When it comes to air quality in London, the Taxi trade always comes in for a lashing from both the media and the greenies. Scientific evidence is overlooked and the iconic London Taxi is always put in the frame.
The Mayor has spent over a hundred million pounds on his bike scheme (each Boris bike cost £16,000 overall in set up costs), several hundred million on a new London bus (600 Boris buses costing £355,000 each), plus he is also committed to spending another billion pounds on expanding cycling across London.
But Boris has turned his back on the Taxi trade that helped get him elected.
Without spending a penny in compensation or producing any reliable evidence, a15 year age limit was placed on Taxis which has seen thousands of Taxi drivers plunged into financial hardship. After 18 months and the removal of over 5,500 older vehicles, the air quality remains increasingly poor.
Now, without research to back them up, three major London council leaders are trying to influence the Mayor to reduce the Taxi age limit to 10 years. Plus these same councils are considering following Islington's blanket 20ph speed limit. Any engineer worth their degree would willingly explain, modern catalytic converters do not function properly at lower speeds, most need to obtain much higher speeds for a consistent duration to regenerate or they clog.
Are these self-elected environmental police, are chasing the wrong criminal?
Lets look at the evidence.
Energy select committee chairman Tim Yeo, resigned from the company that modifies new replacement Taxis, in a conflict of interest scandal. Yeo was also the first to introduced the idea of a Taxi age limit at a Tory conference.
We've recently been informed by the DEFRA report, that new Taxis from both LTC and Mercedes are more polluting than the older ones Boris has forced of the road.
TfL, refused to allow retrofitting Diesel Particle Filters to existing older Taxis, so why do they insist they are fitted to brand new LTC vehicles?
TfL to now take away the incentive for motorists to buy less polluting vehicles such as Hybrids by removing congestion charge discounts and exemptions.
Not once has Boris put visible pressure on Taxi manufactures to come up with a cleaner hybrid engine. DPF filters are fitted to current TX4's to bring them into Euro 5 standard even though DPF filters do not function properly under urban stop start usage.
How hard would it have been for Boris to say to manufacturers,
"Unless you produce a hybrid vehicle, it won't get plated"?
No choice.
London Taxi drivers are the casualties that no one gives a damn about. We are expected as usual to just take it on the chin. Time and time again, we are vilified as the biggest contributing factor behind the 4,500 annual deaths, attributed to poor air quality in the capital.
TfL tell us what vehicles we can buy.
With older, less polluting vehicles being taken off the road, we are being forced to buy new vehicles that are killing people quicker.
Questions should be asked of the Mayor as to why such polluting vehicles were chosen as an alternative To the TX4, in preference to other vehicles that have greener credentials.
Taxi drivers in York are being offered £3,000 towards the price of a low emission taxi as well as half-price taxi licensing as the City of York Council looks to reduce air pollution.To qualify for their grant, drivers must be registered to work in York and choose a hybrid or electric car that emits under 100g/km CO2.
Councillor Dave Merrett, City of York Council’s cabinet member for Transport, Planning and Sustainability, said: “We are determined to address the traffic-related air quality problems we have in York This incentive is an innovative step forward.
The cars will be a regular sight at what is the UK’s first ever ‘green’ taxi rank, reserved purely for hybrid vehicles.
Perhaps the Mayor should take a leaf out of the City of York's book and introduce a viable scrapage incentive scheme to encourage Taxi drivers to buy less polluting vehicles. But that's currently impossible because there are no suitable vehicles available to London's Taxi drivers under the current conditions of fitness.
London needs to follow in York’s footsteps soon and catch up with other countries that already promote eco-taxis.
BORIS WE NEED A CLEANER ENGINE OR A DIFFERENT VEHICLE WITH A CLEANER ENGINE.