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Bristol Diesel Charge

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Mikey C

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But what Bristol has to achieve is lower NO/NO2 levels and diesels produce much more than petrol cars so London’s “solution” doesn’t solve Bristol’s problem.

The London ULEZ zone is also there to improve air quality, i.e. to reduce NOx and particulates, it's hard to imagine that Bristol's requirements are different to London's
 

carlberry

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The London ULEZ zone is also there to improve air quality, i.e. to reduce NOx and particulates, it's hard to imagine that Bristol's requirements are different to London's
London has a separate congestion charge and both schemes operate around the idea of allowing people to pollute if you pay more, Bristol's appears to be nearer the idea that paying to pollute shouldn't be an option and we should just clean up the air instead.
 

Mikey C

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London has a separate congestion charge and both schemes operate around the idea of allowing people to pollute if you pay more, Bristol's appears to be nearer the idea that paying to pollute shouldn't be an option and we should just clean up the air instead.

But why allow ALL petrol cars in irrespective of age then?
 

M7R

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A Euro 6b isn't environmentally friendly, it's just slightly less polluting that older diesel engines but more polluting than most petrol engines.

But new diesels pollute more than older petrol cars. London may be willing to ignore this however it dosent mean that everybody has to.

define more polluting. Only interested in NOx or considering other gasses like CO2, CO and HC?

Diesel is higher in NOx but that is only a by product of how the engine works- and that leads to lower emissions of other gasses like CO2, hence the push to tax on CO2 back in the early 00’s meaning a diesel suddenly became the car of choice...and the limits on the newer diesels is still pretty low and cars will normally come in at 50% or so of the limit for it if not less otherwise you will get issues with durability when approving the vehicles, diesel has just been turned into the villain and the car is easy, but there’s other things to be worrying about too rather than newer cars.

if this scheme gets the green light it will make going to put head office fun as that’s in Bristol, will need to check where the zone is but will mean careful selection of hire car or making sure who ever is going gets the Prius pool car we have.
 

carlberry

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define more polluting. Only interested in NOx or considering other gasses like CO2, CO and HC?

Diesel is higher in NOx but that is only a by product of how the engine works- and that leads to lower emissions of other gasses like CO2, hence the push to tax on CO2 back in the early 00’s meaning a diesel suddenly became the car of choice...and the limits on the newer diesels is still pretty low and cars will normally come in at 50% or so of the limit for it if not less otherwise you will get issues with durability when approving the vehicles, diesel has just been turned into the villain and the car is easy, but there’s other things to be worrying about too rather than newer cars.

if this scheme gets the green light it will make going to put head office fun as that’s in Bristol, will need to check where the zone is but will mean careful selection of hire car or making sure who ever is going gets the Prius pool car we have.
Bristol is tasked with reducing the NOx levels, CO2 and CO are not seen as such an issue for air polution, especially CO2. The government push to diesel in the 00s was a classic fudge along the lines of 'if I use a slightly short knife it wont cause as much damage' however nobody with any experience of diesel could really say that they're 'clean'. At some point people (myself included) will have to accept that we cant just carry on tinkering around the edges of major problems like air polution.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Bristol is tasked with reducing the NOx levels, CO2 and CO are not seen as such an issue for air polution, especially CO2. The government push to diesel in the 00s was a classic fudge along the lines of 'if I use a slightly short knife it wont cause as much damage' however nobody with any experience of diesel could really say that they're 'clean'. At some point people (myself included) will have to accept that we cant just carry on tinkering around the edges of major problems like air polution.

Very true. If you read
https://assets.publishing.service.g...data/file/612592/clean-air-zone-framework.pdf
it says

5. By improving air quality we can reduce the impacts on people’s health of pollutants
such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter and create great places for
living in, as well as great places to work.
38. An important part of developing understanding and maintaining a focus on the aim of a Clean Air Zone will be monitoring its impacts and ensuring it is achieving its objectives for NO2 and other pollutants
55. Local Air Quality Management Policy Guidance (PG16)9 sets out more details of these requirements, and actions that authorities may consider. The guidance has been designed to maximise the public health benefits of local authority action, in particular on priority pollutants such as NO2 and particulate matter (PM10/PM2.5). Local authorities should consider the advice in this guidance alongside this framework.


No one is saying CO2 isn't important but it isn't referenced unlike NO and NO2 which is clearly what the CAZ guidance prioritises.
 

Scousemouse

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I'm curious about what will happen for shift workers.

Lets say a Train driver/guard/host starting an early shift around 4am and having to drive into Temple Meads - which is in the zone according to the maps.

If they finish at midday they are effectively a prisoner at work until 3pm.

Changing car is not necessarily a viable option.
 

Bletchleyite

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Not if they've got a new perfectly good diesel that will lose them money to trade in.

Well, they've got a choice between doing so or parking outside the zone and walking or cycling in (the zone is not very big).

Sometimes one has to make a choice that involves losing money because the other possible outcome is worse. That does not make the choice non-viable.

If you live in Bristol now and commute into the centre, you are not going to buy a brand-new diesel vehicle. By the time it's implemented anyone who bought one before this was announced won't have a new vehicle.
 

DaveHarries

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For my part my current work address is near Temple Meads and falls within the exclusion zone by a mere 400 yards or thereabouts. Rees' idea of putting Coronation Road and Commercial Road means I will be forced to car unless my boss can find a site outside of the exclusion zone which will do for a replacement work address (I work for a vehicle hire operation as a driver). However I do also do volunteer work for Bristol Cathedral (the one down by College Green) on Sunday mornings and I drive to get there as the bus from my part of Bristol is only one per hour if it turns up(!!) on a Sunday and thus unviable to use. I don't have a bike (nowhere to store one) and it is too far to walk.

So what will I do with my very economical, Diesel-powered, 1.6-litre Skoda hatchback? Trade it for another one which isn't Diesel but which is the same model. Whether a 1.6-litre Petrol or a Hybrid (electric + 1.4-litre Petrol engine, due out 3rd quarter of 2020) I have yet to decide and won't make up my mind until I have tried both. As for the Petrol vs. Diesel debate: petrol contains benzine which is surely very toxic indeed. Also, now that BCC have wasted money on a load of brand-new Diesel vans (if I was a betting man I would lay £100 that they will hypocratically give them exemption permits) they can't lecture us citizens of Bristol IMO.

Dave
 

Tackleberry

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Excellent, another city I won’t be able to go to with my 03 Scania coach, despite being fitted with an Eminox...!!!
 

Scousemouse

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I’m convinced when this is approved somehow temple meads will be outside the boundary.
If you want to encourage transport by train stopping people driving to the main train station seems ridiculous. Especially as it will affect the key workers needing to run the service - I suppose they may get some form of exemption if they register their vehicles. Kind of how the drivers got fuel passes to get priority in the fuel shortage.
 

carlberry

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I’m convinced when this is approved somehow temple meads will be outside the boundary.
If you want to encourage transport by train stopping people driving to the main train station seems ridiculous. Especially as it will affect the key workers needing to run the service - I suppose they may get some form of exemption if they register their vehicles. Kind of how the drivers got fuel passes to get priority in the fuel shortage.
Temple Meads is one of the more polluted areas (not helped by the trains of course!). The idea is to encourage people to use public transport, not to encourage people to drive to train stations.
 

carlberry

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TBH I'm not sure it will be approved, I can see it being ramped back to something more like the London ULEZ i.e. Euro VI diesels still permitted, at least for private cars.
So pollution is OK as long as you can afford a new car!
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Yes but you can say the same thing about buses. Pollution is ok as long as you ride a diesel bus
However, the pollution per capita is much lower if you have 70 people on a bus.

As a nation, and Bristol as an instance, can’t keep allowing unfettered car usage and expect to the road network to cope or meet emissions requirements. It’s just not tenable.

The bus network needs to be improved though. More buses need to be made available, and their reliability needs to be improved. Partly with increased investment by the operators but also ensuring that they’re not stuck in glue pot traffic.

James Freeman wrote an open letter to that effect. They invested in 10 new gas buses (part of 77 new ones) but they were taking 1h 40 to do a journey that should take half that at times because of bad traffic management allied to road works.

It simply can’t go on.
 

Lucan

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they've got a choice between doing so or parking outside the zone and walking or cycling in (the zone is not very big).
As I said earlier, the proposed Bristol zone is effectively much larger than the area shown on the map, in fact by some miles in one direction. That is because it is either not physically or not legally possible to turn round, park or drop someone off at the boundary itself - the nearest opportunities will be much further out.

In fact, without a resident's permit, parking in Bristol and its inner suburbs has become well-nigh impossible anyway except at some city-centre multi-storeys (inside the zone) and private parking at businesses and hotels (many also inside the zone). For example I will be prevented from picking up my elderly mother at Temple Meads when she visits, and it might tip the scales for me driving her all the way home instead of her using the train. No, I won't be asking her to walk or cycle the last two miles even if I could get that close.

But again refering to a point in my earlier post, the ban includes the south end of the Portway at the western end of the old docks. This is a relatively open area, much of it open water; it is some distance from the city centre, has little housing, and is flanked to the west by the river and then parkland; so I find it hard to believe that there is a NOx problem here. By including this part of the Portway, a trunk road (it's the A4), they are severing North Bristol from South Bristol on the western side. I cannot help feeling that this aspect is just spite, although the main losers will be businesses in Bedminster.

As for advice to get a different type of car - sorry, won't happen, as they keep moving th goalposts so fast that people have lost any trust in what will happen next. You could buy a different car one week only to find that is banned or penalised the next. So I shall keep what I've got as long as it is practicable and see what the longer term brings. Meanwhile I won't be doing any business or socialising in central or south Bristol, or using Temple Meads station if this ban goes through; I shall just go elsewhere FTTB - sorry if that is not the intended effect
 
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DaveHarries

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So pollution is OK as long as you can afford a new car!
I will probably end up leasing my next car: the current one is too young to scrap.

But again refering to a point in my earlier post, the ban includes the south end of the Portway at the western end of the old docks. This is a relatively open area, much of it open water; it is some distance from the city centre, has little housing, and is flanked to the west by the river and then parkland; so I find it hard to believe that there is a NOx problem here. By including this part of the Portway, a trunk road (it's the A4), they are severing North Bristol from South Bristol on the western side. I cannot help feeling that this aspect is just spite, although the main losers will be businesses in Bedminster.

As for advice to get a different type of car - sorry, won't happen, as they keep moving th goalposts so fast that people have lost any trust in what will happen next. You could buy a different car one week only to find that is banned or penalised the next. So I shall keep what I've got as long as it is practicable and see what the longer term brings. Meanwhile I won't be doing any business or socialising in central or south Bristol, or using Temple Meads station if this ban goes through; I shall just go elsewhere FTTB - sorry if that is not the intended effect
Marvin Rees has removed the southern end of the Portway from the zone covered by the diesel ban - https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/cabot-circus-plimsoll-bridge-removed-3795873 - which I hope will only be the first change made to the scheme. I think that not operating the ban at all at weekends would be a good move otherwise footfall in Broadmead may go down quite a lot. For my part I will carry on using Temple Meads while I need to (fortunately I live within reach of the Severn Beach line) but that may not be necessary when / if the diesel ban comes in. And I think quite a few people will go elsewhere for shopping and socialising.

Dave
 

WelshBluebird

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Temple Meads is one of the more polluted areas (not helped by the trains of course!). The idea is to encourage people to use public transport, not to encourage people to drive to train stations.

So I am actually in favour of the zone, however one thing I must say is right now, the options on how to get to Temple Meads from other parts of Bristol aren't great. Yes there are trains if you are lucky enough to live close to one of the smaller stations in the area, but the trains that call at these stations are not very frequent. And the bus service is atrocious and has been massively cut back in the last couple of years!

If they expect people to not drive to Temple Meads then they have to improve public transport to Temple Meads from elsewhere. This means increasing the frequency of the local stopping services (one train an hour is pretty rubbish, and 3 trains every 2 hours isn't much better) and hugely improving the bus services beyond anything that is recognisable to today.
 

Bletchleyite

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As for advice to get a different type of car - sorry, won't happen, as they keep moving th goalposts so fast that people have lost any trust in what will happen next. You could buy a different car one week only to find that is banned or penalised the next. So I shall keep what I've got as long as it is practicable and see what the longer term brings. Meanwhile I won't be doing any business or socialising in central or south Bristol, or using Temple Meads station if this ban goes through; I shall just go elsewhere FTTB - sorry if that is not the intended effect

The vast majority of people keep cars for 3-5 years (however old they are). This doesn't work well for those who buy newish and keep to scrap, of course, but does work in terms of the horizons of these schemes. I'm already considering that my next one will probably be a very efficient Euro VI diesel as these schemes will keep the prices down and the CO2 emissions are low, but the one after almost certainly not.
 
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TheGrandWazoo

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And the bus service is atrocious and has been massively cut back in the last couple of years!

Has it? Certain routes around Redland have been certainly been trimmed and the off peak headways have been widened but not certain that it's been massively cut back. The bus service is only atrocious in the peaks because of the terrible congestion, not helped by selected road works. The Temple Way scheme (adjacent to Temple Meads) was a running sore for two years.

For example I will be prevented from picking up my elderly mother at Temple Meads when she visits, and it might tip the scales for me driving her all the way home instead of her using the train. No, I won't be asking her to walk or cycle the last two miles even if I could get that close.

And I know that people will always point to their elderly relative, or the work they do for charidee, or all the other reasons why THEY absolutely have the need (nay right) to drive their little box into the city centre. However, Bristol has a definite need to improve air quality and I'm not seeing many other suggestions in how they achieve that in the timescale demanded.

the ban includes the south end of the Portway at the western end of the old docks. This is a relatively open area, much of it open water; it is some distance from the city centre, has little housing, and is flanked to the west by the river and then parkland; so I find it hard to believe that there is a NOx problem here. By including this part of the Portway, a trunk road (it's the A4), they are severing North Bristol from South Bristol on the western side. I cannot help feeling that this aspect is just spite, although the main losers will be businesses in Bedminster.

As Dave H has said, this bit has already been amended as it precluded people moving from the A370 to the A4 and vice versa. The reason why the zone originally fell there was because of the terrible air quality on Hotwells Road.
 

Lucan

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Marvin Rees has removed the southern end of the Portway from the zone covered by the diesel ban - https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/cabot-circus-plimsoll-bridge-removed-3795873 - which I hope will only be the first change made to the scheme.
An outbreak of common sense. Thanks for that info. From the link :
Changes have also been made to the boundaries around the Cumberland Basin area [the west end of the old docks] allowing for diesel cars to travel between the A370 and the A4 north of the river.
Mr Rees [the Mayor] said: “The planned boundary cut off a route for people who wanted to skirt round the zone from the south to the north, and vice versa. We have therefore altered the boundary giving access via Plimsoll Bridge and Portway.
Same as I said earler in this thread, and in emails I sent to some shops and other companies in Bedminster (south Bristol) I sometimes do business with. It would be nice to think that I helped in some of the pressure that has been put on the council.

As for access to TM station, it would not be so bad if a frequent service Bristol metro/tram system, using the existing, disused or freight railway lines centred on TM, were established. Such schemes have been proposed for many years but we are still waiting. Bristol's left-wing councils have regarded such schemes as only benefiting the middle-classes and commuters living outside their boundary (eg from Portishead, W-s-M and Thornbury) - so much for "joined up government". They cannot even manage to put a halt on the single track Severn Beach branch ine alongside the existing Portway Park-and-Ride car park, a trivial task I'd have thought. So I have zero sympathy with Bristol Council in their present fix.
 

carlberry

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As for access to TM station, it would not be so bad if a frequent service Bristol metro/tram system, using the existing, disused or freight railway lines centred on TM, were established. Such schemes have been proposed for many years but we are still waiting. Bristol's left-wing councils have regarded such schemes as only benefiting the middle-classes and commuters living outside their boundary (eg from Portishead, W-s-M and Thornbury) - so much for "joined up government". They cannot even manage to put a halt on the single track Severn Beach branch ine alongside the existing Portway Park-and-Ride car park, a trivial task I'd have thought. So I have zero sympathy with Bristol Council in their present fix.
The 'trivial' Portway P&R station costs £3million and rising, the Portishead line is £120milling and rising and those are the easy ones! Any scheme that uses rail lines in Bristol is also unattractive not because the users will be middle class but because Temple Meads isn't where people want to be anyway.
People might like to say it's all Bristol council's fault (however I don't remember too many other people coming up with the billions of pounds needed) however that dosent stop the need to fix the problem.
 

Scousemouse

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By time none of this addresses shift workers who start before the zone kicks in and before public transport or finish after public transport ends but need to start before 3pm.

if it were me, I certainly wouldn’t want to be parking elsewhere and making my way across Bristol on foot after midnight or at 4am! It’s not safe.
 

Bletchleyite

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if it were me, I certainly wouldn’t want to be parking elsewhere and making my way across Bristol on foot after midnight or at 4am! It’s not safe.

Then you should change your car, or perhaps consider a second runaround (small 1l petrol cars are cheap, and a petrol car of any age is allowed). But for most people it is adequately safe. Our cities, despite what many people think, don't turn into the Wild West at 4am. In practice, it's around pub kicking out time that the most risk is posed.

It is my view that the scheme should be more like the London ULEZ at least in terms of what is allowed (so Euro VI diesels should be for the next 10 years or so at least, and older petrols not) so as to standardise a bit, but even so that situation is still going to arise.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Then you should change your car, or perhaps consider a second runaround (small 1l petrol cars are cheap, and a petrol car of any age is allowed). But for most people it is adequately safe. Our cities, despite what many people think, don't turn into the Wild West at 4am. In practice, it's around pub kicking out time that the most risk is posed.

It is my view that the scheme should be more like the London ULEZ at least in terms of what is allowed (so Euro VI diesels should be for the next 10 years or so at least, and older petrols not) so as to standardise a bit, but even so that situation is still going to arise.

Also, unlike many other cities, Bristol has a decent night bus network. Of course, that could also be extended further (e.g. introduce service 1 or 2) to provide more connectivity
 
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