Boris Johnson considers axing Congestion Charge
London Mayor to 'brood' on the future of the big CC
LONDON MAYOR Boris Johnson has said he would consider scrapping the city’s entire congestion zone.
The news follows the recent decision to axe the western extension of the London scheme, as well as halting plans for the Charge entering Manchester.
Johnson said he would “brood” on the matter but that he wanted to be convinced it would not have an adverse effect on congestion.
A spokesperson for the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) said: “Everyone agrees that Britain needs a safe, reliable and high quality transport system. Where we differ is how that vision can be achieved. Whether we give greater emphases to cycling or more roads or extra public transport one thing is certain: we cannot do it without road-user charging of some kind.”
“Evidence from around the world shows that it does not matter how many billions is invested in buses, trains or trams, as in Paris, Munich or Tokyo, without a road-user charge of some kind, the policy is doomed to failure.”
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“Evidence from around the world shows that it does not matter how many billions is invested in buses, trains or trams, as in Paris, Munich or Tokyo, without a road-user charge of some kind, the policy is doomed to failure.” Got to love this statement, what it actually proves is their schemes did not work. NOT that with out road charging everything is doomed. muppet
Posted: 18/12/2008 at 14:04
Anyone think he will? Money issues aside, I read that the proportion of powered two wheelers increased with the introduction of the charge. One knock on effect was a lower proportion of ptw's involved in road traffic incidents. More recently, the increased number of ptw's on London roads has helped the case for allowing ptw's to use bus lanes, hopefully further reducing the vulnerability of bikes and scoots. It seems to me that we're doing quite well out of the congestion charge.  (Steps back, awaits cage driver backlash...)
Posted: 18/12/2008 at 15:46
Sorry Big Nige I was aware of who I was having a pop at i just did not make it clear I like boris mainly for 2 reasons 1) no ken 2) he is letting me ride my bike in the bus lanes my point was that civil servants and organisations like the ETA get a bee in there bonets about something that theres is the only way forward, rather than thinking no one wants this method lets think of something else. Its like there brains can only hold one thought at a time and they can not let it go.
Posted: 19/12/2008 at 07:42
The bit I like about it is that if he does scrap it, you can imagine Ken livingston throwing a right strop and not being able to do a sodding thing about it .
Posted: 19/12/2008 at 17:28
I live in the zone and at first the charge made a difference but some people have found ways around it like registering their cars as taxi a 3 yearly charge of about £300 or they just dont register their cars pay no insurance or tax and cant be traced and the people that need to use their cars just use them anyway the CC got imposed and the people like me that live in the zone get fucked over because were in a council flat in the zone
Merry xmas mate.
Bad that people are squirming out of paying their due when you have too.  Is a car so essential where you stay? Couldn't you get by with just a Bandit (guessing that's your ride). I gave up on cars when my oldest son was born. Getting around Glasgow was a royal pain in the a*se with the pram, the busses had a buggy/wheelchair spot and fancy suspension to level with the pavement and took us right into the heart of town. That was 11 years ago and I can't say I've ever missed the car...
Posted: 26/12/2008 at 22:32
Sorry Big Nige I was aware of who I was having a pop at i just did not make it clear I like boris mainly for 2 reasons 1) no ken 2) he is letting me ride my bike in the bus lanes my point was that civil servants and organisations like the ETA get a bee in there bonets about something that theres is the only way forward, rather than thinking no one wants this method lets think of something else. Its like there brains can only hold one thought at a time and they can not let it go.
Very true squire
Posted: 26/12/2008 at 22:37
Manchester voted No, I voted No to a CC for Manchester. Even though I ride, I also travel by car for all sorts of reasons and just see this as a way to shaft the honest motorist for more money and let the criminals walk away again.
Posted: 26/12/2008 at 22:40
The ETA as usual let themselves down and defeat their own argument saying that to reduce traffic, drivers need to be charged for using the roads. Obviously, being a load of ignorant tossers they are unaware of the fact that vehicle owners already pay about £1,000,000,000 more in road tax than is spent on roads. But that doesn't count, of course. People who say we can do everything we want using public transport cannot ever go to shops to buy something heavy, or large. They live near a bus stop or train station with decent services, they don't go on holiday or to see friends somewhere else in the country. They don't work anywhere outside of the town they live in, they are never made redundant and have to work 100 miles from home while they are saving the £10,000 it costs in taxes to move house. All the fruit and vegetables, tinned spaghetti, bread and jam they eat is grown locally and taken to the shops by donkey. OOps, sorry, that's cruelty to animals. Ermm.... now let me think.... how does their food get to the shops that are so convenient to them that they can get there by public transport? Errrr.... What a cosy little closeted ignorant life they live. I hope their central heating boiler never goes wrong. Sorry but I cannot get there to fix it. I would have to take about 1 ton of tools and spares to their house on a trolley I am pulling up the hill with a rope. I guess they are happy to freeze, just so long as nobody uses the roads.
Posted: 27/12/2008 at 14:28
The ETA as usual let themselves down and defeat their own argument saying that to reduce traffic, drivers need to be charged for using the roads. Obviously, being a load of ignorant tossers they are unaware of the fact that vehicle owners already pay about £1,000,000,000 more in road tax than is spent on roads. But that doesn't count, of course. People who say we can do everything we want using public transport cannot ever go to shops to buy something heavy, or large. They live near a bus stop or train station with decent services, they don't go on holiday or to see friends somewhere else in the country. They don't work anywhere outside of the town they live in, they are never made redundant and have to work 100 miles from home while they are saving the £10,000 it costs in taxes to move house. All the fruit and vegetables, tinned spaghetti, bread and jam they eat is grown locally and taken to the shops by donkey. OOps, sorry, that's cruelty to animals. Ermm.... now let me think.... how does their food get to the shops that are so convenient to them that they can get there by public transport? Errrr.... What a cosy little closeted ignorant life they live. I hope their central heating boiler never goes wrong. Sorry but I cannot get there to fix it. I would have to take about 1 ton of tools and spares to their house on a trolley I am pulling up the hill with a rope. I guess they are happy to freeze, just so long as nobody uses the roads.
Bold, etc. Cars and vans can be hired gasgas . If you live somewhere with decent public transport it's not that much of a drama to actually use...If you really are in the middle of nowhere carry on using your landie, congestion charges won't affect you. 'Course, at the end of the day we all know they're just an excuse to scam money off Joe Public and keep the Greens at bay, so why get upset? Vote, demo, write to your MP- we live in a democracy, use some of your hard won privileges. 
Happy new year  .
Posted: 27/12/2008 at 16:05
I have often heard the argument that we don't need cars or lorries, that is what I was thinking of. I don't have a Landie, I think they are terrible. My car averages 68mpg, my bike does 45. I do agree that where you have a good public transport system you should use it. I do. It's called the Isle of Man Bus company, it's wonderful. Great for going to work, rubbish for going to B&Q to get an ironing board. You don't have to wait at a bus stop, they will stop wherever you are if you wave at one. They are high quality and cheaper than using a car. My scepticism on green issues stems from my 6 months working in Nigeria. You see oil floating in rivers, and the traffic pollution is terrible - sometimes you genuinely can't see the road ahead because of the dense black smoke screen coming from the truck in front. It's very nice that when I'm on my bike I no longer have to breathe the rubbish that old Ford carburettors chuck out, but I find it hard to believe that the tiny little UK can make any difference to the Ozone Layer when the likes of Africa, India and China are so very much larger and have so little interest in it. Whenever I see the UK government use the word 'Green', I just substitute the word 'Tax'. They are interchangeable. So my hatred for the UK tax system once again rears its ugly head. That's why I don't live there. Nothing to do with no speed limits out of town on the Island. Incidentally , statistically the Island without speed limits or cameras has one thirteenth the road death rate of the UK. Anyone realise that? IOM has on average 11 road deaths a year, for a population of 80,000. That includes the TT when of course most deaths occur, with visitors thinking they can ride fast. Sometimes they discover that they can't.
Posted: 29/12/2008 at 00:36
Bad that people are squirming out of paying their due when you have too. Is a car so essential where you stay?
Yes. I need a car for work, to carry my tools. I also work in central London. I wouldn't mind the congestion charge if it made a difference, but it never did, and was never going to. It made a big difference in the first week - that's because they introduced it during a school term break. And a month prior to it's introduction they had altered a load of traffic light sequences to cause more congestion (this is true, I drink with the guy who made it happen). After that the traffic was back to normal. Daytime traffic in London consists mainly of business vehicles, so the effect was always going to be minimal. It's just another tax.
Posted: 29/12/2008 at 08:03
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