London Mayor wants new pay-per-mile road pricing to cut car journeys

Such a system could abolish all existing road user charges such as the current Congestion Charge and replace them with a simple and fair scheme where drivers pay per mile.This new report must act as a stark wake-up call for the government on the need to provide much greater support to reduce carbon emissions in London, said Khan.Nearly half of Londoners dont own a car, but they are disproportionately feeling the damaging consequences polluting vehicles are causing.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wants a new road pricing policy which could see almost all vehicles entering the UK capital pay a daily charge of around GBP 2, after a new report released on Tuesday set out the massive scale of action required to meet the city’s net-zero carbon emissions target by 2030.

The ‘Element Energy’ report, commissioned by Khan, sets out that London will need a new kind of road user charging system implemented by the end of the decade at the latest. Such a system could abolish all existing road user charges – such as the current Congestion Charge – and replace them with a “simple and fair scheme” where drivers pay per mile.

“This new report must act as a stark wake-up call for the government on the need to provide much greater support to reduce carbon emissions in London,” said Khan.

“Nearly half of Londoners don’t own a car, but they are disproportionately feeling the damaging consequences polluting vehicles are causing. We have too often seen measures to tackle air pollution and the climate emergency delayed around the world because it’s viewed as being too hard or politically inconvenient, but I’m not willing to put off action we have the ability to implement here in London,” he said.

The Mayor of Pakistani heritage said he is “beginning a conversation” with Londoners, local government and businesses about the best way forward to create a greener and sustainable city before his second term in charge of the capital ends in 2024.

Subject to consultation and feasibility, any new chosen scheme would be implemented by Transport for London (TfL) by May 2024.

The potential approaches under consideration are: extending the current Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) even further to tackle more of the dirtiest vehicles; modifying the ULEZ to make it even more impactful in reducing emissions; a small clean air daily charge across all of Greater London for all but the cleanest vehicles to nudge behaviour and reduce the number of short journeys by car; and/or introducing a Greater London boundary charge, which would charge a small fee to non-London registered vehicles entering Greater London, responding to the increase in cars from outside London travelling into the city seen in recent years.

“The world-leading road user charging schemes we've delivered throughout the last 20 years have been really effective in addressing congestion and tackling air quality across London, but it is clear that as a city we need to go further,” said Christina Calderato, Director of Transport Strategy and Policy at Transport for London.

“These new approaches will allow us to take further steps towards a net-zero city and we will ensure that Londoners and those who regularly visit London are involved as we progress this work in more detail,” she said.

The new report found that in order to meet the climate change targets, car traffic must reduce by at least 27 per cent in London by the end of the decade. It also highlighted that more than a third of car trips made by Londoners could be walked in under 25 minutes and two-thirds could be cycled in under 20 minutes. The Mayor’s City Hall office said its efforts will now also be on further encouraging walking and cycling in London.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)