I've spent the last couple of days working at George Square in centre of Glasgow. Shiny new ULEZ, marginally older one way and vehicle free streets
Now it may be confirmation bias as I was working with Sustrans, but I thought there was noticeably less vehicle traffic.
Buses, delivery vans, taxis, a lot of cyclists and pedestrians. But far fewer personal cars, and overall less traffic.
Anyone else with shiny new ULEZ / LTN / restrictions noticing a change?
I noticed the 60 quid fine and not the signage in a different city parking for GnR recently…
It seems I strayed a 100yds into the zone.
I’m somewhat torn on them. I think I’d rather people acted responsibly and used vehicles appropriately.
I drive an oldish 4x4. I live on a single track dead end road in Cumbria. I work from home and it spends most of its time hauling scout gear about.
I wonder about taxation classes based on home addresses? Or just rolled into the fuel duty?
There are some small residential roads near me that were used as ratruns. They have been closed to thru traffic. Its made a huge difference in the Shore area
I was working just off George square last week and didn’t notice much difference, but they were still clearing up the worlds infrastructure so lots of closures and diversions. I did notice some beautiful new tarmac outside our office on Montrose st.
I think I had the opposite experience of you, Matt as last time I was in Glasgow all the roads were closed for the bike races. I got a shock walking out of queen st station to see all the vehicles grumbling along!
Agree with your broader point though. I had to walk from queen st to the barras and it did feel like a nice place to be.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66593086
We're seeing progress towards safer, more pleasant environments. Hopefully these changes, if approved, contribute to making driving less about convenience and all about making it an option with consequences - ranging from a small price to enter a city in a polluting vehicle, to a full life term if a driver displays the ultimate lack of care.
I've certainly seen a big reduction in traffic on Byres Rd and University Ave over the last year or so. My office looks directly over both of them (I'm looking at the front door of Tennents now, it's not open yet...*sigh*).
I noticed the 60 quid fine and not the signage in a different city parking for GnR recently…
Did you not realise that You Could be Fined?
I think the big change at George Sq was when they pedestrianised two sides of it.
Other than that, I ride around central Glasgow and the west end at least three times a week and can't say I have seen any great difference in traffic. Byres Road.? Traffic obviously worse IMO since they closed Kelvin Way.
I wonder about taxation classes based on home addresses?
Worked out how?
When I lived in Glasgow, the cars parked in my street were all pretty much there day and night - the traffic, particularly at rush hour, was people driving into the city from the suburbs and beyond not the people who live where the traffic and pollution they create is.
Are you suggesting people in the countryside pay more road duty? Because they are the ones that create the congestion and pollution in city centres?
I think in Glasgow and perhaps in other cities it's a little hard to gauge the impact partly becuase theres a cost of living crisis and result footfall in cities for commerce and leisure has declined. But also theres a quite a few people who've continued to work from home. Out of rush hour a lot of city centre week day traffic would have been work journeys form one place of work to visit other people in their place of work and I guess a lot less of that is happening now so its hard to say just how effective the LEZ on its own is. I'd be interested to see what the traffic situation is outside the zone. I've never really understood the motive to value the air quality in shopping streets (where people spend one or two hours a week max) over the streets where they live and sleep.
In glasgow it would be hard to know how much traffic previously was cars coming into the city as a destination and how much was traffic passing from one part of town to another, through the city centre. If the latter is just diverting by a few streets I'm not sure what moving the source of particulates up or down wind a few hundred meters achieves.
As a diversion - I listened to an interesting article a few years ago about how government departmental structure shapes perception of problems and the form of solution. An example now that part of the pressure the NHS currently faces is actually a result of housing policy - people's homes are either cold and damp and unhealthy and making them ill or their not suitably accessible for people to be released back home from hospital. On the occasions I've been admitted to hospital some of the first questions I've been asked have been about my home - is it ground floor, is there a toilet or shower on the ground floor etc- basically to set what the criteria are for me being able to leave again. But because there are two different government departments either with their own focus and targets government as a whole doesn't see pressure on hospitals as something that can be alleviated by housing - But when the NHS was created the Health and Housing were the same department and the same issue - bad homes were making people ill and the reason we created both social health care and social housing was make people healthier.
Anyway - we address transport issues (congestion, pollution) with Transport carrots and transport sticks (fuel and vehicle duty, public transport infrastructure and so on). Becuase we have a "Department of Transport". When covid hit the streets were empty and the air was clear and it made it clear that the best initiative the DOT could have taken would have been to improve rural IT and buy the nation a Zoom licence.
Nods approvingly at @martinhutch 's GnR joke...
*Agrees with @bigdaddy*
To be fair, the Glasgow LEZ area is pretty much an area i avoided with the car all my life, Glasgow has good rail links and underground, so it's easy to park up and just scoot in on a 10 or 15 minute journey, when i was in Bearsden the train was a no brainer.
But, in other LEZ areas around the country it's a bit of a nightmare, i'm down Bristol now and their CAZ area is a pain in the arse, i drive a 10 year old diesel, as it's all i could afford at the time, and now have to add a couple of miles to certain journeys due to the weird outline of the CAZ, it's basically pushing non compliant cars out to the residential areas more to circumvent the CAZ.
I drive an oldish 4×4. I live on a single track dead end road in Cumbria. I work from home and it spends most of its time hauling scout gear about.
Everyone with a pollution machine has an excuse why they need it. If as simple as postcode people would start renting out farm addresses for mail forwarding of vehicle registrations. Inevitably the debate would start on why Mrs Jones needs a 4x4 on a metalled road even if its a single track road, but Dr Smith who lives in the local town but visits his patients out in the sticks in all weathers doesn't; Dave tows his dive club rib with his 4x4 - they occasionally rescue a stranded dolphin so are good people not planet wasters 😉 but Diane has a rural holiday house she only uses in the summer but uses the 4x4 for the school run every day.
The closest you can get to making it fair is either to add to fuel duty (the public will be up in arms) or to make it related to where vehicles cause the most problems (built up areas with poor air quality and high congestion) with a "toll". The Scottish ULEZ goes further than that in that it outright bans the worst vehicles - but it does have exemptions for very genuine use cases. I think the underlying technology exists where you could determine a toll based on the practicality of making the same journey by public transport (e.g. to get to my nearest hospital is 11miles/15 min in the car, but on a bus is 1h20 with a change and no service before 7am or after 8pm. But to get to a city centre is 19miles/35-60 min in the car (depending on traffic) but between 0545 and 2330 is a 14 min train journey).
maccruiskeen - yes and its all way more interconnected than people think about. Education impacts people's health (not just through knowing directly how to keep healthy). Justice and health are very closely aligned (e.g. drink/drugs problems). Social care obviously impacts the bed blocking in the same way as housing. Physical activity impacts health, whilst cultural activity impacts mental health. Transport has direct impacts (e.g. can you get home and come back as a day patient) as well as long term ones (pollution, accidents etc). Governments of all colours are dreadful at dealing with this stuff, especially in the long term (5yr parliamentary terms v's generations to have an impact) and fall into the trap of throwing money at the NHS rather than fixing the societal issues that contribute to it.
Glasgow LEZ area
And in it it extends halfway across the Clyde. So any enthusiastic protestors wishing to 'stick it to the man' only need to get a small petrol powered dingy and cruise up and down that area*.
- Naturally of course the kids of Glasgow will throw stones at you, but is that so big a price to pay.
matt_outandabout
Now it may be confirmation bias as I was working with Sustrans, but I thought there was noticeably less vehicle traffic.
Buses, delivery vans, taxis, a lot of cyclists and pedestrians. But far fewer personal cars, and overall less traffic.
Less traffic generally because of the summer holidays, maybe?
It's not the school holidays now
I'm working just off the Broomielaw and from my lunchtime walk traffic levels definitely look down on what they used to be.
As said above, the Glasgow ULEZ isn't that big a hardship, it costs significantly less to park in Shields Road for the day than it does anywhere in the city centre so the "penalising the poor" argument never stacked up.
I noticed the 60 quid fine and not the signage in a different city parking for GnR recently…
King Street? If you know the city then the boundaries are pretty easy to remember (M8 to High Street to river then Kingston Bridge) but I guess if you're too busy navigation you could miss it.
“penalising the poor” argument never stacked up.
What about people that now find themselves living inside the ULEZ and can't afford a new car? I feel like that's an issue, but I don't really know?
The other group that comes to mind is carers, driving their own cars to visits but I don't know how many are doing it within the Glasgow ULEZ, probably best of on foot / bike / bus anyway.
The other group that comes to mind is carers, driving their own cars to visits but I don’t know how many are doing it within the Glasgow ULEZ, probably best of on foot / bike / bus anyway.
This one crops up every time that any council dares to suggest even the tamest form of traffic reduction - what about the carers?! The implication being that literally every car being driven around is some harassed care worker rushing between 174 different elderly/disabled people and how anything that might hinder their direct journey or charge them more is to be resisted at all costs.
There are traffic audits that attempt to break down such details but they're horrifically painful to manage and open to all sorts of interpretations. And yes, you're right, a lot of the trips would be considerably quicker and more efficient on e-cargo bikes.
I drove around Glasgow a bit when I was working on the Cycling World Championships and hated it. One of the worst cities I've ever driven in, an absolute car-clogged hellhole of traffic lights, colossal junctions, a bloody great motorway through the middle and more pothole than actual tarmac. It was like Manchester but worse - a phrase I never thought I'd say!
Presumably the city centre and west end. Yes extremely car unfriendly. By design. Side streets closed. Long pedestrian phases on lights. Junction changes to slow vehicle throughput. Roads closed.
Areas off the main roads have benefited from reduced traffic. As a part of the city to drive through best avoided unless you have no option. Hence the popularity of our of town shopping centres.
As for the motorway - can you imagine how much worse it would be if 30000 cars a day were using surface streets instead of the motorway to cross the city.
It was the motorway taking thru traffic away that allowed the pedestrianisation of some main streets in the city centre.
What about people that now find themselves living inside the ULEZ and can’t afford a new car? I feel like that’s an issue, but I don’t really know?
ULEZ compliant cars are hitting 18 years old now, I'd say it's a vanishingly small number tbh.
The other group that comes to mind is carers, driving their own cars to visits
Dunno about GCC but NAC have a pool.
ULEZ compliant cars are hitting 18 years old
My 12 year old car isn't compliant
As for the motorway – can you imagine how much worse it would be if 30000 cars a day were using surface streets instead of the motorway to cross the city
Around the M73/M74 would replace M8 city centre, no?
But yes, 'main' roads have taken traffic from the city centre for years.
ULEZ compliant cars are hitting 18 years old now, I’d say it’s a vanishingly small number tbh.
Unless they bought a diesel, Euro 6 was mandated in 2015(ish?)
As an aside my 2012 sensible family estate can no longer be driven into Glasgow, but my massive 3.5T less efficient camper van can, which on the face of it does seem a bit counterintuitive - I know it's about what comes out the exhaust.
I realise I sound anti, but I'm not. I think ULEZs are a good idea and as long as it's managed properly, a cleaner city with fewer cars will always be a good thing, especially if there are some decent cycling routes available. Despite living just down the road I don't go in to Glasgow that often, even less so by vehicle, so I'm not really sure what it's like currently for getting around in. Presumably though numbers of cars will increase again over time as electric and compliant cars become more prevalent, so something else will have to happen - congestion charge?
This one crops up every time that any council dares to suggest even the tamest form of traffic reduction – what about the carers?! The implication being that literally every car being driven around is some harassed care worker rushing between 174 different elderly/disabled people and how anything that might hinder their direct journey or charge them more is to be resisted at all costs.
Yeah I don't know if it is an issue or not, maybe not.
Dunno about GCC but NAC have a pool.
Judging by the visits to my neighbour over the road SAC either get a van, often hired from Arnold Clark, or use a random small car - maybe pool cars?
Judging by the visits to my neighbour over the road SAC either get a van, often hired from Arnold Clark, or use a random small car – maybe pool cars?
As a result of parking related moaning rather than CAZ our community team have moved to (presumably leased) pool iD3s. Don't know what they do in the private sector.
....and tonight I'm wandering around Belfast in a fug of noise and pollution from the vehicles.
I agree with the thoughts that we also have to up the train / bus / bike / scooter / walking game as well as force 'bad' vehicles out.
As a result of parking related moaning rather than CAZ our community team have moved to (presumably leased) pool iD3s. Don’t know what they do in the private sector.
I work in an NHS Trust on the community team and we don't have access to pool cars but can buy a car for work on salary sacrifice.
I do, however, work with lots of private providers and their staff do tend to drive old cars, you know, the things with 8 months MOT for £900.
They're probably not earning well enough to go out and buy much better either.
As an example my mate does home care part time since he retired due to ill health as a community nurse, and he's paid around £11 an hour.
BUT only whilst he's in the call. So a 20 minute call followed by a 15 minute drive followed by a 10 minute call then another 15 minute drive gets him £5.50 (and no help with car costs either). He only does it to keep busy and earn a bit of pin money but others hve to try to live on it).
That's West Yorkshire but I reckon it's probably true in most areas.
Bradford is struggling greatly for home care since it's ULEZ was introduced, although on the plus side for us lots of Bradford staff are moving to work in Kirklees now.
Don't really know what the solution is beyond paying carers a decent rate so they can actually afford nicer things and better cars.
BUT only whilst he’s in the call. So a 20 minute call followed by a 15 minute drive followed by a 10 minute call then another 15 minute drive gets him £5.50.
I thought there had been a court case that stated travel time should be paid time for these carers. I know they kept on appealling several court cases over this
that means he is earning less than the minimum wage
Three out of four care staff who look after people at home are not being paid for the time it takes them to travel between appointments, according to new research.
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/unison-government-england-alan-jones-b2357803.html
Bradford is struggling greatly for home care since it’s ULEZ was introduced.
Bradford is one of the most badly connected cities in the country. Appalling public transport - that whole Leeds - Bradford - Huddersfield corridor needs nuking from orbit and start over.
"Around the M73/M74 would replace M8 city centre, no?"
The M73/M74 only cover the south and east sides of the city. The whole northwest of the city and Milngavie/Bearsden gets on the motorway system at the M8 on that mile or so around Charing Cross. The M74 completion did remove a big chunk of through traffic though.
The idea of the M8 design through Glasgow with multiple junctions a short distance apart was to keep the traffic off the normal roads as long as possible. This helps reduce congestion and reduces accident rates as motorways are safer and cars aren't mixing with vulnerable users.
Bear in mind the M8 Charing Cross secion was designed in 1963 to cope with 1990 traffic levels and the whole scheme wasn't built.
Fair points, well made.
😜
King Street? If you know the city then the boundaries are pretty easy to remember (M8 to High Street to river then Kingston Bridge) but I guess if you’re too busy navigation you could miss it.
Yeh. That’s pretty much it. I could cope with not going in. The big 4x4 is my choice. But it would have helped knowing the city. Either way the world won’t end for an occasional fine.
If it’s making the difference suggested above it’s good thing.
Yeah, I can see how it can happen, long stay parking isn't particularly available on the peripheries either, that's something that needs addressing sooner rather than later.
Bear in mind the M8 Charing Cross secion was designed in 1963 to cope with 1990 traffic levels and the whole scheme wasn’t built.
Thank ****.
The idea of the M8 design through Glasgow with multiple junctions a short distance apart was to keep the traffic off the normal roads as long as possible. This helps reduce congestion and reduces accident rates as motorways are safer and cars aren’t mixing with vulnerable users.
And it's an absolute ball ache that the N/E bound slip road at junction 17 is closed.
Around the M73/M74 would replace M8 city centre, no?
Sounds like you're telling him to Get In The Ring (Road).
I'm generally in favour but I've one particular peeve for these recent ones... I have 2 cars, one of them is a relatively polluting tuned mx5, the other is a subaru which is cleaner even when on petrol and cleaner still on its lpg. But the subaru being an import doesn't have a euro rating and therefore is automatically ULEZ noncompliant, while the mx5 which can only carry 2 people and practically no stuff, is ULEZ compliant. So my sensible daily, which almost certainly exceeds the actual emissions standards, is excluded and I will have to take the midlifecrisismobile, which almost certainly doesn't meet the actual emissions standards but has the right 16 year old bit of paper.
There's supposed to be a process available to test cars that fall outside of the paperwork test, but there was only ever one place in the whole country that could do it and they've stopped. Not that this stops the authorities telling you that there is a process and that you just have to find a place to get it done.
Anyway that's obviously a ridiculously first world problem but it does annoy me and it kinda undermines the logic of it. And the fact that it's taken me about a year even to find this stuff all out because the people who're supposed to be in charge of it don't really seem to understand the kinks of their own rules, is a bit crap too.
In the end it's a paperwork zone not a real emissions zone but the difference mostly isn't very different so it's close enough.
The M8 thru Glasgow - quite interesting
Anyway that’s obviously a ridiculously first world problem but it does annoy me and it kinda undermines the logic of it.
It's statistically insignificant.
Though regressive it seems ULEZ and the like are necessary. Pollution from vehicles has an effect on urban health we need to collectively reduce the use of private motor vehicles and higher-polluting ones especially. With no ‘carrot’ on offer of e.g. great public transport there’s only ‘stick’ approaches for local government.
I wonder about taxation classes based on home addresses? Or just rolled into the fuel duty?
Unsure how you want the taxation to work. Higher payments from folks who are local to discourage regular use and encourage a regular ‘subscription’ payment? Almost a council tax top up?
Fuel duty 🤣 yeah, because that’s working so well already? The holds on fuel duty have shown that no government has the courage of their convictions when it comes to ‘polluter pays’. Again, fuel duty is regressive but at least it is linked to usage. As is a ULEZ levy.
Bring on high motor fuel taxes, 20mph urban limits, traffic-calming galore, and zero emission zones.
Though regressive it seems ULEZ and the like are necessary.
Its not really regressive - poorer people are less likely to own cars,more likely to have health issues from car based pollution as well as benefiting more if / when public transport is improved
@tjagain it’s regressive in the way that it hits poor disproportionally harder than wealthy. Such taxes affect only those who pay for goods and services taxed in such a way of course.
It’s possible that the inequality is even greater as ‘poorer people’ who do have cars and vans may be less likely to afford ULEZ compliant vehicles than wealthier users.
Agree on the health angle. There’s a UoM article that I suspect reflects some aspect of pollution effects in the survival estimates for different stops on the Manchester Metrolink for example https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/life-on-the-line/
I fear it is more ‘if’ than ‘when’ for public transport in England outside of London ☹️. HS2 notwithstanding 😏
I'm not sure air quality is a major factor in the difference in life expectancy in many places. Other poverty and lifestyle factors are to blame. For example there is the well known roughly 10 year life expectancy difference between neighbouring Bearsden and Milngavie and Drumchapel. Neither have bad air quality IMO. They both have a few through routes which are busy (Bearsden possibly busier) and once off those routes traffic is very light.
More like poverty, poor diets, high drug abuse rates, violence, alcohol, and smoking.
As an aside I always found it remarkable that people living on opposite sides of a set of football pitches had different accents.
found out earlier today that now I have an EV, I can use the pick up and drop off at Glasgow airport for free for the first 10 mins ... 🙂
Handy as junior flies in and out fairly regularly with work and it's costing me a heap ! Was £48 at Edinburgh 2 weeks ago as he got held up in security and couldn't phone us as he had a Japan SIM in it and we had his UK SIM..
I’m not sure air quality is a major factor in the difference in life expectancy in many places.
bold measures to tackle air pollution are still needed as 4,000 Londoners died due to the impacts of toxic air in 2019...City Hall research shows that those exposed to the worst air pollution are more likely to be deprived Londoners and from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities...
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/new-imperial-study-on-mayors-aq-policies
Doesn’t seem to extend along Dumbarton rd.
The real bugbear here is simply people parking parking along this busy road.
Youve got:
a) residents.
b) shopowners who could just as easily walk or cycle to work.
c) shopowners who leave their vans parked outside their shop.
Couldnt they just leave the van behind and have the cash&carry deliver the stuff?
There have been a number of cycling fatalities as people swerve past these vehicles.
And it just infuriates bus drivers as they have to swing around these needlessly parked vehicles.
Bit if a tangent😩😭😭
"
Sadiq Khan’s deputy urged scientists to alter a Lancet study that showed London’s low emissions zone made no difference to children’s health.
Emails seen by The Telegraph show that Shirley Rodrigues, London’s deputy mayor, asked if Professor Chris Griffiths, of Queen Mary University of London, could “reword” the study’s conclusion that found “no evidence” of health benefits to children’s lungs.
Ms Rodrigues complained: “It reads like Lez (low emissions zones) or similar have no impact at all.”
In the private exchange from November 2018, Prof Griffiths refused the request, replying to Ms Rodrigues: “Apologies - it’s difficult to alter the sentence you refer to as it’s what we set out to look for but didn’t find.”"
@irc did you read the full thing or just the headline?
Fully agree uLEZ is far more ambitious in its predicted impacts. Be reassured will be emphasising this positive, as well as the positive impact the LEZ itself had on AQ.
Apologies - its difficult to alter the sentence you refer to as its what we set out to look for but didn't find, plus the PR is out. The positive spin on this is that impacts uLEZ will have on air quality and health, which we will emphasise
The exchanges were relating to the LEZ, not the later ULEZ.
Handy as junior flies in and out fairly regularly with work and it’s costing me a heap ! Was £48 at Edinburgh 2 weeks ago as he got held up in security and couldn’t phone us as he had a Japan SIM in it and we had his UK SIM..
@iainc does he not claim it back for you?
