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My 2c as a local: a significant issue with any discussion of this is that people don't really have a good handle on the actual statistics of who drives in Londo

My 2c as a local: a significant issue with any discussion of this is that people don't really have a good handle on the actual statistics of who drives in London. It cuts across every demographic. Under 25k household income - a good 40-50% of households have a car. Housing estates - tons of cars. Well off - almost everyone. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-12-how-many-cars-are-there-in-london.pdf https://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-12-how-many-cars-a... It mostly comes down to whether someone has a need (e.g. has children, fairly mobile in their job, has family outside of town, enjoys going on road trips etc) and actually wants to pay for it rather than anything else. In addition to that, a bunch of stuff happened basically at the same time. We got ULEZ, we got a ton of low traffic neighbourhoods (e.g. streets where cars are not allowed at certain times of day regardless of emissions), we had COVID meaning that habits and demographics changed, we had Brexit which probably had some minor effect, etc. All of that happened within about 5 years and I don't think you can isolate any of them. I don't really find most discussions about it interesting as a result of all of the above - it usually just ends up with someone trying to find evidence for their pre-existing position rather than anything that feels actually scientific, unfortunately.

fecal_henge 2y ago
I had a chat with some older people who told me distainfully that the only consequence of ULEZ was that they were not going to drive as much. I just hope it gains enough inertia so that a theoretical future populist Mayor cant just sweep it aside.
- zik 2y ago
  > ...told me distainfully that the only consequence of ULEZ was that they were not going to drive as much. Did they not realise that's literally the whole point?
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    The point isn’t to stop folks from driving. The point was to stop them using highly polluting cars.
    - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
      The point is to stop them using highly polluting cars OR stop driving altogether OR something in the middle. So the person you're responding to is right. The "older people" were saying in a roundabout away that they'd rather stop driving than playing along by getting less polluting car. And the correct answer to that is indeed: "you've made your choice, that was the entire point".
      - nzjrs 2y ago
        Now do LTNs
        iamacyborg 2y ago
        Stop ubers and white vans taking shortcuts down residential streets that are being made unsafe by high amounts of traffic.
        nzjrs 2y ago
        I'm not british either, but I understand the culture here is to disparage and discriminate against poor people in a slightly more polite and indirect way.
        bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
        Fines are discrimination against poor people, got it. They don't have those in wherever you're from?
        iamacyborg 2y ago
        LTN's are mostly in poor neighbourhoods, this is preventing high amounts of traffic in them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/mar/02/low-traffic-schemes-benefit-most-deprived-londoners-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/mar/02...
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- boesboes 2y ago
  Sounds like a good thing
  - walthamstow 2y ago
    Yep. 60+ have their free public transport subsidised by working people anyway.
reedf1 2y ago
My 2c as a local: I live in zone 2 and at least anecdotally I am in disagreement with your point here. So I looked it up in your link from TfL - "There are 2.56m cars licensed in London. This equates to an average of 0.3 cars per adult. In total, 46 per cent of households do not have a car, 40 per cent have one car and 12 per cent have two or more cars, with very few households owning more than two cars." This is the same as your stated numbers, but framed in a substantially different way. In addition I suspect this is dominated by the outer boroughs; maybe one or two of my 20+ coworkers who live in zones 1-3 have a car, it's more once you get z4+.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  By Zone 5 you're basically almost back to the world of infrequent bus services and out-of-town supermarkets so it's a lot more understandable why you need a car.
- short_sells_poo 2y ago
  Anecdotal sample from my village just outside Zone 6 (but inside M25): every single one of my neighbours has 2 cars, some have 3 (or 4). Basically every adult or young-adult member of the household who has to go somewhere on their own has a car. You could argue that they don't need that many, but take it this way: the reliability of the UK train network has become absolutely disgraceful. They are either on strike, or if they are not striking, then they are doing engineering works, and if neither of those are happening, then there is a major disruption. This means that in the last 6 months, I think there have been 2-3 weeks perhaps where the connection into London was reliable. Unless you have a car, you are completely hosed.
  - reedf1 2y ago
    Yes, that tracks with my experience too. I've found some evidence to back up our anecdotal experience here: https://centreforlondon.org/blog/car-ownership-census/ https://centreforlondon.org/blog/car-ownership-census/
  - gadders 2y ago
    Not to mentioned the cost of using the train vs driving.
PaulRobinson 2y ago
What annoys me about this is the assumption that ULEZ means people can't drive any more. Every single person with a car today can continue to drive under ULEZ without paying the ULEZ fee. They just need to have a car that isn't high emissions. They can pay to drive a non-compliant car, or they can change car to something that is compliant, and don't pay the charge. That's it. To facilitate that, the taxpayer through the ULEZ scrappage scheme offered £2,000 even if the car was not worth anything close to that value. I've seen people get £2k for vehicles that frankly weren't worth half that. There are plenty of vehicles available for not much more money that are ULEZ-compliant. I think the fact this happened at a similar time when we were exposed to chatter of "government interference" from Europe (Brexit), or Whitehall (Covid lockdowns), didn't help, but the language I hear some people using is insane - we're paying for the same level of personal protection for the Mayor as for the PM because of the number of death threats he gets. I definite;y agree very little of the debate feels scientific.

fecal_henge 2y ago

I had a chat with some older people who told me distainfully that the only consequence of ULEZ was that they were not going to drive as much. I just hope it gains enough inertia so that a theoretical future populist Mayor cant just sweep it aside.

zik 2y ago
> ...told me distainfully that the only consequence of ULEZ was that they were not going to drive as much. Did they not realise that's literally the whole point?
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  The point isn’t to stop folks from driving. The point was to stop them using highly polluting cars.
  - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
    The point is to stop them using highly polluting cars OR stop driving altogether OR something in the middle. So the person you're responding to is right. The "older people" were saying in a roundabout away that they'd rather stop driving than playing along by getting less polluting car. And the correct answer to that is indeed: "you've made your choice, that was the entire point".
    - nzjrs 2y ago
      Now do LTNs
      - iamacyborg 2y ago
        Stop ubers and white vans taking shortcuts down residential streets that are being made unsafe by high amounts of traffic.
        nzjrs 2y ago
        I'm not british either, but I understand the culture here is to disparage and discriminate against poor people in a slightly more polite and indirect way.
        bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
        Fines are discrimination against poor people, got it. They don't have those in wherever you're from?
        iamacyborg 2y ago
        LTN's are mostly in poor neighbourhoods, this is preventing high amounts of traffic in them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/mar/02/low-traffic-schemes-benefit-most-deprived-londoners-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/mar/02...
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
boesboes 2y ago
Sounds like a good thing
- walthamstow 2y ago
  Yep. 60+ have their free public transport subsidised by working people anyway.

reedf1 2y ago

My 2c as a local: I live in zone 2 and at least anecdotally I am in disagreement with your point here. So I looked it up in your link from TfL - "There are 2.56m cars licensed in London. This equates to an average of 0.3 cars per adult. In total, 46 per cent of households do not have a car, 40 per cent have one car and 12 per cent have two or more cars, with very few households owning more than two cars." This is the same as your stated numbers, but framed in a substantially different way. In addition I suspect this is dominated by the outer boroughs; maybe one or two of my 20+ coworkers who live in zones 1-3 have a car, it's more once you get z4+.

philipwhiuk 2y ago
By Zone 5 you're basically almost back to the world of infrequent bus services and out-of-town supermarkets so it's a lot more understandable why you need a car.
short_sells_poo 2y ago
Anecdotal sample from my village just outside Zone 6 (but inside M25): every single one of my neighbours has 2 cars, some have 3 (or 4). Basically every adult or young-adult member of the household who has to go somewhere on their own has a car. You could argue that they don't need that many, but take it this way: the reliability of the UK train network has become absolutely disgraceful. They are either on strike, or if they are not striking, then they are doing engineering works, and if neither of those are happening, then there is a major disruption. This means that in the last 6 months, I think there have been 2-3 weeks perhaps where the connection into London was reliable. Unless you have a car, you are completely hosed.
- reedf1 2y ago
  Yes, that tracks with my experience too. I've found some evidence to back up our anecdotal experience here: https://centreforlondon.org/blog/car-ownership-census/ https://centreforlondon.org/blog/car-ownership-census/
- gadders 2y ago
  Not to mentioned the cost of using the train vs driving.

PaulRobinson 2y ago

What annoys me about this is the assumption that ULEZ means people can't drive any more. Every single person with a car today can continue to drive under ULEZ without paying the ULEZ fee. They just need to have a car that isn't high emissions. They can pay to drive a non-compliant car, or they can change car to something that is compliant, and don't pay the charge. That's it. To facilitate that, the taxpayer through the ULEZ scrappage scheme offered £2,000 even if the car was not worth anything close to that value. I've seen people get £2k for vehicles that frankly weren't worth half that. There are plenty of vehicles available for not much more money that are ULEZ-compliant. I think the fact this happened at a similar time when we were exposed to chatter of "government interference" from Europe (Brexit), or Whitehall (Covid lockdowns), didn't help, but the language I hear some people using is insane - we're paying for the same level of personal protection for the Mayor as for the PM because of the number of death threats he gets. I definite;y agree very little of the debate feels scientific.