Motorists might be feeling under attack at the moment. They are blamed for climate change (CO2 emissions), air pollution (NO2 emissions), road deaths, and congestion.
Many on the radical left take the view that reducing traffic is a good in itself, against the classic economic view that the purpose of infrastructure is to augment the wealth of the nation.
Local and national government have taken a number of actions to reduce traffic and discourage motoring. The UK Government gave £175 million to local councils in 2020 to push for traffic reduction measures. And many councils have been active.
London has gone furthest so far. It has a congestion zone, which is a crude form of road pricing, where drivers pay to enter central London. More controversially, it also has an emission zone, called the ULEZ (ultra-low emissions zone), where drivers of older petrol and diesel vehicles must pay to enter greater London. Aside from the political implications, it’s flawed as an NO2 mitigation policy since independent tests show that modern diesel engines are often much more polluting than older petrol engines. Since Covid, many London boroughs have instituted low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) where traffic barriers are put on side streets to force traffic onto increasingly crowded main roads. Lower speed limits have been set by both boroughs and Transport for London (TfL) with 20mph common on many major roads.
Outside London, the Welsh government has proposed 20mph speed limits in towns. In Scotland, improvements to the main road to Inverness have stalled, reportedly due to opposition from the Greens who are the SNP’s coalition partners. The Central Oxfordshire Travel Plan from Oxfordshire County Council promises, in the name of “promoting 20-minute neighbourhoods”, traffic filters at six strategic points in and around Oxford. Out-of-county vehicles will be forbidden to cross these points between 7am and 7pm, and in-county vehicles will be rationed to 25 days per year (or 100 days for city residents). Bristol is proposing a clean air zone (emissions zone), and Cambridge is considering a road user charge.
