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How are taxis increasing congestion? One car making ten trips surely leads to less congestion than ten cars making one trip.
by romwell 9y ago
How are taxis increasing congestion? One car making ten trips surely leads to less congestion than ten cars making one trip.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoUm, no. Cars that aren't doing a journey don't cause congestion, as parked cars don't have cars behind them waiting to get past. A private car wanting to spend 20 mins driving through the charging zone to get from south London to north London is in the charging zone for 20 mins, and pays the full fee. A taxi wanting to spend 8 HOURS driving within the congestion zone pays nothing. EDIT: and taxis spend large amounts of time driving around in circles without any passengers, and without any destination. Private cars don't do that. So even if every taxi passenger journey is replacing a private car journey with the same start and end points, taxis still cause twice as much congestion.
- ec109685 9y agoWhat about the time spent finding parking or the fact that taxis enable people to not have cars at all, this increasing ridership in all forms of transportation.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoPrivate cars driving into or through central London don't spend 50% of their time finding parking. In many cases, they are just driving through central London to get to the other side. So there's zero time spent driving aimlessly or finding parking. Your second point about enabling people to not have cars seems pretty tenuous. Is your argument that exempting taxis from the London congestion charge increases supply or decreases price, to the extent that more people can go without cars?
- ec109685 9y agoI was arguing the point about taxis causing more congestion: > taxis still cause twice as much congestion But I see that wasn't exactly what you were trying to say.