Mayor's Air Quality Strategy

Boris Johnson.. you're just being all talk.
After everything that has happened due to the olympics and us being in resession the chances of us being able to afford all these biomass boilers and low emissions vehicles is very low.

If TFL and the mayor are so concerned with emissions how about checking on buses which leave the engines on at their turn around point. 388's definately do this at the Embankment turnaround point

A large percentage of vehicles on London roads are buses and taxis. If the mayor is so concerned about pollution why doesn't he make plans to replace these polluting vehicles with much cleaner electric ones?

one very simple way to lower emmisions is to remove speed bumps and raised junctions if vehicles don't have to slow down they don't have to waste energy speeding up again for instance a road with a 20mph limit if it has a speed bump you have to slow to less than 10mph to safely travel over it, so what is the benifit of the speed bump, as far as i can see they cause huge damage to the enviroment increased maintenance to vehicles ie springs and brakes plus the added increase in fuel getting back up to speed, plus the added bonus of pedestrians on the phone not waling into the road as they didn't notice it was a raised junction ,if you have evidence of a benefit i'd be interested to hear it

What is the money that is charged being used for and if vehicles that have to pay the charge continue to enter the zone surely this will not sort the problem of pollution unless the money is being used for air flitration that is - i doubt it know. An interesting comment for a response??

Most older vehicles emit too much fumes, so yes they should be a good area to start with. I would also agree that determining any area which is a high emission zone is of paramount importance. Of course according to recent statistics: The GLA has recently been awarded £5 million to help improve air quality in London in 2011/12. So my hope is that this money is spent wisely. :)
Andria
http://www.leafletsareus.co.uk/

I don’t understand why government thinks that motorcycles and scooters are not polluting!? Have you tried to go after them and feel what a stink comes out and especially noise. And they calling it green ! :-)

why motorhomes for goodness sake?im 200 yds past the devilish red line am i really expected to sell my motorhome for the sake of 200 yards of motoring? unfair,unjust and basically NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! liberty takers do not get re elected johnson wake up jerk

This is Crap Legislaton! - by all means tighten up emissions reg's for new vehicals. But backdating them retrospectivly for existing ones means many perfectly good vans etc will be scrapped (ultimatly to be crushed & melted down). Meanwhile a new van has to be produced. All this takes loads of energy & emits loads of co2! How this daft policy helps the environment is beyond me.

The cost to business during this recession will make the diference between survival & failure for many. How can a Conservative adminstration, supposidly supporting busines, do such a stupid thing?

Why Boris had to include Motor Homes in the LEZ when most that are regestered in London DON'T drive in London just through it on there way out is beyond beleaf I know that Red Ken put them in but I thought that Boris cared more about Londoners than the last Mayor! Remember who bothers to vote in Mayoral elections the very people who are being dumped upon by the indiscriminate LEZ

We have a 5 year old motorhome and now can only drive it around the M25. What a complete nonsense!

Do we spend £100k to replace it with one that Boris likes?

lets face it, this low emission zone is just an excuse for tradesmen (who are already struggling to make ends meet ), to get into more debt and pay more interest to banks who messed things up in the first place.My van has always passed it's m.o.t and emissions test is 11 years old tidy and has never run better, surely it costs more energy to produce another van and modern engines are not built to last as long. After all do the powers that be, believe the pollution produced in london stays above london and not disperses world wide, if so, why do we get volcanic ash come over from Iceland and fall out from Japan and Russia. this LEZ ruling will be the straw that broke the camels back and put a lot of people out of work including me.

London as a city is becoming prison. It is now really hard for a middle class, average income person to survive here. I think, all of us those who were obsessed with the City back 25 years. It is now time to move on ... Mayor's City ... He keep it...

MAYOUR is going mad, how many cab drivers will be able to afford brand new cars???? most i know will be unemployed by the time new vehicle enforcement takes place in 2012.

Considering the Mayor's strong advocacy for cycling in the city, effective implementation of the Air Quality Strategy, and a retrofitting scheme for London's cabs to reduce their pollution are essential. I appreciate the cab driver's concern for their livelihood, and if Barclay's is willing to support a mini investment in cycling, another state-funded bank could surely step in and sponsor an retro-fitting programme that would provide better air quality for all of London's residents and visitors. Currently retro-fitting schemes are available in most major European cities, and are a cost effective way to reduce pollution and hopefully spur a little innovation in the manufacturing side of the economy. As someone who cycle's to work, and whose colleagues have taken to the cycle hire scheme, I can say that all of us have dealt with respiratory problems as a result of exposure to unregulated automotive exhaust and I now wear a modified fireman's gas mask to avoid acute respiratory problems in future. Please get serious about improving air quality in London!

WAKE UP LONDON MINI CAB DRIVERS YOUR INDUSTRY WILL BE FINISHED WITHIN A FEW YEARS

I am a private hire small operator, and with this act (Air Quality Strategy) The Mayor has now sent a death blow to the private hire industry. Few drivers and operators realize what this act will do in the near future.
When drivers have to renew there cars they will find that they can only go for a 1-2 year old car maybe 3 years old if they can finance this themselves. 4 year old cars will not be viable because of the cost of changing this every year.
Most drivers in this industry will find it hard to get finance for these new cars. This means they will be on finance until they leave this industry. The only winners in this industry will be the large firms who lease cars most small firms will close.
i don't know if anyone else has realized this, please post if you agree or disagree.

Richard

Hi,
I have been hearing a great deal about air pollution in London and how the EU is thinking of fining London around 300 million pounds for failing to clean the air.
May I suggest you go to www.theflowery.org.uk and view phase four of their VITA Project, you might find it interesting

Isn't this really just an excuse to track vehicles in London. Of course it is! We're not stupid!

Why not calculate and publicize the cost per kg of PM2.5 emitted – estimated at 495 euros in 2002 for a city of several million - p13, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/enveco/air/pdf/betaec02a.pdf New research shows PM2.5 are much worse than previously thought, today’s cost might be ₤600/kg.

This makes it easy to compare different strategies. Scrapping an old diesel truck/ bus might save thousands, but scrapping an old petrol car with catalytic converter very little.

Removing wood & coal stoves could save millions: “4.11.5 anecdotal evidence in parts of London … home owners increasingly installing wood burning stoves in their homes. These small stoves are not generally subject to planning controls.”

A typical wood stove satisfying smokeless zones rules emits more health-hazardous PM2.5 than 200 passenger cars - about 30 kg PM2.5/year. 1% of households with wood stoves would emit more PM2.5 than all the petrol-fuelled vehicles in London. Controls on solid fuel stoves should be a priority.

cont..
This problem could have been avoided by knowing the health costs – 30 kg PM2.5 per stove per year is ₤18,000/stove/year at ₤600/kg PM2.5. Knowing the health costs per kg & kg of PM2.5 emitted could help refine the Strategy and prevent thousands of premature deaths per year.

Allowed emissions (30 g/MJ) from biomass boilers are also questionable. A home using 50 GJ for space heating/hot water could emit 1.5 kg of PM2.5/year – worse than 10 passenger cars - with estimated health cost of ₤900/year – much higher than any benefits of avoiding 1.5 kg of CO2 emissions.

Why not adopt Metro Vancouver’s limit, 5.13 g/GJ? Best-practice controls allow manufacturers to rise to the challenge, protecting our health and environment.

If people understand the effect of different activities on health, such as the annual health cost of a petrol car, lawnmower (petrol vs electric) biomass boiler or wood stove, they can make intelligent choices leading to better health and a cleaner environment.

Top marks for aiming to reduce air pollution to protect Londoners’s health. The GLA study found that PM2.5 pollution causes the premature deaths of 4,267 Londoners, so there is a desperate need to reduce PM2.5 from the current average of 15.34 ug/m3.

But the Strategy goes astray by para 3 of Setting the Scene: “Two pollutants cause most concern within London: particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2).”

Why are these of greatest concern, when 95% of health problems relate to PM2.5 pollution? Are EEC regulations more important that Londoners’ health?

By failing to target PM2.5 – the pollutant responsible for 95% of pollution-related deaths – this Strategy will be less effective than it should be. Why target PM10 – all particles less than 10 microns if 95% of the problem is caused by PM2.5?

Similarly, if money spent reducing NO2 diverts funds away from reducing PM2.5, more Londoners will continue to die prematurely than by allocating funds to save the most lives per unit cost.

Hmmm..let's see now, London has a NOx/NO2 problem yet under the revision to the Congestion charging you removed the discount given to Natural gas/Biomethane Commercial Vehicles that clearly knock spots off any diesel engined vehicle (including EuroVI) in terms of NOx and PM. Just as companies were ready to invest in vans and Trucks you have stopeed them in their tracks.... Then there is the question of the first diesel vehicle Olympics in 20 years and a sewage infrastructure that has been built without capturing the Methane generated by the treatment process and you say you are progressive....your actions say otherwise.

cont...
Also approximately 2-3 years ago all Licence Black Cabs had to have a new exhaust system fitted to their cabs to comply with EU in emissions this was at a cost of £4,000+ to each individual Licence Black Cab driver to meet EU 3 and EU 4 standards. All Licence Black Cabs that had these new exhaust fitted now meet EU3 EU4 standards. I would like to know will you make this mandatory for all the 60,000+ Private hire car drivers, to have fitted at a cost to them of £4,000+ new exhaust systems, and if not why not?

Will you be re-imbursing said £4,000+ to all Licence Black Cab drivers? Oh and just in case you did not know the 3 companies that the Licence Black Cab drivers were forced to buy said exhaust systems from and had to use thse comapanies to fit them are no longer in existence.

cont...
Also could you explain in layman’s terms how you identified which road users emitted the highest emissions? I have tried contacting KCL (the research unit that carried out this for you and also Frank Kelly) but have not had a reply from them as yet regarding an explanation. I have however received a reply from someone called Sean Beevers who just keeps referring me to the GLA even though I have requested this information under the Freedom of Information Act.

Why have you broken down HGV’s into several headings? Is it to try to deflect the eye away from the amount of emissions that HGV’s cause? And once again how were you able to identify the individual HGV’s emissions?

Hi could you please expand on who you have included under the heading of cabs on your graphs for PM10 and P.2.5 emissions?

If you have included the 60,000+ private hire car drivers with the 20,000 Licence Black Cabs you are supply misleading information in relation to cab emissions.

If you have included private hire car drivers in the cab heading then they are responsible for 15% of the 20% PM10 and PM2.5 emissions and only 5% of the 20% emission is down to Licence Black Cabs. If this is the case then you need to re-produce said graphs and statement from your office highlighting this and republish to the media via websites and newspapers etc.

If this is the case and private hire car drivers are responsible for 15% of PM10 and PM 2.5 emissions then surely you should be targeting private hire care drivers first and not the Licence Black Cab drivers.