Another congestion charge for Londoners?
By Winterishere
@thedevilinme (5216)
Northampton, England
February 4, 2019 4:53am CST
Britain has reduced its carbon footprint by 40% since 1990, a grand effort. But it hasn't stopped the government to continue to target the car for those clean air taxes. As from April, older polluting cars and their owners (the poor) are going to have to pay an additional £100 pounds for traveling into Central London to help cut pollution. A recent court case found in favor of a young girl there that the London polluted air contributed to her asthma death.The city could be seen as being responsible and acting in fear of liability and so promoting healthier lives with this new tax, or, as cynics like me fear, its about a loss of revenue from the original congestion charge that did indeed see a fall of 10% of cars in London over 20- years but not the traffic speed. Less cars paying the tax means less money for the Transport For London. Have they moved away from congestion charging to pollution charging to get their cash levels back up? I fear so.
3 people like this
3 responses
@Kasjnak (4489)
• Romania
4 Feb 19
It's always like that. They need the money and they will find a way to get them. It's not that hard to turn something good (pollution reduction) into something bad (grab as much money they can). The situation is a little more complex than that, but this is the basic idea.
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
4 Feb 19
It's a money grab. In California, gas taxes were raised to discourage car travel to cut down pollution. When the desired effect happened, the government moaned about the drop in gas tax revenue and jacked up taxes in general. They wanted us to cut down driving then have a fit when the bucks dwindle. I suspect government could care less about the environment because it is just used as an excuse to create more taxes to enrich their coffers so give themselves raises and continue extravagant lifestyles on the taxpayer's dime. At least in London you have decent transportation so you don't need to drive into Central London.
@garymarsh6 (23998)
• United Kingdom
4 Feb 19
I would never drive into Central London. It is a rip off from start to finish! Parking alone is a nightmare not to mention the charges anywhere from £5 upwards an hour. They control the rate and flow of traffic like they did for months before the introduction of the charge and hey presto on the morning of introduction the flow increased rapidly!
