ourselves with excessive pollution from diesel vehicles especially where traffic tends to concentrate. Company cars are still assessed for income tax by CO2 emissions, nothing else. We need to go back to the old system that still applies to all other benefits-in-kind, namely the cost to the employer of providing the benefit.

[John McAdam]

There is no accountability for these things. Because councillors either aren’t interested in scrutinising them or have a mistaken belief that they are effective, or desirable.

This is not the only aspect. Transport for London is very significantly a commercial organisation, selling bus and Underground travel and looking to get revenue etc to more than cover what they budget for it. To put them in charge of roads, whether the Red Route network, the ULEZ, Congestion Charge or whatever, is surely inappropriate because they look to both collect increasing revenue from their various schemes (breaching the ULEZ limits is apparently OK if you pay TfL), but also to divert road users to their commercial services.

One day there's going to be a successful legal challenge to all this.

No, there isn't.

TfL is an integrated transport authority. This integration is specifically stated in the GLA Act which established TfL.