I walked along Marylebone Road last night (6:30 pm) and experienced the traffic fumes first-hand. Truly awful. The most alarming thing is that this is the route I normally cycle along and I've never noticed the pollution in this way before (certainly due to my cognition being monopolised by situational dynamics - it's a busy road!). Makes me wonder whether the respiratory illness I'm suffering at the moment is related.
The findings were that the intensity of the exposure was less of a problem. It was the length of time you were exposed. So sitting in a car, even with car filters, pretty much put you at greatest risk. Someone on a bicycle just moved through the congestion quicker. Sadly the walker dropped out of filming. I would suspect walking along busy routes should be avoided due to the speed at which you are traveling, but is still better than sitting in a car.
That is one of the worst places, measurements of which are what has caused the EU to threaten to take London to court for pollution. It does vary from day to day depending on wind but is always pretty bad.
measurements of which are what has caused the EU to threaten to take London to court for pollution.
...which I always find rather ironic, considering it was the EU's lax standards for vehicle emissions that caused the problem in the first place, by allowing the proliferation of diesel vehicles!
The current target set by the Mayor of London is that by 2023 ALL taxis in London will be zero emission including Uber.
All new taxis. And Zero emission capable. Practically speaking, that means they must be at least plug-in hybrids. The new LTC/Geely TX5 cabs are actually hybrids with a ~70 mile electric range, not full electric vehicles as is sometimes reported.
According to the article, taxpayers will be subsidising taxi drivers by at least 80MM GBP: 16MM for the factory, and 64MM in direct subsidies to taxi owners.
I don't see why taxpayers should foot the bill for this, when most Londoners cannot afford to ride in London taxis (and use buses, tube or minicabs/Uber instead).
With progressive taxation, those who can't afford to use London taxis will be paying zero or a negligible contribution towards this. And all those who breathe, irrespective of whether they are taxpayers or use taxis or not, will benefit from cleaner air and fewer pollution-related health issues.
It's also an investment in additional jobs, which will cut benefits payments and increase tax receipts, so the net cost to the treasury will be substantially lower. Given current interest rates, it's not impossible that that alone would pay for the subsidies.
It assumes these are "additional jobs" not substitute jobs. In reality the people employed would have probably been employed elsewhere if not for this plan.
That's the standard subsidy for electric cars in the UK, I think. Similar to the one Tesla benefits from in the US.
And while only the very well off use taxis to travel regularly when they could use TfL, you'd be surprised at how many less well off people use them occasionally. Especially the elderly and disabled, due to the accessibility features of London taxis.
I believe that from 2018, all new London taxis will have to be zero emission capable.
On the other hand, the "capable" may be weasel wording. It seems that the taxi being discussed is a hybrid with quite a short range (70 miles?). It can be recharged at a point, but can also be recharged via its petrol engine, which may run for lengthy periods if there are no quick charging points available (not many at the moment in London).
Seems like a smallish step in the right direction.
Petrol-electric hybrids are a vast improvement over the ancient, stinking, noisy, toxic NOx and particulate-spewing diesels that plague London's streets today.
Plug-in hybrids with a decent electric range are even better.
You're arguing what is just, from a perspective, but not an absolute.
If a factory upstream is polluting and causing a village $200 of damage a year, and if it were possible to pay the factory $100 to reduce this pollution to a $50 impact, should the village not pay? They'll net $50 in benefit.
Devil's advocate argument of sorts, but one that focuses on the absolute.
Real-life is harder. What if some of the village are employed at the factory? What if the factory produces produces the village needs but costs far more elsewhere? What if the factory employs people from another nearby poor village and your village is a comparatively rich village?
Point is: Look for win-wins and an objective framework to work in, not for multiple parties anchoring around their single issue concerns, blinkered from the bigger picture.
Talking completely in general. Not verified figures in article either.
You're all correct: the benefits of reduced diesel pollution would benefit all Londoners.
My comment was partly a negative reaction to yet another subsidy being paid to taxi drivers, who are already subsidised:
- Implicitly by having a monopoly on picking up from the street
- Implicitly by being able to drive in many bus lanes (there are no carpool lanes in the UK, so an empty taxi gets to use a lane that a family of 4 cannot)
- Explicitly through not having to pay the London congestion charge (~90MM GBP per year) even though they cause a disproportionate amount of congestion
These are only tangential to this issue, but I'd like to see the costs of London taxis internalized (i.e. paid for by taxi drivers) rather than put onto taxpayers or coming at the expense of other road users
A London cyclist here. Taxies are paying a fortune for these permissions. For me the only issue is the “right to endanger”: they are allowed to stop in dangerous places, corners, cycle lanes, doing U-turns on a 3x3 road for simple convenience of the passenger. I've had two accidents because of this.
"Taxies are paying a fortune for these permissions."
The congestion charge would cost a regular driver ~4000GBP per year, and she can't drive in a bus lane. How much do London taxis pay in fees per year? About 200GBP, right?
What is this 'fortune' you talk about? I spent a few minutes searching online, and can't find any evidence of fees, other than an annual inspection and licence, which are low 3-digit numbers.
If someone dumps the trash front of your otherwise clean neighbourhood just because he don't want to pay for waste services, would you pay for him to do it less often?
I wonder if the underlying driver of this is the profits Uber/Lyft are siphoning from Taxi companies. If taxi companies can reduce operating costs in long term, they may be able to reduce price in short term to become more competitive.
(I know nothing about the taxi business, this is my thoughts from the outside looking in so I welcome correction!)
More likely the pollution issues we've had this year - most of those black cabs are diesel, whereas Uber (who in UK are always licenced private hire drivers) are usually driving the Toyota Prius hybrids.
Pollution was mentioned in the earlier story about these cabs being tested in extreme winter conditions.
As with many things there's an 80/20 thing going on.
A small diesel car driven once a week by a grandmother in the suburbs is much less of an issue than a diesel cab running constantly in the city centre.
There's various rules and technologies coming into force that should have a big impact.
Exactly. Along with taxis, diesel vans are another huge contributor that must be prioritised.
They're some of the dirtiest, most polluting vehicles - and many are on central London streets constantly making deliveries, etc.
It would make sense to focus subsidies on getting these guys into electrics/hybrids first. Each diesel van off the road has a much bigger impact on air quality than, say, getting Grandma a subsidised Nissan LEAF.
That little word "capable" in there is pretty important. These new cars are plug-in hybrids, not pure electric.
What mileage does a taxi drive in one day? Say if the car could charge to 100% during the driver's lunch break, what range would it need to stay on electric all day?
That says 200 miles a day roughly, so with morning and lunch break and a 70 mile range it would be half to 2/3rds powered by electric. A lot would depend on how fast the car can charge.
How these taxis will consume energy: electricity generation in the UK comes from three main sources – gas, coal-fired power stations and nuclear. A small but growing proportion of electricity is supplied by renewables. Gas accounted for 46 % of electricity supplied in 2008.
>UK comes from three main sources – gas, coal-fired power stations and nuclear. A small but growing proportion of electricity is supplied by renewables.
That's not really true anymore. Wind power supplies double that of coal in the UK. It's gas, nuclear and wind with coal coming in 4th. Check out http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ for live figures.
You also have to think about when they will be consuming electricity, which will primarily be at night (taking a reasonable guess here) where the balance of wind and nuclear is even higher.
It's not perfect but burning gas emits less CO2 than burning petrol or diesel. It also keeps all the pollutants out of the city, so public health should increase.
Keeping the pollution out of London is the best part. By European standards, the city is very polluted, and the old taxis are disproportionately responsible.
Buses in London have been updated to Euro IV standard, and most are Euro V or better. Of course, they are larger vehicles, and pollute in proportion, but at least they don't park in long lines and idle their engines for hours...
Note there are significant losses in gas turbines, electricity transmission and battery storage. If you burn the gas near to where it's needed then you avoid most of those losses.
.. but larger turbines are more efficient than vehicle engines. I think Derek MacKay has some numbers on vehicle vs centralised generator, but can't find it right now.
(CNG has been an option for vehicles for ages, but for some reason never quite took off?)
Good point. There will also be an optimal efficiency speed and power level for a given internal combustion engine, which is more likely to be achievable in hybrid cars where the engine powers a generator and is therefore decoupled from providing direct power to the transmission.
That's the law. Great news for pollution in London and great news for the push towards electric vehicles in general.