Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Mayor of London announces plans to clean up London’s toxic air
The new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced today that he will launch a formal policy consultation in a matter of weeks on a major package of measures to tackle air pollution in London.
Announcing the consultation, the Mayor said: "I want to act before an emergency, which is why we need big, bold and sometimes difficult policies if London is to meet the scale of the challenge.”
Almost 10,000 Londoners die every year because of polluted air according to the latest medical research. London does not currently meet the legal requirements for pollutants such as Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and new research published by the World Health Organisation just yesterday (12 May 2016) showed that London has breached safe levels of pollutant particles known as PM10.
The proposals in the consultation will include:
- Extending the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to the North Circular Road and the South Circular Road and the possibility of bringing forward the introduction earlier than 2020. Under current plans the ULEZ will only operate within the Congestion Charging Zone and it is due to come in from 2020.
- Implementing an extra charge on the most polluting vehicles entering central London using the Congestion Charge payment and enforcement system from 2017 (this would not mean an increase in the Congestion Charge but just the method for collecting the extra charge from people driving the most polluting vehicles)
- Introducing ULEZ standards for heavy vehicles London-wide from 2020
- Giving the go-ahead for Transport for London (TfL) to start work on the costs and challenges of implementing a diesel scrappage scheme as part of a wider national scheme delivered by the Government
- Proposals to work with the Government to tackle air pollution on a national and international level.
- Proposals for TfL to lead by example:
- Introducing self-imposed ULEZ standards a year earlier for TfL double decker buses
- Implementing clean bus corridors – tackling the worst pollution hotspots by concentrating cleaner buses on the dirtiest routes
- Expanding the ULEZ retrofit programme to 3,000 buses outside the central zone (up from 2,000)
- Purchasing only hybrid or zero-emission double-decker buses from 2018.
Tags for Forum Posts: air quality, pollution
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Trams not buses !
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Permalink Reply by WightmanPaul on
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Haringey has declared itself an Air Quality Management Area for nitrogen dioxide. Haringey’s 2nd Local Implementation Plan, (Transport Strategy) 2011-2031 contains a map [page 23] of the offending substance and there is an action plan and progress document addressing these concerns.
Page 23 of the document referred to above states:
2.3.3.2 Improving air quality
Air quality is critical for health and well being with many vulnerable people, includingchildren, older people and those with existing heart and lung conditions are restricted inthe activities they can undertake due to poor air quality.
Since 1997 Haringey Council has been carrying out air quality monitoring in the boroughfor nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), PM10 particulate (mainly from petro-diesel engines), carbon monoxide (CO), and sulphur dioxide (SO2), for the London Air QualityNetwork. Results show that all pollutant levels were decreasing with the exception of NO2, O3 and PM10.
Figure 2.7 displays the annual average NO2 levels for Haringey. The highest concentrations of NO2, shown by the purple and red colours, occur adjacent to the main road corridors and junctions, of which sections are part of the TfL TLRN network.
Haringey is covered by an Air Quality Action Plan with the aim of reducing NOx andPM10 emissions, primarily through measures to reduce traffic flow and vehicle emissions and to promote, improve and encourage the use of more sustainable forms of transport.
The Air Quality Action Plan has identified 14 locations in Haringey where ‘hotspots’ were recorded for NO2 levels and PM10 above the recommended national air quality health limits. For each hotspot identified, emissions from road transport are the contributing emission source.
The Mayor’s Air Quality Strategy sets out how London’s air quality will be improved to meet EU limit values for concentrations of PM10 and NO2. In regard to transport, theStrategy focuses on measures to encourage behaviour change, such as the uptake of electric vehicles and eco-driving training, modal shift to increase walking and cycling, theuse of cleaner fleet vehicles and the low emission zone.
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Permalink Reply by Michele on
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Glad action being taken but not sure it goes far or fast enough. Why aren't we looking to other EU countries for solutions - such as banning cars on certain days as they did in Paris.
Also he should be bringing back red routs and bus lanes all along Green Lanes and stop cars from parking in the bus lanes. Whose bright idea was that?
Any other ideas?
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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Any other ideas? - Start locally. Eg the HCG is doing the air quality study again this year on the Ladder so we can compare the results while Wightman is closed to the ones we did last year while it was open. Which should show the air is much cleaner and so give further weight to the arguments for needing something done about all the through traffic.
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That will be very valuable data. Given that Wightman Road had higher traffic flow than at least 9 A roads in the Borough, that the LIP pollution map must be the result of mathematical modelling rather than real sampling [the only sampling point in the immediate area is on Green Lanes at the junction with Allison Road] and it is unclear whether rail diesel is modelled also.
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With the best will in the world such bans don't work (where certain cars registrations are banned on certain days) For instance the example in Mexico City, people just bought a second care (often older and more polluting) to drive on the days their main car was banned.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/mar/20/licence-plate-driving...
I don't see any politician implementing what's required.
The simple fact is in an economist's view, we have to make driving more polluting vehicles more difficult and better choices easier. Here the green lanes journey is a disincentive - I imagine people will avoid their car to avoid the journey. Keeping wightman as it is will help overall pollution (but not green lanes - sorry). Anyway ideas...
1) The price of fuel is a market failure. The extermal costs of fuel pollution are not contained within the price. So, the cost of fuel in urban areas has to be higher. But "only rich people will drive" I can hear... We have to make a decision. Do we want people to drive or not? If they have to drive they will.
This is where the money comes from for the below:
2) Incentives for BEVs have to be much better. £5000 off a £30,000 car with a poor charging infrastructure, only means the real EV geeks will sign up. This needs a massive amount of investment.
3) laws concerning cyclists need to really be tightened up. Right of way etc.
4) Of course more investment in safer cycling routes.
5) better access and feedback to street level data.
6) Much much higher parkign charges in haringey for SUVs and polluting vehicles. Much higher.
7) More funding/action for behavioural/incentive research. The paris is an example of an unintended consequence, such matters have to be dealt with carefully.
Etc etc etc. This list is not exhaustive. Pardon the pun.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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A couple of times I've suggested fuel rationing, limiting drivers to, say, 3000 miles a year. That would cut down on the non-essential journeys.
Nobody seemed to like the idea
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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To be fair to Haringey Council - as I always am - it's often brilliant at having meetings and launching fantastic plans. On this topic as many others.
However I'd feel more confident if greater information was available and more attention paid to some of the sites where new homes are planned right next to polluted "hotspot" roads". Apparently putting more residents in harm's way.
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Agreed. For a start the council parking charges are CO2 based! Now yes CO2 is a pollutant, but it's not one of the salient pollutants for cities and was a reason diesel cars were incentivised.
Council needs to immediately sort the charges out to
a) reflect urban air quality and not have some form of crazy climate change mitigation strategy enforced through parking charges (!). So polluted areas carry much higher parking charges for higher polluting (PM5, PM10, NOX, SOX, etc) vehicles. simple as. We must make cars of a certain engine size/age supply pollution data themselves (Actually write it down on a form). Make the task onerous. We have to get these cars off the road.
b) Integrate much better incentive schemes based on robust science and not some 'school badge giveaway'.
Not exhaustive etc etc. But this needs a strong minded council to implement. Do we have this in haringey?
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Once upon a time, well in 2007, a former councillor named Brian Haley was the "Cabinet" Member for Environment and Conservation. He said:
"We are firm in our belief that grading parking charges according to carbon emissions is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal in the fight against climate change".
I was dubious at the time and as the scheme unfolded it seemed to me that the so-called "environmentally friendly parking charges" were a fraud. I said so privately in the Haringey Labour Group (i.e. the Labour Councillors). And also publicly. Later it became a bit more of a fraud when we all discovered that car manufacturers had been gaming their figures.
Lies are like bad coinage. People lose trust.
In my view the real object of the scheme was to make more profit on the Parking Account. Which it helped to do. One councillor was honest enough to admit - privately - that the charges were actually a tax on larger vehicles. Fair enough, except that running a Council's Parking Account as a business to generate a surplus was illegal at the time. (It may still be. I haven't kept up with the law.) But for any council the money is handy to backfill brutal cuts just a little.
I told the story on my photoblog. For a couple of years I also maintained a cumulative table showing the changes. Which of course was completely ignored.
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Thanks Alan this is so interesting.
I'd love to see the evidence base behind the elected member's statement. Most powerful? Really? I agree it's a load of baloney. There are much better (i.e. cost effective, higher impact) ways to reduce CO2.
The issue at hand here is local air quality - which has significant (even grave) and measurable externalities, which in my opinion (despite the evidence base) are not accounted for in government economics. Your figures are really interesting too.
Perhaps we can see a parking system which represents this local issue, with NOX, SOX etc as the measureables. This would be a start. It would also raise more money (being an irony). Once one does it, the rest will follow.
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