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Article: The next TfL financial crunch will be wrapped in a purple ribbon, and labelled “Crossrail”.

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Robert Ambler

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Could you give some figures?

(And please don't just quote "£27 billion for the Road Investment Strategy 2 : 2020-2025". Much of that is for routine renewals, a bit like Network Rail's periodic review settlement. There are very few 'new roads' apart from the additional Thames Crossing, which is the sort of thing that needs to be compared with 'new railways' like Crossrail and HS2.)
I understand there are currently 770 miles (approximately) of major new road schemes at a cost of about £30billion in the UK as a whole (so funded from a mix of sources including the devolved governments and local authorities) which are underway or approved. There is about three times that amount at the planning and funding stage. Most of these are by-passes or sections of new road rather than entire new roads but are nonetheless significant. Then as you say there is the money spent on more routine stuff such as renewals, widening and junction improvements.

It is of course a confusing situation as the figures published by the UK Government are usually just for the schemes they are responsible for (so Highways England schemes). Likewise for other bodies so you end up trawling through reports from pressure and lobby groups which generally of course give a particular viewpoint.

Bearing in mind the subject of this thread it is ironic perhaps that the region with the least new road schemes in the UK is London

Having just pointed out the difference between various forms of Government spending, you must be aware of the different ways road and rail are financed in this country. I'm sure you're also aware that far more people and freight travel by road than by rail.
Yes I am aware of the differences. I have also commented elsewhere in another thread about the tiny proportion of people and freight moved by rail - 2% of passenger journeys and 5% of freight according to the ORR.
 
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Railwaysceptic

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London is suffering from ever increasing traffic congestion. It was ranked as the world's worst I believe in December 2021. Therefore it seems strange to be thinking that it needs to cut spending on public transport. I'm sure there are examples where better management would help reduce costs, but the article does seem to have an anti public transport viewpoint.

Those in charge in London are generally waking up to the fact that private cars are inefficient in a large city.
From its very first few days, TfL's central policy has been to make London's roads unfit for purpose. That, plus the enthusiastic co-operation they receive from anti-motor car councils like Waltham Forest, is the reason London's traffic congestion is so awful. It is not that they have woken up to some new reality. They created it. Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor to Ken Livingstone, let the cat out of the bag when, after a GLC party financed of course by tax-payers, said "the end game is a car free London." I think that alcohol induced admission is the only honest declaration of the policy we've ever had.

I think the answer is creating more bus only routes and bus lanes. It's not fair that a lot of buses get caught in congestion caused by cars!
Oh, come on! You can't be so unobservant that you haven't noticed that congestion is caused by changes to the road layout. According to TfL statistics, there are fewer cars being driven in inner London than twenty years ago but we have far worse congestion.
 
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mpthomson

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What nonsense. The UK spends far less on healthcare than other G7 countries and has done for decades.
OT I know, but this is always wheeled out and it doesn't stand up to scrutiny (I've worked healthcare at a senior level for many years, including the NHS). This doesn't take into account the fact that the NHS is pretty unique in terms of the way it's funded, solely by government, so the per capita health spend isn't really comparable. You need to differentiate between total spend on healthcare and what the government spends.

In terms of cost to government the NHS used more of %age of GDP than any country in the EU in 2020, just under 13% as opposed to 9% for France (jointly the highest of other EU countries) and 8% for Germany. In terms of the rest of the G7, Japan's spend is also lower at approx 9% and Italy's is 7%. The only G7 country that was higher was Canada, and even then only by 1%. I've omitted the US deliberately from this as it's a largely privately funded healthcare system/industry, with the associated price-gouging and profiteering so their figures are massively skewed from anyone else's.

The other statistic worthy of note is that the UK's per capita spend on health has gone up by 17% between 2019 and 2020, which is significantly higher than any other G7 country, even the US only went up 2% in that time, and that this is all government spend.

The TOTAL per capita amount spent on healthcare may be greater in other countries but that's because the citizens/residents of those countries also put in a significant amount via health insurance, which is nearly always more expensive than directly funded services as a third party (the insurance companies) will want to make a reasonable margin.

Thread drift off and apologies!
 

stuu

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I understand there are currently 770 miles (approximately) of major new road schemes at a cost of about £30billion in the UK as a whole (so funded from a mix of sources including the devolved governments and local authorities) which are underway or approved. There is about three times that amount at the planning and funding stage. Most of these are by-passes or sections of new road rather than entire new roads but are nonetheless significant. Then as you say there is the money spent on more routine stuff such as renewals, widening and junction improvements.

It is of course a confusing situation as the figures published by the UK Government are usually just for the schemes they are responsible for (so Highways England schemes). Likewise for other bodies so you end up trawling through reports from pressure and lobby groups which generally of course give a particular viewpoint.

Bearing in mind the subject of this thread it is ironic perhaps that the region with the least new road schemes in the UK is London


Yes I am aware of the differences. I have also commented elsewhere in another thread about the tiny proportion of people and freight moved by rail - 2% of passenger journeys and 5% of freight according to the ORR.
Where are you getting that number from? I might possibly believe 770 lane miles, but I am enormously sceptical that there are 770 miles of actual brand new road in the process of being built
 

Trainbike46

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OT I know, but this is always wheeled out and it doesn't stand up to scrutiny (I've worked healthcare at a senior level for many years, including the NHS). This doesn't take into account the fact that the NHS is pretty unique in terms of the way it's funded, solely by government, so the per capita health spend isn't really comparable. You need to differentiate between total spend on healthcare and what the government spends.

In terms of cost to government the NHS used more of %age of GDP than any country in the EU in 2020, just under 13% as opposed to 9% for France (jointly the highest of other EU countries) and 8% for Germany. In terms of the rest of the G7, Japan's spend is also lower at approx 9% and Italy's is 7%. The only G7 country that was higher was Canada, and even then only by 1%. I've omitted the US deliberately from this as it's a largely privately funded healthcare system/industry, with the associated price-gouging and profiteering so their figures are massively skewed from anyone else's.

The other statistic worthy of note is that the UK's per capita spend on health has gone up by 17% between 2019 and 2020, which is significantly higher than any other G7 country, even the US only went up 2% in that time, and that this is all government spend.

The TOTAL per capita amount spent on healthcare may be greater in other countries but that's because the citizens/residents of those countries also put in a significant amount via health insurance, which is nearly always more expensive than directly funded services as a third party (the insurance companies) will want to make a reasonable margin.

Thread drift off and apologies!
The money spent by citizens on healthcare is absolutely relevant. For example, in the Netherlands having health insurance is a legal requirement, so really the health insurance premium just another tax (from a citizen's perspective, because you get in trouble with the government, and the government only, if you refuse to pay it). Not including healthcare spending by people is just an attempt to make the NHS look bad in an international comparison, while the NHS is relatively efficient for a health system, where efficiency is measured by the amount of money spent in relation to health outcomes.
 

DC1989

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From its very first few days, TfL's central policy has been to make London's roads unfit for purpose. That, plus the enthusiastic co-operation they receive from anti-motor car councils like Waltham Forest, is the reason London's traffic congestion is so awful. It is not that they have woken up to some new reality. They created it. Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor to Ken Livingstone, let the cat out of the bag when, after a GLC party financed of course by tax-payers, said "the end game is a car free London." I think that alcohol induced admission is the only honest declaration of the policy we've ever had.

So? This is a trend that's happening in every major city in the world. It's not exactly a secret either, Sadiq Khan and councils like Waltham Forest have put such policies front and centre - and been rewarded with stonking majorities.
 

LYRobert

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I think the answer is creating more bus only routes and bus lanes. It's not fair that a lot of buses get caught in congestion caused by cars!

Correspondents might find it interesting to see the opinions of some American observers who live in, and regret, an environment designed for cars and not people, where provision for the pedestrian (the what?) is non-existant. Have a look at the some of the youtubes by the "Armchair Urbanist". The trend here in UK seems to be towards a car-centric environment.
 

stuu

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From its very first few days, TfL's central policy has been to make London's roads unfit for purpose. That, plus the enthusiastic co-operation they receive from anti-motor car councils like Waltham Forest, is the reason London's traffic congestion is so awful. It is not that they have woken up to some new reality. They created it. Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor to Ken Livingstone, let the cat out of the bag when, after a GLC party financed of course by tax-payers, said "the end game is a car free London." I think that alcohol induced admission is the only honest declaration of the policy we've ever had.
Only from the point of view of people driving their own vehicles in central London, for which there are relatively few legitimate reasons to do so. For everyone walking and cycling, which is the majority on a lot of streets in Central London, they have an improved environment. Why should the minority take precedence over the majority?
 

Robert Ambler

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Where are you getting that number from? I might possibly believe 770 lane miles, but I am enormously sceptical that there are 770 miles of actual brand new road in the process of being built
That particular figure comes from the Campaign for Better Transport
 

Coolzac

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From its very first few days, TfL's central policy has been to make London's roads unfit for purpose. That, plus the enthusiastic co-operation they receive from anti-motor car councils like Waltham Forest, is the reason London's traffic congestion is so awful. It is not that they have woken up to some new reality. They created it. Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor to Ken Livingstone, let the cat out of the bag when, after a GLC party financed of course by tax-payers, said "the end game is a car free London." I think that alcohol induced admission is the only honest declaration of the policy we've ever had.


Oh, come on! You can't be so unobservant that you haven't noticed that congestion is caused by changes to the road layout. According to TfL statistics, there are fewer cars being driven in inner London than twenty years but we have far worse congestion.

You can't build your way out of congestion. Induced demand ensures this. And that only benefits car users anyway, even if it did work.

The way to create a more pleasant, quieter, less congested city is to make walking and cycling the typical method for shorter journeys and public transport for longer journeys.

I actually agree that for central London, banning private car use or at least heavily discouraging it is absolutely the way forward.
 

HSTEd

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You can't build your way out of congestion. Induced demand ensures this. And that only benefits car users anyway, even if it did work.

The way to create a more pleasant, quieter, less congested city is to make walking and cycling the typical method for shorter journeys and public transport for longer journeys.

I actually agree that for central London, banning private car use or at least heavily discouraging it is absolutely the way forward.
But the same logic that applies to cars applies to public transport too!

And that leads to never building any transportation infrastructure ever.

This argument is ultimately built on the idea that transport demand is unbounded (which is nonsensical because every vehicle has to contain at least one person and every person can only spend a finite amount of time using transport every day) and that there is no positive value from increased transport use - which is a pretty slippery slope to start down.
 

Coolzac

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But the same logic that applies to cars applies to public transport too!

And that leads to never building any transportation infrastructure ever.

This argument is ultimately built on the idea that transport demand is unbounded (which is nonsensical because every vehicle has to contain at least one person and every person can only spend a finite amount of time using transport every day) and that there is no positive value from increased transport use - which is a pretty slippery slope to start down.

It's an interesting perspective - but I disagree, for the simple reason that it's easier to transport larger numbers of people by public transport. So for example, if you create another lane on the M25, it wouldnt take a huge number of people to fill it up, given the amount of space a car takes up per person. However, with Crossrail, it would take absolutely massive numbers travelling for it to reach capacity. So the concept is far more useful in explaining car congestion, rather than for public transport. And it shows why it's far more effective in the long run to invest in better public transport and walking/cycling routes.
 

Robert Ambler

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From its very first few days, TfL's central policy has been to make London's roads unfit for purpose. That, plus the enthusiastic co-operation they receive from anti-motor car councils like Waltham Forest, is the reason London's traffic congestion is so awful. It is not that they have woken up to some new reality. They created it. Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor to Ken Livingstone, let the cat out of the bag when, after a GLC party financed of course by tax-payers, said "the end game is a car free London." I think that alcohol induced admission is the only honest declaration of the policy we've ever had.


Oh, come on! You can't be so unobservant that you haven't noticed that congestion is caused by changes to the road layout. According to TfL statistics, there are fewer cars being driven in inner London than twenty years but we have far worse congestion.
The congestion in London has always been bad. It is a factor in all cities and there is not much you can do about it other than to discourage people from using cars and to enable and encourage them to use other methods. The studies in urban planning made after WW2 concluded that in the larger UK cities to make the traffic flow freely you would have to demolish the entire city and replace all of the land area with road infrastructure (with another 2 decks above or below it for parking) (Colin Buchanan's Traffic in Towns being the main one). If you look at some North American cities which have been built around the car you will see that they cover huge land areas for their population (ie have a low population density) but still have road congestion. Los Angeles for example has around 40% of the land area devoted to roads and cars and as a result covers a huge area which in itself lengthens average travel times.

In London as a whole less than 40% of journeys are made by private car and that falls to around 10% in the centre and over 60% of car journeys London wide are less then 5km and so are the distance an able bodied person could easily walk or cycle. Road traffic is also a major factor in the poor air quality in cities of course. It therefore seems sensible to try and limit the use of private cars in cities (certainly in cities that are not designed for cars. Cities where walking and cycling are the norm are much more pleasant places to be.

I have a car. I live near London and frequently travel to Central London. I have done so once in a car in the last 20 years.
 

Railwaysceptic

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So? This is a trend that's happening in every major city in the world. It's not exactly a secret either, Sadiq Khan and councils like Waltham Forest have put such policies front and centre - and been rewarded with stonking majorities.
Your point has nothing to do with the cause of road congestion. Sadiq Khan's majority was substantially reduced at the last election. Labour's huge majority in Waltham Forest is due to demographics, not their undeclared road policy.

Only from the point of view of people driving their own vehicles in central London, for which there are relatively few legitimate reasons to do so. For everyone walking and cycling, which is the majority on a lot of streets in Central London, they have an improved environment. Why should the minority take precedence over the majority?
What has that got to do with the cause of road congestion? I think you'll find that people walking and cycling are the minority, and if they have any sense they'll choose quiet side streets rather than main traffic arteries.

The congestion in London has always been bad. It is a factor in all cities and there is not much you can do about it other than to discourage people from using cars and to enable and encourage them to use other methods. The studies in urban planning made after WW2 concluded that in the larger UK cities to make the traffic flow freely you would have to demolish the entire city and replace all of the land area with road infrastructure (with another 2 decks above or below it for parking) (Colin Buchanan's Traffic in Towns being the main one). If you look at some North American cities which have been built around the car you will see that they cover huge land areas for their population (ie have a low population density) but still have road congestion. Los Angeles for example has around 40% of the land area devoted to roads and cars and as a result covers a huge area which in itself lengthens average travel times.

In London as a whole less than 40% of journeys are made by private car and that falls to around 10% in the centre and over 60% of car journeys London wide are less then 5km and so are the distance an able bodied person could easily walk or cycle. Road traffic is also a major factor in the poor air quality in cities of course. It therefore seems sensible to try and limit the use of private cars in cities (certainly in cities that are not designed for cars. Cities where walking and cycling are the norm are much more pleasant places to be.

I have a car. I live near London and frequently travel to Central London. I have done so once in a car in the last 20 years.
The traffic congestion in London is far, far worse than it was before we had a Mayor and TfL. Your post rehearses several transport platitudes but does not address the point I was making.
 
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SynthD

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I think I have a solution. The M25 is the main road. Everything within that is a minor road or side street.

Waltham Forest was a test case of Mini Holland, which started before Khan. It wasn’t a secret.
 

stuu

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What has that got to do with the cause of road congestion? I think you'll find that people walking and cycling are the minority, and if they have any sense they'll choose quiet side streets rather than main traffic arteries.
In central London? I bet they aren't

The traffic congestion in London is far, far worse than it was before we had a Mayor and TfL. Your post rehearses several transport platitudes but does not address the point I was making.
What about the effect of the 10s of thousands of private hire vehicles and delivery drivers? They didn't exist pre-TfL either
 

Railwaysceptic

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I think I have a solution. The M25 is the main road. Everything within that is a minor road or side street.

Waltham Forest was a test case of Mini Holland, which started before Khan. It wasn’t a secret.
You have no solution.

The fraudulent "mini-Holland" schemes, now re-named low traffic neighbourhoods, have been tried in various parts of London. They involve closing roads within areas so that people living there cannot take the shortest route when driving to or from their houses. Instead they have to go onto the main road and sit in the traffic jam. The result is that the total miles they drive has increased as has their total vehicle emissions.

What about the effect of the 10s of thousands of private hire vehicles and delivery drivers? They didn't exist pre-TfL either
Is this a joke? We've had private hire drivers in London ever since the 1960s, but now most drive hybrid vehicles. London had delivery drivers in the days of the horse and cart!
 

Trainbike46

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You have no solution.

The fraudulent "mini-Holland" schemes, now re-named low traffic neighbourhoods, have been tried in various parts of London. They involve closing roads within areas so that people living there cannot take the shortest route when driving to or from their houses. Instead they have to go onto the main road and sit in the traffic jam. The result is that the total miles they drive has increased as has their total vehicle emissions.
This is plain wrong: it is widely established that LTNs/mini-holland schemes do not exacerbate congestion in the surrounding area. This is because most car trips "evaporate" (ie are not made at all), instead of moved around.



Is this a joke? We've had private hire drivers in London ever since the 1960s, but now most drive hybrid vehicles. London had delivery drivers in the days of the horse and cart!
@stuu is clearly referring to the large increase in the number of private-hire drivers driving around in london starting with the advent of uber and lyft.
 

miami

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OT I know, but this is always wheeled out and it doesn't stand up to scrutiny

Take a look at OECD total spending on healthcare in OECD countries and you find the UK usally 10-20% eblobelow countries like France, Germany, Netherlands etc since the 70s.

2020 especially of course is a ridiculous year to make any comparisons.

If we take 2010 as a baseline of spending, in 2019 the UK spent 29% more per person than in 2010. Germany spent 53% more per person, France 46%, only Italy in the G7 increased more than the UK.

Looking at real figures, again in 2019 Germany spent $5600 per person, the UK $3600.

This has been the same for decades, leading to money being syphoned off to the private sector (just like in the railway), but even then the NHS does far more with far less than Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands etc

There's a similar situation in the railway industry. Based on the figures on wikipedia, in the mid 2010s the UK subsidised about 7 cents per passenger-km, Netherlands 14, France 16, and Germany 21 cents per pax-km.
 

stuu

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Is this a joke? We've had private hire drivers in London ever since the 1960s, but now most drive hybrid vehicles. London had delivery drivers in the days of the horse and cart!
No, it's not a joke, it's a fact-based statement, unlike some others I could mention:

The number of licenced private hire cars went from 49,355 in 2009/10 to 94,712 in 2019/20. That's near enough double, although it has dropped back since the pandemic.

How many couriers and food delivery drivers were there in say 2000? And how many are there now? There don't seem to be any easily available statistics for that, but I would bet my house there are multiple times more deliveries made now than 20 years ago. And they often park badly and affect the traffic
 

Malaxa

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The number of licenced private hire cars went from 49,355 in 2009/10 to 94,712 in 2019/20. That's near enough double, although it has dropped back since the pandemic.

How many couriers and food delivery drivers were there in say 2000? And how many are there now? There don't seem to be any easily available statistics for that, but I would bet my house there are multiple times more deliveries made now than 20 years ago. And they often park badly and affect the traffic
Exactly. And this younger, home-working demographic who call Ubers on a whim and have all their life needs delivered to the door by gig-economy riders and drivers are replacing older generations who might have used buses to go to work, shopping or general travel around the capital. The 15 minute city is coming down the line whether we like it or not.
 

158756

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Exactly. And this younger, home-working demographic who call Ubers on a whim and have all their life needs delivered to the door by gig-economy riders and drivers are replacing older generations who might have used buses to go to work, shopping or general travel around the capital. The 15 minute city is coming down the line whether we like it or not.

I may be misunderstanding the concept of the "15 minute city", but does this shift towards London's streets being clogged with Ubers and couriers and delivery drivers not defeat many of the benefits of the idea? People who have everything delivered to their door aren't using local services, and the availability of cheap taxis also reduces the need for anything to be within a walkable distance.

In the context of this thread, if the 15 minute city is indeed the future then not just Crossrail will be a white elephant, but also the rest of London's public transport infrastructure.
 

SynthD

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That’s how you can tell it’s not 100% of the future. If a theory suggests something that absurd, it’s a bad theory. It is more of an age rant than it is a theory.
 

Dr Hoo

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That particular figure [770 miles of new road] comes from the Campaign for Better Transport
Can you provide a precise reference, please? I am unable to get anything like that on the CBT website.

Google seems to offer this thread as a hit and then the Special Roads Act of 1949 (which mooted a ‘motorway’ network around that size).

There is also a bizarre Guardian article from 2020 accusing the government of announcing 4,000 miles of ‘new’ road when it was actually about “work on” (= maintenance and renewal) of existing roads!
 

philosopher

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I may be misunderstanding the concept of the "15 minute city", but does this shift towards London's streets being clogged with Ubers and couriers and delivery drivers not defeat many of the benefits of the idea? People who have everything delivered to their door aren't using local services, and the availability of cheap taxis also reduces the need for anything to be within a walkable distance.

In the context of this thread, if the 15 minute city is indeed the future then not just Crossrail will be a white elephant, but also the rest of London's public transport infrastructure.
While having all your needs served at home or within very close proximity to the home may be convenient, it hardly sounds like the most fulfilling life, so some people will always to travel some distance to experience more out of life. Plus there will always be some essential activities in which it just not plain practicable to provide within a 15 minute walk of everyone. For example, with healthcare, providing it in a few large hospitals is going to be cheaper and more efficient than in several small hospitals that everyone can walk to.
 

jumble

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Do I need to provide a source? They pay for take aways and public transport in every other part of the country. There is precisely zero justification for non means tested free transport in London.

Same for the Freedom Pass.


The problem isn't cutting public transport it is getting someone to pay for it.

Only Ages 17-59 pay in London, and any anyone who uses London buses knows only about two thirds of those tap the readers.
Let me correct you
Sometimes only 17-59 pay in London as the Freedom and over 60 passes are not valid before 09.00
 

Railwaysceptic

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This is plain wrong: it is widely established that LTNs/mini-holland schemes do not exacerbate congestion in the surrounding area. This is because most car trips "evaporate" (ie are not made at all), instead of moved around.


@stuu is clearly referring to the large increase in the number of private-hire drivers driving around in london starting with the advent of uber and lyft.
It most certainly is not wrong! I live within a LTN and car trips have not "evaporated." You say "widely established." By Whom? Using what methodology?
These people in Highbury - not my neighbourhood although I used to know Highbury very well - obviously disagree:


I suspect that the number of private hire drivers working within central London has gone down since they have been obliged to pay the congestion charge. I've walked round the City twice in recent weeks and didn't notice many.
 

Wolfie

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Let me correct you
Sometimes only 17-59 pay in London as the Freedom and over 60 passes are not valid before 09.00
The disabled Freedom pass has no time restrictions. The older persons one does.
 

jayah

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Let me correct you
Sometimes only 17-59 pay in London as the Freedom and over 60 passes are not valid before 09.00
0900 on which days if you want to play that game?

The so called funding crisis could easily be solved if they didn't give millions of people free travel, they protected revenue on buses and didn't have some of the lowest bus fares in the UK.

Nothing there that isn't pretty obvious.
 

SynthD

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I suspect that the number of private hire drivers working within central London has gone down since they have been obliged to pay the congestion charge. I've walked round the City twice in recent weeks and didn't notice many.

The so called funding crisis could easily be solved if they didn't give millions of people free travel, they protected revenue on buses and didn't have some of the lowest bus fares in the UK.

Nothing there that isn't pretty obvious.
The stats are published for you to do the maths. Other people have, which makes their case far more believable.
 
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