Cleaning up London’s toxic air

For those who say 'ban lorries in Central London', I suppose you do not live in Central London. Or you do not shop there. How are supermarkets supposed to be stacked? In small vans? How many small vans will be needed instead of a lorry?

How are any shop supposed to have their deliveries? Are you going to pay a premium because people will have to work at night for deliveries? Have you ever worked in retail to have any idea on how it works?

Do you ever shop on the Internet? Maybe you should stop because that Amazon delivery is not especially good for the environment. 

We will soon have the cycle race again. That is always a headache to go anywhere that day. Notting Hill carnival is also a headache. It takes my daughter an extra 1/2 hour to go to work as buses routes are amended. 

O joy for all those who work on weekends so that you have the choice to go out either shopping or enjoying yourself.

It's a decent idea in principle but choosing a Sunday for it is just ridiculous.  It is the day when there is the least public transport.  Hundreds of thousands of people won't even notice it but for the elderly in particular it will be very inconvenient.   A meaningful car free day is one that takes cars off the road when the city is busy, the public transport at its best and when it makes its point to the maximum number of people instead of this gesturism.

With the reasoning behind this Sunday plan a good idea would be a car free hour every Wednesday morning between 3:00am and 4:00am - I can see it now - 'Mayor gives London 52 car free hours a year to fight climate change'.  Yawn.

Fantastic idea. Wish every day was a car free day in London. Then my two little kids, my wife and I wouldn't have ot breath toxic fumes on a daily basis. Nor would we have to listen to loud motor sounds.

My recommendations for this day are

- Enoucrage neighborhood street parties and get togethers

- Biking clinics and sessions on alternative transportation

- City bike tours

- Talks about the environment and climate change

- A city-wide survey to understand how much more pleasant people find London without traffic

I think this is an important initiative but I fear that there will be so many who claim 'immunity' and will do all they can to get around it.

Are you suggesting no vehicles, or just no private cars? 

I am shocked at how many cars with one driver that come up the rat run just by my house every evening.

Lorries, vans, taxis??  would they be exempt?

I agree it is a good idea in principle, however, you must give a viable alternative (not by stealth, to make it work) for those who need to travel on the proposed car free day. Can I suggest you give free travel on all Buses and Tubes (on the car free day) that will show willingness for both parties.

Having a car free day is excellent ... I enjoy it very much.  And it is very good that Sadiq Khan is extending it this year.

I would like certain areas to be permanently car-free - for example the whole of Soho, Oxford Street, Regent Street.  Access would be permitted for emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles (delivering goods to the shops within the precinct), and residents vehicles.  There should be only one entry and exit point to prevent residents using the interior as a through route.  

London is far behind other UK cities - for example Cambridge, Birmingham, Glasgow - in having pedestrianises areas, nevermind certain other European cities.

There need to be more measures taken to promote walking, cycling and public transport; and heavier financial disincentives placed on motor vehicles - for example much higher congestion charge, wider area covered by the congestion charge, fewer parking spaces, and higher parking charges.  Any revenue raised could be used to improve public transport - either by lowering fares, or by extending the routes.

I think this is a brilliant idea. I know that lots of people need to be able to drive but anything that encourages people to drive less has to be a good thing. However, having one day isn't enough. I know there's been the tax on some vehicles that's been brought in but so much more needs to be done to reduce emissions and to make the air we breath healthier.

Also, can we try and have an all vehicle free day. In terms of safety, I feel more threatened by push bikes these days. I know the majority follow the rules of the road but there seems to be an ever growing section who don't.

There is a gentler way to get people to use cars less and be happlier. It relies on the idea that if you can easily use a car club, you can make a better decision about whether to use public transport or go by car.

At the moment, car clubs like Enterprise and Zipcar are limited by their own costs and prices to customers, and by the number of free parking permits or car club bays they get from councils. At the same time, cars rented via Hiyacar.co.uk Drivy.co.uk or Turo.com tend to have lower costs. They are often rented-out part time and always managed part-time by someone who happens to live nearby. 

I suggest that a council - I don't know which one - offers a discount on parking permits in proportion to proven rent-outs of a car in the previous year. So if a car is rented-out a lot, on the same scale as Zipcar, then the owner gets a 100% rebate and a sliding scale down from there to zero rebate. In order to qualify for a rebate, owners would need an easy way of proving the number of rentals which would probably be a calander sychronisation service like carysnc.io that shows past hires on more than one service. I have tried a very tentative version of this on Richmond Council where I live, and got a reply saying that at the moment they only grant car club bays to Zipcar and Enterprise. They would prefer applicants who are members of a trade association. They are wary of allowing free parking permits "by the back door", so they have not considered rebates in proportion to use; they think in terms of special car club bays and 100% use for hire. This is a start.

Just to summerise: if a council somewhere could offer parking permit rebates to P2P car club car owners, there could be a lot less car use and a lot more car club cars available. All that's needed is a fair way to give the rebate.
JR

We must stop this simplistic demonisation of the car - they're not usually the most sensible way to get around London, but in some circumstances car use, particularly in outer London, is a perfectly legitimate form of transport - if you have mobility difficulties, have heavy luggage or work equipment, or simply if there are three or more of you in the vehicle.  We certainly shouldn't be 'celebrating' taking rights away from people, even temporarily.  Remember that drivers pay substantial sums for the right to use a motor vehicle, and they ought to be getting a refund in proportion to the denial of that right.   The less revenue the State gets overall from driving (currently around £40bn a year for the UK as a whole, around four times what is spent on roads for us all), the more that will have to raised from other sources. 

Absolutely good idea, I wish we'd get a whole lot more days like this.

I think this is great idea - lets do it more often throughout the year. More infrastructure for safe walking and cycling please

I think this a great idea - I'm just sad it's not much more widespread and won't be anywhere near any of the roads that will be closed.

Obviously cars are needed for some proportion of society and they should be allowed to continue to use them - but the sheer number of vehicles I see every morning and afternoon going around with one person in them, they can't all *need* their vehicles and events that might force people to re-evaluate how they get around can only be a good thing.

More of this across a wider area please.

As one of 7,000 Camden residents, living in Covent Garden, in the new ULEZ area, with a Blue Badge, we welcome the prospect of a car free day in Central London.  Much of the housing here is social housing, so it will in fact be those with less who will benefit from cleaner air and quieter safer streets for a day. The amount of cars curretnly on the streets is unsustainable.  Cars and vans bumper to bumper, with idling engines, honking their horns is truly horrible when you work here, let alone live here. We are reducing our own car use and try to take accessible transport routes where possible. So many vans come into to Central London to drop and pick things up, but often it's just a letter or small part - I don't know, but perhaps that could be done without an entire van? Not an obviously practical step, but with a tiny bit of imagination perhpas possible to change? Apart from Blue Badge users with a genuine need to use their car for all journeys (we are not among this group, as we are able to use accessible public transport options for some journeys), I can't understand why any other cars need to drive into Central London. I do wonder how things can move forward so disabled people are not disadvantaged yet again though - I am sure this is being thought through, but I hope disabled people are part of the consultation on this?

I look forward to a car free day, where our children can come out and play with neighbours in the streets around our homes and we can take a walk through our neighbourhood with cleaner air.  

A car free day is a good idea overall to promote alternative ways of transport people forget about. I switched one leg of a bus commute to walk and it's been great.

Cycling is also another way to get around London these days but one has to be careful and buy insurance not to end up paying £100k lawsuit cost in case a pedestrian steps onto the road at their fault. Crazy! 

we definitely need a car free day and much more. People have become very lazy and jump in their cars when they really don’t need to. Our air is poisonous not to mention the noise, space cars take, how they ruin a nice high street, for instance Blackheath, Penge and Sydenham high streets just to name a few are basically noisy car parks and cars are ruining the community feel of high streets. 

Perhaps this event should also be run on a weekday so that schools can take part and all the children can play out in the street. 

I also think car driving is too cheap and if it were more expensive and public transport were cheaper then they may think twice about doing it. 

Yes, I shall be taking part in this year’s World Car Free Day on 22 September. Very easy for me to do as I do not own a car, and I do not depend on a car to travel around London .

Carbfree zone events, central London 

- charities with an interest in nature & the environment having stalls;

- car manufacturers showcasing electric vehicles;

- David Attenborough giving a key-note speech about Climate Change;

- one of the junior Royals present;

- air quality monitoring, so you can see the difference between the air on ‘car’ days versus the car free day;

- lots of physical activities: bikes, scooters, trampolines, bouncy castles, signs for walking routes, directions to exercise areas (such as on Victoria Embankment Gardens)

- LOTS of GOOD food

- lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of recycling bins.

Our local campaign group (SOS - Save Our Streets) is attempting to establish Play Streets, but it is proving an uphill battle with Lambeth Council.

And of course we need to ensure that ALL travellers are included in any initiative to make such a radical change in transport. Current studies provide clear evidence that traffic pollutants are now as great a danger to people’s health in London as smog was in the 1950s, with an increasing cost to the NHS. Make the air cleaner = less cost to the NHS = more taxpayers’ money available to fund step-free access, electric vehicle charging points, blue badges & cycle routes.

I have lived in central London for 27 years now. My travel time to work - using public transport - has increased from an average of 12 minutes to 43 minutes. Main feeder routes into central London from Lambeth are grid-locked twice a day for 2 hours at a time. It is the same story across London. The cost to the economy is enormous and, in the long-term, unaffordable.

Action needs to be taken before it is too late.