Morning:
9°c
Monday was Boris's proverbial “good day to bury bad news”, for while he reassured Londoners of what a splendid job Transport for London had done responding to the Siberian conditions, a far more important mayoral statement was being slipped out.
This was Boris's decision to delay the third phase of the low emissions zone, due to come into force in October 2010.
Of course, Boris inherited the zone from Ken but he's been generally upbeat about it. However, with the downturn gathering pace, the Mayor's view is that the third phase — which covers smaller vans and minibuses — will place intolerable burdens on 90,000 vehicle owners, likely to be small businesses, charities and the self-employed.
Personally, I think this is arrant nonsense. What does the emissions zone do, save prevent people from driving vehicles into London belching black smoke? This isn't a tree-hugging, touchy-feely environmental measure but a straightforward means of improving air quality in a city where 1,000 people die prematurely from pollution-related disease every year.
The low emissions zone is the Clean Air Act of the Noughties; it's a way of stopping our streets being exhaust-filled ruts, and if it also curbs out-of-town traffic, so much the better.
Naturally Boris, who won the mayoralty by his canvassers driving minibuses around the outer 'burbs, doesn't want to alienate his electoral base. He's already thrown them a significant sop by contracting the congestion-charging zone, and this latest pro-road move is part of the same pattern. I dispute the idea that there are — in the Mayor's words – “more imaginative ways” of lowering emissions; imagination isn't in the mix — action should be.
Boris says he's in talks with central government to provide grants for hard-pressed businesses that need help getting their light goods vehicles to conform but if he has any faith in this démarche he should stick with the timetabled introduction of phase three; to roll back now sends altogether the wrong message.
That looks too much like a hard road for Boris, who prefers to freewheel on about greener transport. What's become of his commitment to more biking and walking? God knows there's enough blether about this initiative, and that scheme, but the new bike lanes and paths are nowhere to be seen. I dare say it will be the same with the hybrid buses, the low-carbon technology for London taxis and the city bike hire scheme that Boris is now touting in lieu of curbing emissions at source.
One of the greatest joys of Monday's snow-choked streets was that the cars weren't going anywhere. For once the kids could play out, free from their biggest danger: motor vehicles.
Yes, it was a good day for London's children but such a day only comes every 18 years — whereas air pollution is with them every day, and the way things are going, will be for years to come.
Tall, dark – and sadly predictable
Mad Men, the beautifully styled take on Madison Avenue admen in the early Sixties, returns to Brit screens next week. Female fans swoon over Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper, the show's main character; but while I'm metrosexual enough to share their attraction, I'm afraid I felt cheated by the first season: after that first acerbic bite of the apple I expected the show to gnaw down to the bitter core of the American dream; instead, Mad Men ended up as just another old-style mini-series, complete with a melodramatic plot. I do hope season two will redeem Mad Men, and not just give thinking women (and men) further ogling opportunities.
Pity these abominable snowmen
Everyone will have their own memories — fond or foul — of the so-called “severe snow event” of February 2009 but mine are mostly as rosy as my kids' cheeks were after they'd spent their unexpected day off snowball fighting and building snowmen.
Unlike more percipient folk, on Monday morning I marched my 11-year-old the three miles over to his school in Clapham, only to discover that it was, of course, shut. Still, we got to enjoy some Blitz-style camaraderie with the customers in a café on Northcote Road, and then see this sublime sight: two suited young men, valiantly clearing the snow away from the doorway of KFH estate agents using a FOR SALE sign. It's difficult to imagine a more poignant vignette of the triumph of hope over expectation.
Reader views (7)
Boris's decision is a backward step, yet another pro-motoring, pro-pollution and pro-congestion move for a city that once led Europe on road policies.
- Claire Stringer, Clerkenwell., 05/02/2009 11:10
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Right on Will. My grandson lived near a main road and had asthma. Much improved now he's moved nearer the countryside. The cost is to individual and to the economy - days off work, healthcare, illness and early death, all affecting poorer people who can't afford to move. We have been promised a reduction in health inequalities but there is little movement. Let's have cheap (or free) public transport.
- Lesley Hedges, Huddersfield, UK, 05/02/2009 09:21
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well said kw agreed. as for sleaze k livingstone has never been charged with anything big mistake voting him out london.you rarley see a bus in london now belching out fumes as for cabs there a lot cleaner now thanks to ken.will selfs article was spot on.
- C May, bromley, 04/02/2009 18:09
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By far, the greatest polluter inside the congestion zone is the London bus, closely followed by the London taxi. Boris is quite right to think of the small businesses who will unfairly carry the burden, instead of taxi drivers and TFL.
And Boris didn't win by "by his canvassers driving minibuses around the outer 'burbs", he won because he wasn't mired in sleaze and corruption, and promised Londoners a better deal.d
- SallyR, London, UK, 04/02/2009 14:31
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...Anyone even slightly in touch with your 'public opinion' you mean, ST? Children are particularly at risk from the poor air quality and they don't get to vote about it until they've suffered for 18 years or so.
And since you're so bothered about acquiring money, I hope you put some aside to pay for the very best health care available, should you (or your children) contract a pollution related illness.
- KW, London, 04/02/2009 13:02
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what meaningless drivel
if only you put as much effort into the quality of your article as you do in trying to sound good
what's wrong - were you picked on at school?
- ross, London, 04/02/2009 12:41
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Anyone even slightly in touch with public opinion would know that the everage Londoner is currently vastly more bothered about how much money they have and will have in the next 18 months than how clean the air is.
- ST, London, 04/02/2009 09:58
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