London congestion zone going all-day, every day
Discussion
BBC reports it is coming back in from Monday 18th, but
- seven days rather than weekdays
- £15 rather than £11.50 (from June)
- 0700 - 2200, rather than 0700 - 1800
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52677...
Let the furlough tax rises begin...
- seven days rather than weekdays
- £15 rather than £11.50 (from June)
- 0700 - 2200, rather than 0700 - 1800
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52677...
Let the furlough tax rises begin...
Newc said:
Let the furlough tax rises begin...
This is not a central Government "tax rise". This is an incompetent, insolvent and abysmally managed company (TFL) who are in the hole to the tune of over £1bn because of Kahns fare freezes and the bulls
t projects they have pissed money away on over the last four years (Elephant and castle roundabout anyone?) being bailed out by the public. They've lost money recently because they told everyone to stop getting on the tube. If only someone could have predicted that would happen? When people where actually using the trains they reduced services and we got all these pictures of crammed tubes so people stopped going on them. They ran empty buses and kept staff on pay for ages before furloughing them and when the lockdown was released and then claimed they could only continue to run a reduced service because they'd spent all their time and money licking windows and paying staff to do nothing. More pictures of packed trains, blaming the government, the public, etc etc.
Shower of b
ds. Should have let them go bust. 
pip t said:
airbusA346 said:
Wasn't TFL also given a £1.6 billion bailout yesterday too?
It was. Before we're too hasty to blame Khan on the CC rise, this was apparently required by central government as part of the bail out package according to the article linked.pip t said:
airbusA346 said:
Wasn't TFL also given a £1.6 billion bailout yesterday too?
It was. Before we're too hasty to blame Khan on the CC rise, this was apparently required by central government as part of the bail out package according to the article linked.The blame absolutely rests with Kahn and the idiots running TFL.
Edited by StoatInACoat on Friday 15th May 14:12
A mate lives just outside the zone, as in literally: it starts on the other side of the street from him. I'd characterise him as 'unhappy'. He writes:
"so now instead of a natural ebb and flow as business traffic leaves and leisure traffic arrives after 6pm we'll have all the west end leisure throbbers trying to triple park in the side streets and hooting and banging and yelling seven nights a week while the kids are trying to sleep.
The access to the trunk roads like euston road at weekends is now going to be funnelled down two or three side roads outside the zone which are going to be log jammed the entire day.
Also all those saturday morning runaround errands which I can do in the car in 30 minutes I'm now going to be going out of town so that's half a dozen regular shops which will lose my business, while I sit in the log jam access roads"
I have edited out the colourful words, making it around 30% shorter.
"so now instead of a natural ebb and flow as business traffic leaves and leisure traffic arrives after 6pm we'll have all the west end leisure throbbers trying to triple park in the side streets and hooting and banging and yelling seven nights a week while the kids are trying to sleep.
The access to the trunk roads like euston road at weekends is now going to be funnelled down two or three side roads outside the zone which are going to be log jammed the entire day.
Also all those saturday morning runaround errands which I can do in the car in 30 minutes I'm now going to be going out of town so that's half a dozen regular shops which will lose my business, while I sit in the log jam access roads"
I have edited out the colourful words, making it around 30% shorter.
StoatInACoat said:
If TFL actually made any money and Kahn hadn't held fares artificially low for four years (WAY below inflation) to win the next election and score political points they wouldn't need to increase CC charges at all. If this crisis had been handled by someone over the age of 6 at TFL they wouldn't require a bailout.
The blame absolutely rests with Kahn and the idiots running TFL.
Anyone over the age of 6 would realise that if you lose 95% of your fare paying passengers and other income streams (advertising, etc) yet are forced to run as many trains and busses as possible then maybe, just maybe you’ll start to lose money.The blame absolutely rests with Kahn and the idiots running TFL.
Edited by StoatInACoat on Friday 15th May 14:12
Fare freeze hasn’t helped but is certainly not the root cause of the issues at hand. TfL had reserves of £1.2bn which are now gone. How long do you think even a well managed business would last when it’s losing £150m per week whilst been forced to maintain as much of a service as possible?
StoatInACoat said:
This is not a central Government "tax rise". This is an incompetent, insolvent and abysmally managed company (TFL) who are in the hole to the tune of over £1bn because of Kahns fare freezes and the bullst projects they have pissed money away on over the last four years (Elephant and castle roundabout anyone?) being bailed out by the public.
They've lost money recently because they told everyone to stop getting on the tube. If only someone could have predicted that would happen? When people where actually using the trains they reduced services and we got all these pictures of crammed tubes so people stopped going on them. They ran empty buses and kept staff on pay for ages before furloughing them and when the lockdown was released and then claimed they could only continue to run a reduced service because they'd spent all their time and money licking windows and paying staff to do nothing. More pictures of packed trains, blaming the government, the public, etc etc.
Shower of bds. Should have let them go bust.
This! t projects they have pissed money away on over the last four years (Elephant and castle roundabout anyone?) being bailed out by the public. They've lost money recently because they told everyone to stop getting on the tube. If only someone could have predicted that would happen? When people where actually using the trains they reduced services and we got all these pictures of crammed tubes so people stopped going on them. They ran empty buses and kept staff on pay for ages before furloughing them and when the lockdown was released and then claimed they could only continue to run a reduced service because they'd spent all their time and money licking windows and paying staff to do nothing. More pictures of packed trains, blaming the government, the public, etc etc.
Shower of b
ds. Should have let them go bust. valiant said:
Anyone over the age of 6 would realise that if you lose 95% of your fare paying passengers and other income streams (advertising, etc) yet are forced to run as many trains and busses as possible then maybe, just maybe you’ll start to lose money.
Fare freeze hasn’t helped but is certainly not the root cause of the issues at hand. TfL had reserves of £1.2bn which are now gone. How long do you think even a well managed business would last when it’s losing £150m per week whilst been forced to maintain as much of a service as possible?
They reduced services to 15% pre lockdown so have not been running "as many services as possible" by their own admission. Fare freeze hasn’t helped but is certainly not the root cause of the issues at hand. TfL had reserves of £1.2bn which are now gone. How long do you think even a well managed business would last when it’s losing £150m per week whilst been forced to maintain as much of a service as possible?
The root cause is not even Coronavirus - it is YEARS of mismanagement and spending money on w
k despite taking a 1/3 subsidy to this day from grants. One of the reasons this makes me so angry is that the original outbreak of this virus was in London. It may surprise people like Kahn but a lot of people who work in London cannot actually afford to live there so will take the virus home with them. IF there's a spike in cases in London there will be another lockdown eventually which will smash an already damaged private sector of people who actually give a s
t about their jobs and are trying to deal with the situation without crying on national telly because they spent all their money on 20mph signs and thought they wouldn't have to deal with this problem until they were safely back in office for 4 years. Kahn, TFL etc should be doing everything they possibly can to avoid this and instead they have blackmailed Londoners and the Government to cover their mismanagement and to top it off have forced people out of nice safe cars and back into the disease ridden, under performing tube system and buses which are also now being charged for again after the charge was removed to protect DRIVERS.
Edited by StoatInACoat on Friday 15th May 14:55
Newc said:
A mate lives just outside the zone,
Same mate has some connections at Westminster Council, says they are considering injunction on the change to the operating hours, based on TfL only have sole authority on the price, they can't unilaterally alter the other aspects of the scheme. StoatInACoat said:
They reduced services to 15% pre lockdown so have not been running "as many services as possible" by their own admission.
The root cause is not even Coronavirus - it is YEARS of mismanagement and spending money on wk despite taking a 1/3 subsidy to this day from grants.
One of the reasons this makes me so angry is that the original outbreak of this virus was in London. It may surprise people like Kahn but a lot of people who work in London cannot actually afford to live there so will take the virus home with them. IF there's a spike in cases in London there will be another lockdown eventually which will smash an already damaged private sector of people who actually give a st about their jobs and are trying to deal with the situation without crying on national telly because they spent all their money on 20mph signs and thought they wouldn't have to deal with this problem until they were safely back in office for 4 years.
Kahn, TFL etc should be doing everything they possibly can to avoid this and instead they have blackmailed Londoners and the Government to cover their mismanagement and to top it off have forced people out of nice safe cars and back into the disease ridden, under performing tube system and buses which are also now being charged for again after the charge was removed to protect DRIVERS.
Tubes are running 60% service levels and buses 85%. This is predominantly due to staff sick, shielding or self-isolating. From Sunday, normal pre-Covid timetables will be put back in despite the lack of staff. The root cause is not even Coronavirus - it is YEARS of mismanagement and spending money on w
k despite taking a 1/3 subsidy to this day from grants. One of the reasons this makes me so angry is that the original outbreak of this virus was in London. It may surprise people like Kahn but a lot of people who work in London cannot actually afford to live there so will take the virus home with them. IF there's a spike in cases in London there will be another lockdown eventually which will smash an already damaged private sector of people who actually give a s
t about their jobs and are trying to deal with the situation without crying on national telly because they spent all their money on 20mph signs and thought they wouldn't have to deal with this problem until they were safely back in office for 4 years. Kahn, TFL etc should be doing everything they possibly can to avoid this and instead they have blackmailed Londoners and the Government to cover their mismanagement and to top it off have forced people out of nice safe cars and back into the disease ridden, under performing tube system and buses which are also now being charged for again after the charge was removed to protect DRIVERS.
Edited by StoatInACoat on Friday 15th May 14:55
TfL no longer receives any funding or grants (bar capital projects) from central government and is one of the few transport authorities in the world to be self sufficient. (Or was pre-corona)
London virus transmission rates are the lowest in the UK at the moment at 0.4 so at the moment people coming into the city are risking Londoners.
TfL only control the ‘red routes’ and have about 5 miles within the congestion zone at 20mph. Everywhere else is the decision of local councils and paid by the councils.
Khan has not blackmailed anyone. TfL were out of money and would simply have to reduce services to the barebones and lay off staff if HMG didn’t help. Khan has had to hand over certain controls and oversight to the government in exchange and has less power than before. HMG has effectively taken over all the rail companies so why not help TfL who carry more passengers than the rail network combined?
If you’re claiming he’s wasting money then you have also to criticise the previous incumbent also who was far, far more profligate in vanity projects.
Edit to add and probably the most important in light of the thread title that it was the government that instructed the Mayor to reimpose the congestion charge and the increase as a condition of receiving the money.
Edited by valiant on Friday 15th May 15:22
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