Reducing emissions from transport

The short term housing and planning policies have irreputably changed the landscape of London. People cannot afford to live where they work, industry has left in droves and people live further out of London, due to excessively rising costs.

The pandemic has shown people do not want to travel to work especially on privately owned (Public) transport one of the most expensive in the world. Also a 1 hour travel to work is 10 hours a week saved if working locally or from home. 10 hours to cook properly, see friends and family and have a better life, let alone the cost savings.
Everyone on the ground knows electric cars are a joke, using exotic materials from a global supply chain. The cheapest available is £15,000, most available jobs pay far less than the average wage, the batteries need changing every 5 years and there are no charging points where people live, (I live like most in a flat).
Everyone on the ground knows that affordable housing is a joke, 80% of market value when the average price is over £500,000 is still totally unaffordable to most people. Part buy options are an insult and the mortgage and rent combined are still totally unaffordable. The tiny amount of council housing is sold through right to buy within 5 years of tennancy, I have first hand experience of rich investors offering to buy these council homes, pay the tenants a lump sum and we are back to square one. I have worked in property maintenance for over 30 years.
Meanwhile the planning office keeps on providing permission to build exclusive luxury lifestyle developements that are inevitably sold to asset purchasers, investment corporations, oligarchs and the globally rich elite, boosting house prices even further. Go to these places at night and they are virtually empty, Ghost towns.
If you honestly want to reduce emissions and their damaging impact, force constuctors to rebuild industry and commercial enterprises near where people live. Build more council housing not safety deposit boxes.

My children's school in Enfield is next to two other large schools, one secondary, one primary. The vast majority of parents will live under 1.5 miles away at most, yet a large amount still drive to school. The parking is dangerous, inconsiderate and children have unfortunately been knocked down by cars. All schools should have a school street scheme implemented to encourage active travel to school and get children used to walking and cycling. This is especially for London's outer boroughs.

the survey didn't ask why I don't cycle and take the bus more often which I think are ket info to know if you want to encourage people to use the car less. The answers are that North London is very hilly so it's terribly hard to cycle and, more importantly, there are no places in the local streets and train stations to leave the bicycles safely and covered from rain. I use mainly the car in my local area to bring my children to various clubs and it would be impossible to make them cycle or we won't never arrive on time. The reason why I don't use the bus is that it doesn't pass as often as I need it and to reach places in my local area I need to take two buses or walk for more than 10 minutes while by car the whole journey will take me around 7 minutes. There is no comparison and is the hectic life of a working parent time is very important. School buses would help to reduce the amount of people driving in the local area during school pick up and drop off time. Having a new Tube line that goes all around London parallel to the north and south circular will reduce the traffic on the roads because the only way, at the moment, to move east-west by public transport is taking the bus which is a too slow and unreliable way of transport.

Some road in my area are blocked off for emergency vehicle only. This has caused extremely high congestion on my road and the road around. I can see that this has impacted on my area very negatively as I can see polluting particles on my window and Frames. I have to wash them almost every week as they get duty and dirty very fast. opening the window is not longer a possibility due to all traffic being diverted to few roads and the resident suffer. the noise and pollutions has increased and the road closures had a negative impact from the theory of it.. I do work full time but the cost of public transport has spiralled out of control and it is not affordable at all!

How can we do more to tackle transport emissions?

Keep London's traffic flowing as safely as possible. Require cyclists to use the extensive cycle highway and ban them from motorised vehicle lanes. Reconsider the blanket use of 20mph speed limits, they result in an increase in traffic delays and therefore emissions.

Have you already made changes to the way you travel around London? Will you be making some in the future?

I have access to a car, I try to limit my use of it to once a week to get all my chores done. I also try to avoid being the only person in the car and offer lifts where possible. I would use public transport if it were more frequent, reliable, affordable and safe.

The scrappage scheme was, sadly, not available to me. It wasn't a scheme available to most Londoners.

Stop building on flood plains plant air scrubbing plants and stop the felling of woodland that's natures cleaning mechanism. Stop the Mayor from planting the Wrong trees. 1 Salix will clean air then 10 cherry trees.
That survey was a total JOKE was set to the answers HE WANTED

bike thefts are still way to high. Please do something about this! Give police more resources and also provide more safe places to lock bikes up (U shaped poles in the ground do nothing as a serious bike thief can get through any lock, secure indoor cycle storage is the gold standard) maybe you could help provide cheap insurance for cyclists, provide people with free decent locks, or create a replacement scheme where by if you have it stolen you will help the victim buy another one. I cycle most places but only will cycle if I can guarantee a safe indoor place to store my bike, it is too expensive and will end up being much cheaper to drive places if I left my bike locked up outside as it will be stolen too much! I appreciate the changes that have been made to make roads safer and easier for us. However more needs to be done for this as well.

Air con is the most inefficient type of electrical equipment you can ever come across. Ban that first before trying to make any change.

You will lower carbon emissions in london only for the power plant to be pumping at 1000% throttle in kent or somewhere outside of London. Its ridiculous.

Prevent jay walking before reducing speeds. Add more fences to roads to add safety to pedestrians.
Add more annoying humps at foot congested areas.

CYCLISTS require a number plate. MANDATORY.

BIG COMPANIES WITH COMMERCIAL VEHICLES AND BUSES NEED TO BE 100% ELECTRIC NO HYBRID NONSENCE.

I took up cycling during the lockdowns and now really rely on it to get around London. I would never have been brave enough to start with all the traffic on the roads but lockdowns gave an opportunity.
I'm so grateful for the improved cycling infrastructure - for example, I dreaded cycling over Waterloo bridge before, but the protected cycle lane now makes it so much quicker and easier for me to get into central. I also love my commute - Blackfriars Bridge is very well designed and changes to Grays Inn Road have made it much quicker, safer and easier to navigate.
Some bits of London are still really horrible and scary - the Tower Bridge area is very hard to cycle because there's no infrastructure, the roads are narrow and drivers are so impatient, and I try to avoid the areas around Westminster, Vauxhall and Battersea too. Drivers frequently speed past too close - sometimes to intimidate, but I think sometimes just because they're impatient - and I've also had drivers sit as close as they can behind me and lean on the horn, when there's not space for them to pass me at all. I get sexual harassment too - more from drivers when I'm cycling than when I'm walking, but less from pedestrians.
There definitely seems to be a culture of entitlement among drivers, especially in central London - that because they're in a car they have more right to the space and a right to move at the speed they want rather than a speed that's appropriate for everyone around them. It's very common that drivers accelerate aggressively to overtake me on a narrow road and then have to stop at lights - where I then filter forward to the bike box in front of them, only for them to overtake me again, etc. It's pointless and unsafe, and reducing that kind of behaviour would reduce air and noise pollution. I think narrowing the space that cars have and providing protected cycling infrastructure would make a huge difference to reduce those attitudes and improving safety for cyclists and pedestrians.

Get rid of the unwanted Low Traffic Neighbourhoods that increase pollution on the peripheral roads and divide communities. They are also a gift to criminals and exacerbate feelings of a lack of personal safety.

I hate the number of cars in London - it's dangerous, drivers are impatient and it's a very inefficient use of space. Last weekend I was in central & there were hundreds of people spilling off the tiny pavements, then every 30s or so a car would barrel through on the road, carrying 1 or 2 people but taking up 2/3 of the width of the street. Such a waste of space - everyone would have a better time if people could wall with more space and less danger. My aunt uses a wheelchair - she really struggles with the narrow pavements. I feel like people often think driving is the answer for disabled access but my aunt can't drive - but being able to catch a bus and then safely use her chair on wide pavements or pedestrianised bits would make a huge difference to her.

I'd really support limits on the size of vehicles too - more weight and height limits on cars, and incentives for having smaller cars. My road has a zebra crossing on it, but there's often traffic - if there's a queue of traffic on my side of the street, SUVs are too tall and traffic on the other side can't see me step onto the crossing. It's so dangerous, and I worry about children too - the zebra crossing is near a school, and if I can't be seen over SUVs, kids definitely can't. And someone in a wheelchair would have no chance! I do worry about the scrappage scheme because the newer cars all seem to be the massive ones - trading in a small old car for a new SUV might improve emissions but it will make London more dangerous in other ways.

Bus lanes make a huge difference to how reliable buses are and I really support them. I know some people need to drive, but overall I think driving a car should be more inconvenient than taking a bus because that way only the people that really need to drive will do. Bus lanes really help that, as does getting rid of road-side parking.

The London Borough I live in has narrow roads, narrow pavements, lots of parking and few pedestrian crossings. This is not conducive to walking and cycling.
Creating one way streets with a cycle Lane and increasing pavement size would be helpful. Pedestrian crossings would also help. Many cars speed, so more road humps and cameras or road furniture would help.
Unfortunately, many people’s hobby seems to be speeding in fast cars, so speed cameras and a low speed limit might discourage this.
Blocking residential roads to stop cut throughs would benefit my local environment tremendously as I live near a rat run.

If you make it safer and easier to walk and cycle you can then encourage people to do so. There needs to be a public health campaign educating people on the health risks of sitting in a polluting car and the health benefits of active transport. Unfortunately, I don’t think telling people of the harm the pollution from their cars does to others would be as effective. Many people won’t wear a mask to protect others but will do if they think it will help them.

Traffic is very bad due to parents driving children to school. Encourage children to walk to school. Children would benefit from this and walking would become a habit for them. If cycling were safe they could cycle. It’s good for children to be independent but the journey must be made safe.

Create safe cycle lanes. In Manchester there is a concrete barrier between cars and cycles. Germany and Japan have cycle lanes on pavements. In Holland cycles have trailers for carrying shopping. I would cycle if it were safe to do so.

The costs associated with road traffic should not be externalised - the congestion charge should apply throughout London, and modernised (given that technology has moved on since the charge was introduced) so that people pay according to how much they contribute to congestion, rather than a fixed daily fee. Likewise, pollution charges (remembering that even electric vehicles cause pollution from tyres) should reflect the full cost of pollution.
It is acknowledged that bus operating costs need to be reduced and this is achieved by reducing the number of vehicles on a route. However this should not be done by reducing frequency (the easy method, but this makes buses less attractive and reduces demand and revenue) but by increasing speed hence reducing journey time - though a mixture of traffic reduction by more realistic charging, and more bus priority.

This isn’t an issue for the public to lead, it is for the motor industry and big business to develop and make financially viable for all. Current politicians are simply passing costs on to those that can least afford to pay, whilst the rich do nothing! Corruption won’t solve climate change!