Congestion Charge Zone Could expand

Congestion Charge Zone Could expand to the North and South Circular roads in 12 months’ time.

If you live in it you usually get a discount. During the western extension I used to pay £4 a week which wasnt bad.

But unlike central London zone, where there is generally no need to enter it unless wanting to actually enter central London, a lot of residential communities straddle the Circular roads.

In south London it is barely any different to any other road that it does not even form any sort of barrier. It is the High Street in East Sheen, and is part of the town centres of Wandsworth and Catford.

In the north most of it is not even in inner London. There are plenty of locations where those living outside the zone need to cross into it to their nearest big supermarket or retail store. The kind of trips for which public transport may not be a viable option.

There has also been no mention of routes through the zone, as there used to be via Park Lane when Livingstone added a Western extension. So from somewhere like Streatham it would mean to get to anywhere outside of the zone in north London you would need to go all the way out to Chiswick or the Woolwich Ferry to avoid the fee, and avoid adding to congestion. Which is the justification giving by Shapps.

As part of the original TFL bailout, as well as increasing the congestion charge fee from £11.50 to £15, extending the daily operating hours & making it applicable at the weekend, Boris insisted that the resident discount wasn’t to be made available for any new applicants. So it’s fair to assume it won’t be available as part of the geographical extension he wants either.

You have to understand this has nothing to do with congestion, or pollution, and everything to do with the Tories beating up Labour. Watch PMQ from yesterday, Johnson was apopleptic when Starmer brought it up, he hates Khan with the passion Trump hates Obama and is doing this purely to spite him.

Khan brought down Johnson’s TfL deficit by 71%, Johnson’s last act as mayor was to remove the £800m central government funding, TfL is the only public transport body in the world funded by fares alone. Bus and Tube fares repair our roads, not government money. TfL was just about surviving on this, then along came Covid and fares dropped 90%.

TfL is bust. HMG is doing this as a price to pay for the needed bailout. Johnson is gambling this mud will stick to Khan and the public will hate it.

We shall see.

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Not only that, the government has bailed out all the privatised rail companies. Which once again shows that it is about privatising the profit, but socialising the loss.

And remember Johnson also blocked the extension when he was mayor.

So Boris Johnson, once again lying, and lying to the house which is a serious offence.

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Was told by someone who works for TFL that their staff taxi bill since the Covid outbreak is £23m!
Seems like a massive waste of money to me.
Surely they could have closed more stations, or put on staff minibuses etc. Would have been far cheaper!

Was a serious offence; no one cares anymore.

The checks and balances in the British constitution depended on politicians behaving reasonably, once someone is prepared to ignore these conventions, there is no other sanction available.

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Yep, which is really sad, but it does reinforce my belief that we need root and branch reform of parliament and politicians. There needs to be criminal repercussions to their actions.

But it’s a pipe dream.

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I doubt it. I know a train driver on the Northern Line, her shifts sometimes start at 0400. TfL do group deals with minicab firms, the cab doesn’t come to her door, she meets it outside her nearest Tube station, they do try to group pick-ups together (although maybe not under Covid rules). I can’t imagine any minibus contract being cheaper.

The critical question is how much different is the Taxi bill now to before Covid. They’ve always used taxis for the ungodly hour shifts, particularly for critical staff. I also know they do try and do group pickups but that can’t be always done (and less likely under covid)

What’s more important though is until you see a spreadsheet or offical paper on the bill, take it with a pinch of salt. I’ve heard so many things that have been misunderstood, miscommunicated and just fabricated as the story travels.

Right now, when there’s tubes / public transport available and running, staff are expected to use them to get to work, so it’s not like they’re using Taxi to avoid people getting Covid on public transport.

Don’t get me wrong, they have some jammy perks but I also know I couldn’t work on TfL. I much prefer my flexibility at work… I also don’t have to worry about having skillset that is very limiting when and if a restructure / budget chops my job off

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The taxis are for staff who are doing early/late shifts, and from what I was told they have to meet them in a certain location.
My thoughts were, that they would probably be better off buying their own coaches or minibuses to run their own service for staff rather than pay for so many taxis…
Just a thought, but surely has to be a cheaper option.

Why do you think I do not understand that? I said it was the"stated" reason as to why we should not expect any free routes through the zone, like there was when it was expanded the previous time.

And whilst public transport fares form the largest funding source for TfL, it is not remotely funded from fares alone.

In the most recent accounts to March this year, so will be slightly effected by Covid-19, TfL received £4.4bn from public transport fares and £3.3bn in grants. Almost all of the latter being business rate retention received via the G.L.A., which replaced most of the original DfT grant funding. They also receive sundry small amounts from things like advertising, property, and the congestion charge.

I can see that having gone done well. “NHS staff unable to get to work as TfL closes stations.” As it is there were enough complaints from certain quarters that TfL was not doing enough to provide a service for essential workers.

I think that given the different places of residence, different shifts and start times at different locations and all of that changing every week would make it either more expensive or unreliable as more things can go wrong. I can also imagine the headache of trying to plan all this.

You’ll probably end up underusing the mini buses to an extent it becomes uneconomical.

Lets all hope they don’t decide the congestion charge should also be applied to motorcyclists…

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Maybe not funded “from fares alone” but it remains unique in the world to be mostly funded from fares. Twice the percentage of uber-capitalist New York.

Part of the conditions of the last bailout was to run a full service

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The taxis only operate from tfl stations, and if you can’t do it by public transport (normally due to timing). They do have buses to transport people like this, they are big, red and anyone can use them.

Some depots do have minibus shuttles where is not attached to a station (plumstead for example).

It looks like this is becoming even more political as Tory MPs baulk against Johnson’s decision.

Looks like all you non-London LondonBikers might have to pay an extra £3.50 to come into London.