Reducing emissions from transport

Best way to reduce emissions is to make the traffic flow freely, making journey times a lot shorter. Get rid of most cycle lanes as they are awaste of time.They are dangerous to cyclists and motorists. Many cycle lanes in North London reduce the road width by 50% and are hardly used. Who thinks up these crackpot ideas without any consultation with local residents. All they have done is brought the road traffic to a stanstill at rush hour.

If you want more people to use public transport make buses, tubes, trains affordable like they are in other countries. How much % of monthly income after tax is spent on public transport by teachers, nurses, office workers, supermarket staff, etc.?
I know a woman who rented a car to get to Manchester because train fare for a weekend trip (only 2hrs) was triple the price. Governments fund public transport in Paris, New York, Dubai, etc.
Inflation is about 8%. Salaries are not increasing either.

Another loaded survey! It's takes a special kind of stupid to think we won't notice. For example question 12 - "To achieve net zero carbon, recent studies have indicated a key factor will be that car traffic must reduce by 27% by 2030.

To what extent, if at all, would you be willing to do the following? (more walking, cycling etc)
Very willing Willing Not very willing Not willing at all Don’t know

Where is the option "Already doing this to the extent that works for me!"

Eliminate the stupid cycle lanes that cause all traffic to stop each time a bus stops and are rarely used by cyclists just used by electric scooters and delivery motorbikes.
Instead of asking people to use electric cars that they cannot afford encourage use of diesel with Blue tech. Everyone is ignoring the true pollution caused by mining and converting Lithium for electric car batteries. Use a forward thinking plan to use hydrogen as a fuel.

I welcome the Mayor's announcement today to expand ULEZ to cover all London boroughs. However, it's clear that he isn't doing anywhere near enough to reduce car dependency and air pollution in London. Just today the Mayor also announced he no longer considering road pricing - which I find astounding. We have the technology to implement it and it's a win-win for all Londoners. Even those who need to drive will benefit from less congested roads.

Added to this, his commitment to continue building another road tunnel (Silvertown) flies in the face of his climate change and air pollution credentials. This tunnel will do nothing to reduce air pollution and will increase car dependency. All for an eye-watering £2bn! London does need more river crossings, but not for cars. For the same cost London could have about 20 walking and cycling bridges - schemes which would incur larger benefits for all Londoners. He can not commit to this new road tunnel whilst also claiming he is doing all he can to combat air pollution.

I'm also astounded that the Mayor reduced the operating hours of Congestion Charge! It's obvious to anyone that this will do nothing to help with air pollution, congestion, road danger, obesity or climate change.

The Mayor has to get a grip and fast track all walking and cycling schemes and continue expanding and joining up active travel networks across the whole of London.

London is falling far behind cities like Paris who has a Mayor who is clearly taking these issues very seriously.

Abolish LTNs which cause net increases in journey times, fuel consumption, and pollution, especially impacting the less well-off; improve bus routes and frequency; massively reduce fares on public transport (in London and to/from London); engage in proper behaviour change strategies and MEL programmes; provide workplace showers, lockers, and bike parking facilities; ban car advertising (incl on TfL sites); ban (or licence) school-run parenting; ensure new build residential developments include enforceable 'no-car' conditions in leases; stop selling TfL car parks for development.
I now personally cycle less than I used to because of the local LTNs and the congestion and less safe conditions they generate.

Since you ask, I have done just about all I could do in the way of walking instead of using a vehicle, and using public transport instead of a car.
I can see no way of reducing emissions other than by using scrappage or other schemes to hasten the move to electric cars from cars driven by carbon fuel.

ban cars in London! expand accessible public transport and cycling infrastructure!
the 44% of us who don’t own a car are able to manage
exceptions can apply for vehicles necessary for transporting goods/equipment for work, vehicles required for disability where public transport isn’t accessible, taxis, car share club, etc

Encouraging people to walk for shorter journeys is a win/win: health benefit + less pollution. This has to be a priority.

Getting people to use public transport more will depend on how attractive the service is - in terms of having the right routes, good frequency, and fair pricing. People hate waiting with uncertainty, so making sure everyone at every bus stop can see when the next bus is due might help.

The benefits of public transport need to be sold more; if everyone used it, the traffic would be less congested and public transport would work better - potentially a brilliant virtuous circle..

We should help people get local jobs where possible, so they travel less. For example, a friend in Wandsworth is teaching History at a school in Stratford; perhaps there is someone living in Stratford teaching in e.g. Clapham. We could help people identify jobs near them, organise job swaps for those travelling in opposite directions twice a day,

Longer term I think we may need to ban private cars in Central London during working hours. That would improve the traffic - and add to the appeal of public transport, but the infrastructure needs to in place first or you'll have a riot on your hands.

I am not talking making London carbon neutral I was talking about pollution right now in London with stand still traffic pumping out fumes which don’t help my asthma and people like me

Getting London fully carbon neutral is a myth we don’t have the infrastructure to charge all the cars and vans Charing point to vehicles ratio is not good enough

The latest proposal from the Mayor to extend the ULEZ is yet another example of how his policies are all driven by money. The ULEZ was and is an enormously expensive scheme that is having minimal impact on air pollution levels (these are more influenced by Government taxation policies and the fact that older polluting vehicles do get scrapped sooner or later).

There is no evidence that air pollution significantly affects the life expectancy of Londoners - those who live in the most polluted boroughs often live longer.

His claims about a climate change emergency is just scaremongering and certainly his policies will have no impact whatsoever on global climate change which if it is affected by anything is by CO2 emissions in China and the USA, not by emissions in London.

The expanded ULEZ will add substantial costs to many Londoners and even encourage them to move elsewhere. London is becoming a city only a place to live in for the young and fit and who are willing to put up with using public transport.

Despite my preference, I've had to reduce my use of public transport owing to a weak immune-system and COPD. I got pneumonia the last time I used the Tube for only seven stops I try to use the Croydon tram, trains and overground to travel several miles within Greater London, but I have to be very cautious and my use is infrequent.
I would DEFINITELY use the scrappage scheme to acquire a cleaner car than the Citroen C3 (reg GJ 53 ___) that I drive - bought cheaply from a friend - IF I could afford to do so. My income is only just over £20,000 a year (I am 71 years old), so I was unable to afford to buy a 'cleaner' car under the old scheme, when my income was even lower. I'd be VERY happy to drive a smaller vehicle, so long as I could drive long distances (to visit family and friends outside London) in it and be sure of there being sufficient charging-points.
I'm anxious that the Mayor's office understands that MANY of us would love to use public transport rather than a car, but we cannot do so because of health-issues that don't qualify for Disabled Driver status. I do have a Hidden Disabilities sunflower sticker, but I can't use disabled parking spaces for my car.
Might a London-wide 'reluctant car-user' scheme be introduced for certain registered vehicles of those of us with health issues that prevent us from often using public transport? Might such registered users also qualify for reduction in the Congestion Charge? I'd like to support Central London theatres, concert halls and other arts venues more than I do, but I can't afford the costs of the Congestion Charge plus parking fees plus the entrance price for each event/performance/exhibition in the centre, and I'm advised by doctors not to risk my health by over-using public transport.
I'm certain that there's a substantial number of older people like me whose quality of life has been reduced in recent years by limits on our driving into Central London, and who can't afford to buy a 'cleaner' vehicle.

A main reason why people have been using less public transport is because of Covid19. We were officially discouraged for a long time and the perceived enhanced risk of catching C19 accounts for the rest.. It beggars belief that officialdom should then be outraged that many people felt that they had no choice but to turn to cars and the like to be able to get on with their lives. Officialdom - if it really cared about the peoples interest - would have done what it could to have kept the traffic moving.
Instead in my area it decided to close through roads in the supposed interest of settng up LTNs, causing much longer journeys, increased congestion ( and increased air pollution in what already were the most polluted roads in the area and those with the most pedestrians, including schoolchildren and shoppers)
One way to reduce transport emissions is to do away with ideological 24hr road closures that disrupt connectivity.
Another way is to do away with traffic light junctions wherever possible; these inevitably cause high-emission events with all traffic - racing for the lights, braking, accelerations. Junctions based on roundabouts, shared space principles and changed priorities in line with the latest Highway code revisions are generally far more appropriate for most urban settings and the modern healthy street concepts.
And as a cyclist for about 60 years, let me advise you if officaldom wants to encourage more cycling, it needs to do a much more serious camapign on both training would be cyclists at all ages and reducing the scaremongering. Yes additional bypass facilities for cyclists at risky and complicated junctions are desirable, but the general idea of cycling apartheid "because of the danger" is deeply flawed ( I know campaigners love the idea, and it might be possible in new towns such as Milton Keynes but is NOT a general solution for London)

I think of what I hope for for my grandchildren, so maybe for 40 years from now.
I would like to see a fully integrated transport system throughout London, and to be fair, there is some progress that way. I would like to see no burning of fossil fuels, because of the contribution to global warming, and the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows how urgent this is. Also, fossil fuel vehicles are bad air polluters. (Why is the Mayor supporting Silvertown? It is madness.) This all means much more public transport, which can be high quality and electric, and few cars, which have to be electric. Car sharing is a good idea. We DO need cycle lanes - anyone who has been to the Netherlands can see how well they work if they are planned in to the road system.
Do we need to rethink? Yes, we do. We cannot go on as we are.

We need to reduce the number of cars in London by at least 30% in order to improve traffic speeds and reduce pollution. That can probably be achieved by using higher fees for residential parking permits to subsidise wider availability of Freedom Passes - perhaps by issuing Freedom Passes to households who agree to get rid of their cars. 20mph speed limits can increase pollution by causing motorists to use a lower gear and they should be restricted to residential areas. The bus network needs a major review - there are too many winding routes left over from the past, most buses stop too frequently and as a result journey times are ridiculously long. Now that we can easily change buses without incurring extra fares, we need more fast routes designed to take account of the ability to switch buses. Unthinking introduction of cycle lanes has badly affected buses in a number of areas. As a cyclist I far prefer to share a bus lane than use a separate cycle lane marked by wands which is frequently clogged with leaves and limits my overtaking options. Bus lanes should never be sacrificed to make dedicated cycle lanes.
The key to a less polluted London with quicker traffic speeds to the benefit of car, van and public transport users alike has to be a dramatic reduction in bus journey times to get more people on to the buses which will result in a virtuous circle supporting more services.