It wasn't a measure against climate change at all. It was to improve congestion in central london.

I agree with you about having a pollution charge, but it's a differnt kettle of fish.

Technically, by charging some cars a higher amount for the congestion charge there would have been reduction in congestion, but again, it's hardly fair in that you can't differentiate on how much congestion a car causes by it's emmissions.

And

By allowing more cars into the zone free, there would be more congestion.

That's rather like saying that income tax shouldn't be used to pay for health provision because it was conceived as a way of financing the army.

They sold it to us as a congestion charge because they knew that trying to get anyone to take any responsibility for climate change is going to be a struggle, given the short-sightedness of the general public. Sure they said it was about congestion because that is something that your average selfish motorist feels affects him. Obviously that's now come back to bite them on the arse.

It's like they sold the smoking ban as being about passive smoking, because they knew people would resent being told that it's to encourage them to give up.

Fact is they have a system in place to charge people for driving into London and why on earth not use that to address both issues. Perhaps they should rename the charge, and make it explicitly equally about pollution.

Removing the tax for electric cars is a mistake and sends the wrong economic signals. They should have reduced the tax, or made it clear that removing the tax was a temporary feature until the numbers of electric cars rose to a certain level.

Lyra, I disagree.

I'm with Lyra, here. People can be way too literal. "Congestion" is primarily a problem because of its climatic effects, not because it might make you late for a meeting.

I'm with JtS. The congestion charge is clearly about congestion, and not about climate change. If it was about climate change it wouldn't be focussed solely on the highest congestion parts of London where they needed to improve traffic flow to get the buses working better and get people onto the buses.

It's about congestion, and it should be about congestion. Much though cliamte change is a crucial issue for Britain, my day-to-day environment is much more critically changed by the amount of traffic on the roads and how clogged up they all are.

The climate-change difference that would be made by charging large engined vehicles to come into London would be trivial, and the congestion problems caused by letting other vehicles in for free would undo all the good work of the CC at the moment in freeing up the City's streets a bit.

I don't think they should let any vehicles in for free, low emission or not. That's a mistake But I do think climate change is more important than anyone's journey to work.

I don't think that asserting that it's only about congestion really helps anything much though. Things develop. Even if the introduction of the charge was very much positioned as about congestion only, do you really expect them to then just ignore the totally interrelated question of emissions?

to CC: which is why if you want the congestion charge to do two things (reduce congestion and encourage a move to electric cars) you have to reduce the charge on electric cars, not remove it because you are acting against the thing you introduced it for (congestion).

The logic behind road pricing is fairly straightforward. There is only a certain amount of road space and without road pricing you are allocating it by queuing. If you don't put a price on it, a lot of people will assume that it is free, and not realise that you are paying for it with time.

It also has the effect of making public transport look more expensive than it actually is, putting more people into cars. the congestion charge tells people that the cost of driving into the city centre is £X so the only people that drive through the city centre are those for whom the journey is worth £X. In return they can travel fairly quickly.

Road Pricing, or tolling is an impeccably market based solution to transport problems. Not charging by price but allocating by queuing is a very communist way of going about things. This case has never really been made.

Removing the tax completely for low emmision cars was a political and economic mistake. It should have been a reduction, and would have been very difficult to attack for reasons other than "I have a big car and this affects me"

The whole issue of the various charges for road use is a stupidly convoluted and thorny one. While I support initiatives to reduce both road use and pollution levels, I can't see how the government can justify a separate road tax and taxation of fuel. If they could somehow (and I don't know how) be more transparent about the allocation of fuel taxation revenues, then they could scrap road tax altogether, in the process saving a fair bit on adminstration costs. That way, price hikes for fuel could also be slightly more justifiable, since higher use of fuel implies higher emission of pollution.

However, as for reducing pollution and congestion in London? It's tricky now, following mismanagement and non-management of the transport infrastructure for decades and possibly the best part of a century. I'd like to say "how about banning all fossil-fuel powered cars from within the congestion charge zone? Instead allowing only biofuel and electric vehicles, bicycles and motorcycles" That would cut pollution and congestion, but is totally unrealistic. We weren't induced early enough or effectively enough to convert to other fuel types for any such scheme to work. It should have happened in the mid-70s, after the first fuel crisis, but it never did. We didn't learn our lessons then and instead were exalted to consume, consume, consume. If you had told someone in the mid-70s that fuel-thirsty four-wheel-drives weighing several tons would be one of the most popular car-types in 2008 they wouldn't have believed you. They would assume that some alternative power source had been invented in the intervening years.

Short of closing the city for a decade whilst some sort of integrated public transport system (that is dirt cheap and totally reliable) is put in place, I don't think there's going to be a solution. There are NO easy answers to this problem. Not with where it has got to at the moment.

As a slight aside - and a selfish one at that - one of the few vehicles that does reduce both congestion and pollution, the motorcycle, is under consideration for being hit with parking fees by many borough councils. It may be a little-known bonus of motorcycling (which just goes to show how ignorant most people are of that sphere) that one doesn't have to pay for parking in most places. However, this at least encourages people to use that particular mode of transport that uses up a fraction of the road space that a car does and is less susceptible to delays when there is congestion. So, given these advantages (for all road users) of motorcycle use in the city, are people being encouraged to ride? No - they're being told that you may as well get in a (warm, dry) car, just the same as everybody else, since you're going to get hit for the same (or similar) parking fees. Fuckwit council types!

Lyra wrote:

QUOTE:
I don't think that asserting that it's only about congestion really helps anything much though. Things develop. Even if the introduction of the charge was very much positioned as about congestion only, do you really expect them to then just ignore the totally interrelated question of emissions?

Well, they have also introduced the LEZ. If they applied that to all vehicles over a certain engine size it would make sense. Partly because it's targeted at emissions rather than congestion, and partly because it covers a much broader area and therefore is going to be far more effectivel in cutting emissions than just a tiny(ish) bit of the very centre of London.

Cutting emissions and cutting congestion are related but there's no direct correlation and it makes sense to use different instruments for a more focussed result.

I notice the Government's suddenly realised biofuels are by and large a crock of horseshit as well.

They're only a crock of horseshit when they're sing crops and cropland that could be used to feed people. There's a chance that cellulosic biofuels could be far more effective and efficient.