Filed under: MPG, Legislation and Policy
London congestion charge going to £25 per day for gas guzzlers
London Mayor Ken Livingstone is again pushing to revise the current congestion charges that drivers going into central London have to pay. Currently anyone going into the congestion zone has to pay a fee of £8 per day. Under Livingstone's plan the flat rate would change to a sliding scale based on the vehicle's carbon dioxide emissions. Annual vehicle registration fees are already based on part on those emissions with each vehicle being placed into various tax bands.
The new rate plan would charge £25 per day for vehicles in band G which is for all vehicles that emit over 225g/km of CO2. Vehicles in bands A and B which emit less than 120g/km such as the Smart ForTwo diesel and VW Polo Bluemotion would get in free of charge. Although in general the principal of charging more to the drivers of the heaviest emitting vehicles seem perfectly reasonable, AA Motoring Trust does have a point about larger families that need to use larger vehicles like vans being penalized unfairly. If there were a reasonable way of charging vehicles based on the number of passengers in addition to the emissions of the vehicle that would be the way to go. If someone has a van and a group of five or six people are car pooling, that is clearly more beneficial overall than all of those people driving their own Smart or Polo.
[Source: Times of London]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sunny 7:25PM (8/07/2007)
This should be seen as a temporary solution to the problem. The real solution lies in innovation..toward vehicle sharing! There are cool options out there. I just read an article on CarDevotion about a very "lean" (fuel wise) bus that transitions into a trollybus being tested in Japan. Not too long ago, I saw an article (either in Popular Science or the MIT review...) about a new concept for "stackable" single-occupant vehicles bearing resemblance to a cross between those colorful FisherPrices cars for kids and Airport carts. You'd be able to rent one to go to the metro stop, put it back into the general pool, take the metro to stop B, rent another and take it to the shopping center, plug it into a collection pool there, go shop, rent another to go back to the metro station, and so forth.. Public Transportation becoming part of our lives...THATS INNOVATIVE THINKING.
Reply
Ethan 9:12PM (8/07/2007)
How about divide the congestion charge by the number of people in the vehicle?
So ... a big ole passenger van with 10 people in it would only pay 2 pounds 50 ($5).
Reply
mark 11:45PM (8/07/2007)
Your already dividing the cost of multiple occupant vehicles amongst the occupants.
People arguing that they are disadvantaged because they have a large family are missing the point, a larger family disadvantages the environment more! You can reduce your larger families impact on the environment by having a smaller vehicle, and not carting them around as much.
Reply
scatter 4:24AM (8/08/2007)
Families are always used as a stick to beat large cars with but the fact is that they aren't disadvantaged.
There are plenty of non-G band options out there which emit less than 226g/km (e.g. the Renault Grand Espace 2.0dci - 196g/km) and therefore will only cost £8 per day, same as now. It's just that when people buy cars they usually buy unnecesarily powerful cars because of a perception that you need to be able to accelerate quickly. Buying a cleaner car will surely benefit a family because it'll cost them less to tax and fuel so they'll have more money to spend on ice creams. Everyone's happy!
This is a very bold but fantastic move. I read (in a tabloid so I can't be sure it's true) that 20% of cars on London's road are G band. It's going to kill the market for G band cars in London and the south east of England at a stroke.
Reply
scatter 8:09AM (8/08/2007)
Slightly misworded that:
Families are always used as a stick to beat large car *restrictions* with but the fact is that they aren't disadvantaged is what i meant.
I'm quite happy for people to beat large cars with families or sticks - whatever works best.
Reply
GoodCheer 10:51AM (8/08/2007)
I think the point (and this relates to what Sunny said) is that there is a very comprehensive system of public transportation already in place in London.
Without such a system this kind of congestion charge would be highly problematic, but since it IS there, it's simply tipping the 'playing field' a bit to get more people into trains / trams / taxis / ferries / buses.
I would think that revenues from the congestion charge would (at least in part) go towards improvements to either infrastructure or service of public transportation. Does anybody know if this is the case?
Reply
Scatter 12:18PM (8/08/2007)
GoodCheer, by law all profits from the congestion charge must be spent on public transport in London (and rightly so). Unfortunately the system has big overheads but there has been a marked improvement in the quality of bus services in London in the last few years (the tube is another matter :( )
Reply
David 5:29PM (8/08/2007)
What London really needs is a program like Velib in Paris. They could make one using the Oyster Card in London for people to take out bikes around the city.
Reply
adrian 5:33PM (8/10/2007)
If you live and drive in London you will know that Ken Livingstone and Transport for London hate cars, Congestion charging is the Labour Goverment road tolling by stealth. First he introduced the charge against the wishes of drivers and charged £5 a day for the privilege of driving into central London even though we pay road tax. Then when he realised he wasn't making enough money to cover the set up costs he increased the charge to £8 a day again against the wishes of drivers, then he extended the zone to cover more of London to the west so he could collect more money once again against the wishes of drivers now he wants to charge up to £25 a day for larger cars. So now drivers are now being force to pay £8 a day for the right to sit in traffic jams that was once free because there has been no improvement in congestion in central London, trust me. Consultation Period?, what a joke!. The sooner he's removed from being mayor and Labour is removed from Goverment the better.
Reply
Archibold 9:55AM (8/23/2007)
There are nine seater Renault Trafics and Peugeot Expert that don't fit in the top tax band, so it won't effect large families. There must be other nine seaters too.
Reply