please empty your brain below
Wonderful.

With the Woolwich Ferry it is not so much a case of running to time but, at weekends, running at all. Nowadays there is no scheduled service on Saturdays and Sundays.

Pedantic of Purley | 17.02.23 - 7:10 a.m. | #

And then there is the conspiracy to confine us all with the “international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities and 20-minute neighbourhoods” - raised in Parliament last week by a Tory MP.

Richard | Homepage | 17.02.23 - 7:31 a.m. | #

Also wonderful. As a suburban car driver I can say you’ve captured the mood here very well. A sense of entitlement being removed and a “don’t care, I’ll do what I want” attitude. Tax car parking spaces, that’s what I say.

Robert Butlin | 17.02.23 - 7:35 a.m. | #

Unfortunately this is almost word for word a copy of some of the rants on the local facebook groups and newspapers here in the Southeastern corner.

Southern Heights (Light Railway) | 17.02.23 - 7:43 a.m. | #

Driver privilege. Who knew? Until they began to take it away.

Joy Rider | 17.02.23 - 7:43 a.m. | #

It is a war indeed. They don’t ever think of disabled people, particularly disabled people with massive cars. They have turned our city into 1960s Berlin. A car journey which took 2 minutes can now take an hour!

Dan | 17.02.23 - 7:46 a.m. | #

Guest edited by Gareth Bacon today?

Lucy | 17.02.23 - 7:55 a.m. | #

OK, you’ve made your point. For a balanced assessment, it would be good if you were also to take the p*** out of the case ULEZ extension – it’s as flawed as much of the case against.

Phil Carey | 17.02.23 - 8:08 a.m. | #

In regard to the original "Congestion Charge" zone - it would be interesting to know whether it actually achieved its aims. That is, did the amount of vehicles in the zone significantly decrease?

dg writes: see press release.

An irony of these schemes is that using the money to fund "compensating" measures has the contradiction that only by being unsuccessful in deterring vehicles will they be successful in raising funds for the "compensating" scheme!

Chris | 17.02.23 - 8:37 a.m. | #

It won’t be too longer before Uber has a fleet of electric self-driving Johnny Cabs available to all at a moments notice (surge pricing will apply). Most of the taxi and minicab drivers will be out of a job, and hardly anyone in a city will need to invest in a chunk of metal that spends most of its time immobile outside their home.

Meanwhile accountants and lawyers and politicians and journalists and blog writers will be replaced by ChatGPT and its descendants, and we can all enjoy a life of unemployed leisure in the traffic-free environment.

Andrew | 17.02.23 - 8:40 a.m. | #

“Oh I can’t afford a new car!”
You… can’t afford to replace your Porsche SUV diesel, currently being leased at £800pm?

James Scantlebury | 17.02.23 - 8:55 a.m. | #

Worthy of the great J Bonington Jagworth.

Richard Thomas | 17.02.23 - 9:16 a.m. | #

They muzzle our speeds to control us and say it saves lives. What tosh! I've been driving every day for 55 years and I've never so much as had a prang.

William | 17.02.23 - 9:18 a.m. | #

This is just wonderful. Thank you, DG!

deruf | 17.02.23 - 9:35 a.m. | #

Mention of the Silvertown Tunnel sits oddly here. Promoted by the otherwise "motorist's enemy" Khan, it seems weirdly and anachronistically congestion provoking.

Malcolm of Kent | 17.02.23 - 9:41 a.m. | #

The mixed strategy of charge to drive schemes is not a flaw or a contradiction. They can succeed independently of how much stuff they discourage. Either you get fewer cars or more cash for betterment. Either one is good.

Malcolm of Kent | 17.02.23 - 9:46 a.m. | #

Great stuff Geezer! My theory is that as people age, they become more and more selfish. Why bother about the future when you won't be there? The grumpy old miseries complaining about their dirty smoker not passing the ULEZ test on the radio are rather depressing.

Alex McKenna | 17.02.23 - 9:47 a.m. | #

I remember being in the city a couple of days after the original zone was introduced and thinking I hadn't seen traffic that light since the 1970s. So it obviously worked for a while, anyway.

Simon | Homepage | 17.02.23 - 9:55 a.m. | #

The Woolwich Ferry gives up at 10.30 this morning and won't be back until 6th March. I assume this is because the new ships still don't work.

dg writes: see here.

ap | 17.02.23 - 9:58 a.m. | #

Coincidentally, the introduction of the CC coincided with the Great Red Helmsman’s other strategic move, releasing tracts of land for the multiple erection of tower block apartments for global tax-dodging plutocrats. There probably IS less traffic in the heart of the West End than when I was driving there regularly, 35 years ago; but I suspect a much greater proportion of it is Bentleys and Ferraris than before.

Philip Downer | 17.02.23 - 10:03 a.m. | #

There is absolutely less traffic in the Congestion Charge zone than there was before it was introduced. At least on the roads I get to look at. Victoria Street and Parliament Square used to be nose-to-tail. It's a lot easier to cross the road now.

Richard above is right, though: DG has a long way to go before he can write something half as barmy as the 15-minute-neighbourhood conspiracy theorists.

HTFB | 17.02.23 - 10:17 a.m. | #

But in 2003 bus services were improved, in 2023 frequencies are still being cut no new services are added and fares will be increased.

Still Anon | 17.02.23 - 10:25 a.m. | #

The BBC today reports an engineer from the self-driving car tests in Woolwich as saying traffic lights may be unnecessary in 20 years. I’m normally sceptical of such claims, but this format integrates roadside infrastructure with car systems and seems completely deliverable. Just need to iron out the teensy, tiny, practical and political details of agreeing common standards among international car giants, national regulators, local authorities, etc, etc. Would be somewhat handy to still be in the EU in order to influence issues like these. But since we don’t have a future in mass market vehicle manufacture any more, it’s all a bit moot.

jpmac | 17.02.23 - 10:33 a.m. | #

I don't know what to feel about it anymore. As a non -driver I agree with expanding the ULEZ, but it's going to affect a lot of ordinary people whose cars have been rendered worthless overnight.

I don't think it's been thought through properly. You can't reduce bus services with one hand and then force more people to use them with the other!

Cornish Cockney | 17.02.23 - 10:49 a.m. | #

I think it's been thought through as thoroughly as any other policy. I'm sure TFL would much rather increase bus services in tandem with the ULEZ expansion, but given the fact that TFL are extremely strapped for cash, which is mostly an imposition brought on by the national government, their hands are very much tied, and they need to bring more money in and save where they can.

Bruce | 17.02.23 - 11:02 a.m. | #

Part 2. The War on the Bus User. Kicked off big-time in 1986 and continued ever since.

Where are new cross-border, express and orbital TfL bus services to compensate? None. TfL say there ‘might’ an extra 1 million KM of services operated. But the daily bus KM is 300 million so that change would be negligible!!!

Kim | 17.02.23 - 11:13 a.m. | #

Expanded ULEZ could end up being Khan’s Poll Tax moment (or his GLC Fares Fare for those in the know). What is sickening is Tory MPs jumping on the bandwagon despite Shapps wanting it as part of the TfL bailout, and of course that the collapse in TfL revenue was caused by Johnson’s “you must stay indoors” statement.

Kim | 17.02.23 - 11:19 a.m. | #

I don’t see much improvement in bus services for the two billion.

David B | 17.02.23 - 11:22 a.m. | #

I would say that the effect on van drivers is genuinely an issue, as whereas lots of elderly petrol cars still pass the ULEZ rules, most vans are diesel and there have to be a lot younger to pass.

I have no problem with the ULEZ, but it will affect a number of small traders whether in outer London or just outside. The sorts of business we all directly or indirectly use, whether we drive or not.

Mikey C | 17.02.23 - 11:22 a.m. | #

It’s easy to parody the ranting about some councils’ “two wheels good, four wheels bad” policies, but there are still some legitimate caveats. Government policy has decreed the death of petrol vehicles, but there’s no national infrastructure for alternatives such as EV chargers (my borough has almost none), many LTNs have been introduced just as TfL is savaging bus services, councils fail to lead by example by requiring their own vehicles and those of utilities such as Veolia or DPD, BT, etc, to be electrified, while local objections to new schemes are routinely over-ruled in “consultations”. City Hall and local councils too often wield a stick but offer no carrots; major improvements to public transport before new exclusion zones are created would defuse many objections and achieve much better outcomes.

Labourer | 17.02.23 - 11:36 a.m. | #

I'm with Labourer that a lot of the recent change is not holistically joined up to maximise the benefit (or at least give the appearance of that).

I support the ULEZ extension in principle but parts of the implementation are flawed: too rapid a change, impact skewed towards poorer demographic, and some more detailed perverse outcomes, including heritage vehicle exemption where a 39 year old vehicle has to pay but a 40 year old one does not. Fixing the implementation would reduce the noise from the motorist lobby

MilesT | 17.02.23 - 12:20 p.m. | #

Interesting programme on Radio 4 right now about this subject...

Blue Witch | 17.02.23 - 12:55 p.m. | #

Bring back amusing bus stop-related content!

Stuart R | 17.02.23 - 1:07 p.m. | #

The right wing rage against 15 minute neighbourhoods is as baffling as it is confected.

The return of a local GP, a local police station, a local post office, a local school, a local library, a local butcher, a local baker, a local church, local places for local people - what could be more English, more conservative, more right wing, than that.

When they attack the traditional English village they're showing their American hedge-fund share-holder funded colours.

MK | 17.02.23 - 1:07 p.m. | #

This is my new favourite post from you. Bravo!
Are you going to present the Guardian-reading tofu-eating left-wing wokerati point of view sometime soon?

Wendy | 17.02.23 - 1:10 p.m. | #

Wonder if 'FKOF' stands for 'f**k off' (Sadiq Khan)

lummox | 17.02.23 - 2:29 p.m. | #

I only drive when I need to, and I wish everyone else would do the same.

Strabismus | 17.02.23 - 2:42 p.m. | #

Durham was the first city in the UK to introduce a congestion charge in October 2002

lumma | Homepage | 17.02.23 - 3:33 p.m. | #

I can never tell if "cars have been rendered worthless overnight" is sincere or not. The rest of the country is still ULEZ free (for private cars) save a couple of other small city schemes, and there are literally millions of people who will happily buy and drive your stinky junk.

Graham | 17.02.23 - 3:54 p.m. | #

it's scary when many don't recognise sarcasm any more...

popartist | 17.02.23 - 4:00 p.m. | #

I am OUTRAGED by the INSUFFICIENT use of RANDOM capitalisation and UNNECESSARY numbers of EXCLAMATION marks in this PARODY!!!!

Richard Smith | 17.02.23 - 5:57 p.m. | #

A lot of particulates comes from a vehicle's tyres. So the aggregate width of all tyres should define the tax rate (Bring back the Robin Reliant).

As for Electric cars, More Chargers needed. Yes? Where does the energy required to run them come from? We may get good wind occasionally but the rest of the time it's predominantly natural gas. And HMG want gas boilers banned: heat pumps are not as efficient as claimed, especially in freezing weather, so again (much) more electricity needed.
When (and where) are all the new power stations to be built? It won't help to get people turning off their phone chargers, televisions and lights between 16:30 and 18:30: that wouldn't even start to provide enough juice for a single new HS2 train.

Nick K | 17.02.23 - 7:17 p.m. | #

For a moment I thought this "blinkered tosh" had been written by a BMW driver, but then I realised that they wouldn't have been able to find the blinkers in the first place.

DavidC | 17.02.23 - 9:53 p.m. | #

jpmac: most vehicle construction standards are devised and agreed both by the ECE and the EU. The ECE is a United Nations body. Look at your windscreen or headlight glass and you may see (eg) E10 (United Nations) or e10 (EU) approval marks.

Alan P | 18.02.23 - 12:14 a.m. | #

I'm worried that this means the end of London-centric posts as you go off to open a farm in the Cotswolds

Nick | Homepage | 18.02.23 - 11:42 a.m. | #

In reply to jpmac, the loss of traffic lights at junctions raises a question not yet addressed - how will pedestrians safely cross the road?

On tyre particulates, the EU is now considering the basis of a Euro7 standard which will supposedly address that.

Joel | 18.02.23 - 2:18 p.m. | #

Lots of great and diverse responses. Personally, my heart bleeds for motorists. Thank goodness for Lutfur Rahman, bravely standing up for the rights of the endangered minority (36% I think) of Tower Hamlets car owners by encouraging car use through re-opening roads and providing free parking for shoppers.

Colin | 19.02.23 - 10:19 a.m. | #











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