SE22_2020er

Hi Chick (somehow it seems wrong writing that! :-) ), I think the point is not to tax more but to tax differently. So if you use your car once every month then you should pay less than someone who uses it every day. Thereby, you can actually drive peoples' behaviour by making them pay more for consuming/polluting more. This is why the congestion charge has been successful - "Sure you can drive in central London and pollute the air we breathe, but you need to pay for the privilege to do so". We've completely stopped driving and now just use public transport and cycle in our family because we couldn't afford to keep our car once ULEZ comes in (it was diesel) so we sold it at the beginning of the year before it came worthless. I'm probably the only person on this thread keeping my fingers crossed that congestion charging is introduced across London, but I personally think that it's right that people pay for what they use/pollute.

Foxy, Not sure that I agree with your comments - over the last 30 years of cycling, I've been fined as a cyclist on 2 occasions (admittedly I've also had points on my license twice as well!) As with everything in life, you get a wide range of people. Excellent and terrible car drivers, excellent and terrible cyclists. Not sure putting every category in a single amorphous bucket is really that helpful. I hope that if we met you'd think me as being a very responsible cyclist as I'm sure I'd find you a most well mannered, proficient driver :-). Happy Easter!

Hi Foxy, Sadly, it seems that a lot of car drivers also don't need steering wheels as they drive along looking at 'their frigging mobile phones'. Of course no-one should be using a mobile phone at all when driving or cycling, but it's the car drivers who use their phones that worry me - a tonne of metal moving at 20-30MPH is going to cause a lot of damage when it hits something/someone. As a cyclist and occasional driver, I would welcome segregated lanes. I've been knocked off my bike from people opening their car doors on to me and also have been over the top of a car when it turned right across my path before. Hopefully all of the car tax I pay can be used to pay for them :-)

@Rockets - several questions that you've asked me there. I'm happy to reply to them but I'm afraid that I'm not going to get into a back-and-forth type conversation with you as I have a young family and don't have the time (or inclination) to post frequently. However, if you'd like to PM me, perhaps we could agree to meet up and have a socially distanced walk to set the world to rights when things open up. Shipping and tax: I'm not aware of the statistics showing 1 cargo trip producing more pollution than all cars in a single country (and you've not given a timescale for the car pollution and the size of the country - (so if 1 nanosecond's car journey in The Vatican City , then you're probably right, and if 1 years worth of car journeys in the USA then I suspect you're probably wrong). But in essence yes - I believe that all pollution should be taxed in order to put a price on it and then be able to control it, be it global shipping or local cars. Public Transport I don't think that I acknowledged that public transport needs improving, please do not interpret my words and play them back to me as a 'truth'. I don't find that acceptable and I would ask you to please respect that. I can only speak for myself but I find public transport actually OK. Of course, it can always be improved. In the same way I would love to improve the volume of homework that my children do, but I accept that the volume that they do is acceptable! Having lived in a lot of different cities around the world, the public transport that we have in London and also in East Dulwich is better than any of the cities that I've lived in across Asia, South America, North America and Africa. The different types of transport that I use in order to avoid owning a car are: 1. Walking 2. Bus 3. Cycling 4. Uber 5. Train 6. Car club 7. Boris bikes/equivalent when they are available I would like to see more of all of these but please don't lose the fact of how lucky we are to have many different options of transport. Above all, I would like to see better car sharing rather than individual car ownership, but of course understand the difficulties in that. Above all, and of course I am biased as per my note above, I would like to see segregated bike lanes throughout our area to further tempt people out of their cars. I'd start by putting in a cycle lane along East Dulwich Grove from Lordship Lane to Herne Hill if I could be the mayor for a day. LTNs: My view (and again, I suspect different to your view - but that is OK for me to have a different view) is that LTNs are a positive change. It is the volume of unnecessary car journeys that need to change here and cars are the easiest way to get around hence if (and I say if) we want to reduce the volume of journeys then a barrier, financial or otherwise, needs to be put in place to deter car journeys. However, I find it intensely frustrating that we don't have a baseline measurement of pre and post traffic volumes albeit if pre LTN traffic was measured in a lockdown it would be meaningless. I travel along EDG 4 times a day and subjectively I see the traffic being better than I remember in the bad old days when I drove my children to school and used to sit in traffic along EDG. Likewise, I can see the opposing view that sees worse traffic volumes. In the same way I would love to see the variation in traffic along Lordship Lane over time. I remember bemoaning about the volume of traffic on the lane 15 years ago. In order to change something, you must measure it first. Means tested road pricing I like your proposal of means-tested road pricing, but I doubt the ability for it to be implemented efficiently and successfully, hence my comment that "no proposal will ever be perfect, but hopefully would be better than the status quo'. I appreciate that my response may well prompt further questions from you, but please don't be disappointed or draw any conclusions if I choose not to respond. I've not asked you questions in response so as to not make a demand on your time.

Hi Penguin68 To your question of whether this is what I'm looking for, then yes. My personal desire is to see a lot less cars on the road (I ought to declare an interest that I am a keen cyclist and try and avoid car travel wherever possible) and specifically those that pollute more significantly. Therefore, differential taxation for those who pollute via a weighted congestion charge or ULEZ is in my opinion the best way to do this. I expect that we'll see the price and pollution thresholds for the ULEZ to be ratcheted over the coming years. I think that this is a good thing I'd be keen to understand what practical alternative you'd put in place (assuming that something needs to be done!) As to your question of wood burning stoves, I would put them in the category of things that probably should be banned in metropolitan areas, unless there is a real need for people to have them that I don't understand? I don't agree with your argument that taxing pollution leads to a concept that polluting is acceptable. I do agree that it is obviously easier for wealthy people to pay for the tax but if that results in 'the wealthy' being taxed more to provide better public transport then I am broadly in support of it. No proposal will ever be perfect, but hopefully would be better than the status quo, and it's a case of choosing the one that has the best impact over the others.

Bring on the extension of the congestion charge as soon as we've got the ULEZ installed. Sure you can pollute the streets by driving if you want to, but you have to pay for it. Use the money raised to install cycle lanes and improve public transport. Thereby, the polluters pay for the damage that they are causing and they themselves tip the scales to more people using public transport and active travel.

I was a bit confused about seeing the number 40 coming the other way but thanks for clarifying Northernmonkey :-)

Hi Heartblock - when I cycled my children to school this morning we went from Lordship Lane up to the lights by Townley road. It was at 8am and the traffic was absolutely fine. At the lights by Townley road there was a queue of 3 cars when the light turned green. At what time did the the traffic get bad?

Has anyone got any experience of putting a roof box on a hire car? Is it allowed and or possible to get a car either with roof bars or to put your own roof bars on a hire car?

I've had a brilliant idea to solve the problem. DRIVE LESS!!!! I think the one thing that everyone agrees on this thread is that there is too much pollution caused by people driving. No-one has said that they want to see more cars on the road. Or have I missed those posts? So, what you should be doing fellow posters is focussing on the root cause of the problem which is too many people driving and not enough people using public transport and active transport (walking and cycling). Am I the only one who is keeping their fingers crossed that we will get the congestion charge implemented soon so that people who pollute are financially penalised for their pollution?

Dear Rockets, A quick reply to your post above, saying that: "Welcome to the most entertaining and engaging thread on the forum and we appreciate your input - things get a bit heated on here but we all love each other dearly!" I may be the only one with this view, and if so I apologise for raising this, but I'm afraid that I find your constant postings and put downs of other peoples' posts very aggressive. I for one have not dared to post on this thread, with what I would hope to be useful and interesting comments, in fear that you will slap me down because they are different to your views. Clearly you feel very strongly about your views on the LTNs as shown by the fact that you've posted in the high 100s of times on this thread alone. But please, take a look back on your posts in the light of the day ask yourself whether you'd like to be the recipient of them and whether it's fair for you to drown out people who have different views to you. It's OK for other people to have their own views, and just because they are not the same as yours does not make them invalid or wrong. Maybe I am wrong in hoping for a respectful grown-up discussion where it's OK for people to have different points of view and try and find common ground between their views. At the moment, this thread is like a playground shouting competition which is not helpful, enjoyable or even particularly interesting. Yours, Very frustrated of East Dulwich

Dulwich central. Thank for your post. I'm getting really annoyed with certain people trying to push their divisions and making out that people are 'pro-closure' or 'pro-car'. Really peoples - grow up and act like adults. I decided that there are too many cars (and vans) on our streets so I'll do what I can and stop driving. I'm middle-aged overweight lady but I get it that I can't carry on driving in London as I used to. if I can do it then pretty much everyone else can. the problem is not the ltns it's the big increase in driving in London over the last years that cause all the traffic. what is needed is less people driving cars and vans. What do you want to do peoples? congestion charge?, increase road tax? better cycle lanes? tax on delivery vans? or do you want to just type and moan and make divisions between peoples. Grow up people and actually try and make a difference to cut down on traffic rather than endlessly post here and achieve a fat 0. rant over

@rockets - I'm sure people don't like walking and cycling in the rain. i don't like it either - but i do it, because i've finally worked out its the right thing to do. is it more important that i get to do what i like than choking childrens lungs up with exhaust fumes. don't blame the council - blame the selfish b**tards in their cars. now i'm really grumpy :-)

i am really grumpy today - the number of people driving today along EDG was disgraceful - parents driving children to school, young healthy people sitting just by themselves in cars. all of them with there engines running. if I can walk then i bet most of them could walk, cycle or get the bus. humans are so selfish - polluting our neighbourhood just so they don't get a bit wet. interestingly, lots of children walking, cycling, scooting along calton avenue - if they can do it why can't the grown ups? sorry everyone, rant over. Have a nice day!

penguin68 - yes your right - we need more buses so only old people and disabled people have to drive. the rest of us get off our arses and use public transport.

I don't think many people disagree that we all need a lot less car journeys in our cities (more difficult in the countryside). So what we need is more buses and things like Boris bikes. Then disabled and old people should be able to drive if they have got a proper blue sticker showing they can't use buses and tradespeople get permits to drive. the rest of us get off our arses and use public transport. if they can do it in Scandanavia then we can do it, right? Not sure why its taken 63 pages of comments to get to that answer - I knew I was right :-)

@Rockets - you make some good points here and I can see where you are coming from and I agree that doing nothing is not an option. It breaks my heart when I see the levels of pollution along EDG with children walking along the pavement. But i guess people are too selfish to only use their cars when they absolutely need to. If they did that then we would not need any of this.

I was talking to a childrens doctor at Kings who was very supportive of anything that can be done to reduce car use because of the damage to childrens lungs that she sees on a daily basis in the hospital. Please tell all of your friends that if they need to drive then turn off their engines when they are not moving. I don't know why the council doesn't put big signs up to tell people to turn their engines off if they are stuck in traffic. As I was walking along EDG this morning every car sitting in traffic had their engines turned on. Disgusting needless pollution damaging our childrens health.