Gee Whiz

The London Congestion Charging Zone is a hot topic of conversation in the office at the moment, particularly the fact that it is being extended westwards to encompass Westminster, Kensington, Chelsea, Notting Hill and so on.

I want to state a few things about the zone. The first fact is that it was introduced to cut congestion. Hence the name, obviously. Initially it did this, although traffic volumes have crept back up again. Because of this, and because of the passing environmentalism bandwagon, Ken Livingstone has now decided that the CCZ is now actually to be all about emissions. Henceforth, it will be a low emission zone, handily bypassing the fact that it hasn't really cut congestion at all.

To meet this new, fashionable end, it has been mooted to charge even more for "Chelsea tractors" His words, naturally. The reasoning (if it can be called that) is that they emit more emissions. Obviously he hasn't looked at the actual figures as I once did, which revealed that the top 50 or so polluting cars are not 4x4s, but actually sports cars. Of course these weren't mentioned, as it's not fashionable to do so. And also ignores the fact that many family cars will be also hit harder. And further ignores the fact that if two or more people share the car, the total emissions are much lower than they would have been if they travelled separately, but no allowance is made for that.

The whole thing reeks of double standards, but the worst bit is this: The G-Wiz electric car will be exempt from paying the charge. It will also get free parking in some places and free recharging of its batteries. The reason? Because it is electric and therefore emission-free.

PARDON? EMISSION FREE? Er, so how does it recharge then? That's right, with electricity. And how is that electricity generated? Oh that's right, from power stations. And they do what? Oh yes, emit CO2. Independent research has shown that the creation of the amount of electricity needed to fully charge one of these "emission-free" vehicles is actually more than put out by a Ford Focus when compared per kilometer, which is the only proper way to compare.

And lets follow this through to the logical conclusion. Say everybody falls for the propaganda about electric cars being emission free and buys one. Then nobody is going to pay a congestion charge. So what then? The obvious thing would be for TFL to announce that their task is complete and to shut up shop.

But I rather suspect they'd find something else to charge us for instead.