‘Stronger, fairer, smarter scheme needed instead of current ULEZ’
ALTERNATIVES COULD INCLUDE PAYING PEOPLE TO CHOOSE GREENER OPTIONS
THE Ultra Low Emissions Zone is a “blunt instrument” that should be replaced with smarter alternatives, such as paying people who choose greener transport options, an air pollution expert has suggested.
Simon Birkett said the current ULEZ, Congestion Charge and Low Emissions Zone systems are “really quite primitive” for charging someone for travelling “100 yards into a zone”.
Mr Birkett, founder and director of Clean Air in London, told the London Assembly on Tuesday February 22 that he had drawn up a plan for a new “smart” road-user charging system with Boris Johnson’s former deputy mayor for transport, Isabel Dedring.
He said: “We designed emissionsbased road charging over a cup of tea one afternoon. It would have four elements for vehicles to pay different amounts depending on the time of day, where they are and the quality and quantity of the fuel they burn.”
The capital has a mixture of schemes to tackle air pollution, including the Congestion Charge Zone (covering central London), the Low Emissions Zone (for very polluting vehicles across most of Greater London) and ULEZ (covering most vehicles within the North and South Circulars).
City Hall has committed to investigating a replacement for the current charging schemes by the end of the decade – but Mr Birkett said the pace could be sped up.
He said changes could be brought in within two years, or three years with a full consultation.
“I’d like to get a commitment from the mayor to introduce a bigger, stronger, fairer, smarter scheme. The beauty of it is that you could actually pay people to walk or cycle,” he added, urging Transport for London (TfL) and Sadiq Khan to call Mr Johnson’s former transport chief and “ask her how to do this quickly”.
It is not clear how the technology would work to pay people for choosing greener transport.
However, air pollution is a major killer in London, in many areas far exceeding legal limits for particulate matter and toxic nitrogen dioxide.
On Brixton Road, in Lambeth, some air pollution readings are seven times the new World Health Organisation maximums.
Dr Ian Mudway, from Imperial College London, “seconded” the call for a new all-London smart charging scheme.
He added: “We actually need national emissions-based charging.”
Dr Mudway added there was no safe limit for air pollution, with proven links between pollution and children’s health and development, as well as diseases like asthma and dementia.
A recent King’s College London study found that children’s lungs are smaller in Tower Hamlets – one of the most polluted London boroughs – due to air pollution. He called for a ban on new schools being built in known pollution hotspots.
Elliot Treharne, head of air quality at the Greater London Authority (GLA), said ULEZ was the “jewel in the crown” of air pollution efforts, but admitted much more needs to be done.
Oliver Lord, head of Clean Cities Campaign UK, also hit out at the mayor for scrapping the Congestion Charge on weekday nights, which he said would encourage driving.
Conservative AM Tony Devenish said councils and TfL needed to be far tougher on “hitting people where it hurts” – fining drivers who leave their engines to idle in the capital. It should be socially unacceptable “like smoking” he said.
Drivers will pay an extra £300 million a year to TfL under plans being considered by Mr Khan to either massively expand the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) in the next two years or bring in a new charge for non-Londoners driving into the capital.
In January, the mayor confirmed that a new £3.50-a-day boundary charge, rising to £5.50 for most polluting vehicles, for non-Londoners driving into the capital is still on the table, despite government opposition. The schemes would be a stepping stone to a new “smart” charging system.