Sheffield Congestion Charge From Feb 27th 2023

[Pyrotequila]

It seems crazy that it applies even if you don't go into the city centre, if you just use the ring road to go from one place to another, you'd still get the charge.

To me that will end up causing more traffic on back roads as people try to avoid the charge.

 

This is when it begins applying to private veichles, which let's face it, is inevitable.

[RollingJ]

1 minute ago, Fredderick said:

Doesn’t matter how many times people are presented with facts it seems but never mind, here goes

 

1. its not a congestion zone - it’s meant to be about air quality, not congestion. 
 

2. the council has a legal direction from government to do it, it is not a local choice

 

All that said, this council is utterly spineless. It is totally the wrong thing at the wrong time and will be the final nail in the coffin for many struggling small businesses. I want a local council that stands up for local people and business not just rolls over and does what government tells it. We should take action against the CAZ - it won’t work if all its cameras keep going missing 

 Yes, they have a 'legal duty' to implement', IMO, badly thought out government policy, but they have a moral duty to implement it in an intelligent manner  - of which they seem totally incapable.

 

Congestion Zone/Clean Air Zone/Keep The City Moving Zone - I don't care what you call it, as you say in your final paragraph, the City Council is spineless (and brain dead), but the same individuals, or clones of, keep getting elected, to be advised by the same full-time officials - and they seem determined to see the city slowly die.

[Planner1]

2 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

 Yes, they have a 'legal duty' to implement', IMO, badly thought out government policy, but they have a moral duty to implement it in an intelligent manner  - of which they seem totally incapable.

 

Congestion Zone/Clean Air Zone/Keep The City Moving Zone - I don't care what you call it, as you say in your final paragraph, the City Council is spineless (and brain dead), but the same individuals, or clones of, keep getting elected, to be advised by the same full-time officials - and they seem determined to see the city slowly die.

So how would you have done it differently within the legal framework that the government have imposed?

 

In recent times, the Lib Dems have been in charge a couple of times and currently it’s a Labour / Green coalition in charge. Have you noticed much difference with any of them? Who else do you think is likely to make a better job of it?

[Rockers rule]

So, encourage the great unwashed onto buses.

Charge the Bus company's £50 a throw and Oooop's prices go up accordingly'

Same for delivery vans and love them or hate them Taxis, who's going to swallow the cost ?

Yep Jo Public 

 

Keep safe out there 

[Planner1]

10 minutes ago, Pyrotequila said:

It seems crazy that it applies even if you don't go into the city centre, if you just use the ring road to go from one place to another, you'd still get the charge.

To me that will end up causing more traffic on back roads as people try to avoid the charge.

 

This is when it begins applying to private veichles, which let's face it, is inevitable.

The problem is that a large a large amount of cross city trips use the inner ring road.
 

The council don’t believe they will be able to achieve compliance with the required air quality standards unless the inner ring road is included.

 

I don’t think it is inevitable that private cars will be included. Experience elsewhere suggests the main polluters like taxis, buses and hgv’s will become compliant within a short time of the CAZ going live, so we should be able to see what difference it’s making when results are published.

[RollingJ]

10 minutes ago, Planner1 said:

So how would you have done it differently within the legal framework that the government have imposed?

 

In recent times, the Lib Dems have been in charge a couple of times and currently it’s a Labour / Green coalition in charge. Have you noticed much difference with any of them? Who else do you think is likely to make a better job of it?

Well, for one thing, imposing on the Ring Road - designed and built at great cost to 'keep traffic out of the city centre' smacks of either incompetence or 'another agenda' . As I said above, the whole idea is beginning to look like a badly implemented money-making scam. 'The council doesn't believe...' from you post above - maybe they should wait and see?

 

Doesn't matter whether it is an LD or L/G council, they are still advised by the same officials, and presumably because they 'trust' those officials, their 'recommendations' are accepted.

Edited December 19, 2022 by RollingJ

[Planner1]

5 minutes ago, Rockers rule said:

So, encourage the great unwashed onto buses.

Charge the Bus company's £50 a throw and Oooop's prices go up accordingly'

Same for delivery vans and love them or hate them Taxis, who's going to swallow the cost ?

Yep Jo Public 

 

Keep safe out there 

Nope. All that will happen is that the major operators will place their newer, CAZ compliant buses in Sheffield. 
 

There are ( government funded) grants available to help with the cost of upgrading or converting vehicles, but major fleets are constantly renewing vehicles anyway.

[Planner1]

7 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

Well, for one thing, imposing on the Ring Road - designed and built at great cost to 'keep traffic out of the city centre' smacks of either incompetence or 'another agenda' . As I said above, the whole idea is beginning to look like a badly implemented money-making scam. 'The council doesn't believe...' from you post above - maybe they should wait and see?

 

Doesn't matter whether it is an LD or L/G council, they are still advised by the same officials, and presumably because they 'trust' those officials, their 'recommendations' are accepted.

Do you actually think any of this this through before you write it?

 

Most cities built inner and outer ring roads from the 1960’s onwards. Governments encouraged the building of roads. I remember working on Sheffield Inner Ring Road construction back in the 1970’s. 
 

No one knew back then what problems there would be with nitrogen dioxide emissions etc and all the ills that would come with unrestrained car ownership and use. Building more and bigger roads was seen as the road to prosperity. 
 

Do you seriously think it’s still the same chief executive, directors, senior officers and councillors who were around say 20 years ago? Sure there are the odd ones who’ve been around a while, but many have come and gone. There’s a constant turnover. 

 

All major cities in the UK are wrestling with the same problems. The ways they are dealing with it are very similar. City centres will be restricted for car use ( through routes will be closed, just like they are here) and priority will be given to buses, cycling and walking. It’s the only way they are going to be able to comply with legal requirements on air quality.

 

That is the way the wind is blowing in transport policy. The policy direction and funding comes from central government. You may not like or agree with it, but it isn’t the fault of the officers and councillors here, who I don’t think are any better or worse here than they are elsewhere. Look around, do you see anywhere else doing anything that is really very different?

 

Certainly on the CAZ the choice is limited if your city is not compliant on emissions levels. You get to pick category A, B, C or D zone to implement. What type you need is based on the measured scale of the problem and the modelling that’s done on how the options will address the problem.  It all has to be discussed and agreed with the government ( who fund the work and the implementation of the CAZ).  The results of those would be no different irrespective of which officers commissioned the work or which politicians were in power. 
 

The fact that you don’t like the way things are going doesn’t mean that council officers and members are incompetent. They are just implementing government policy and doing the best possible job they can.

[RollingJ]

And government policy is 'always correct' of course?

 

Slightly off topic, but closely related is a situation I have direct knowledge of.  A few years ago - maybe eight or nine, can't quite remember,  someone did a lead level' survey in my very local - i.e. my little road and the adjacent one and found the level was 'above safe levels', so they would have to rip up 40+ mature gardens and install membrane on 'all exposed areas'.

 

Those of us who had lived in the area for a while - probably about half the affected residents, knew there had been lead mills all the way down the river in the past, so knew there would be lead in the soil.

 

Now comes the interesting bit - directly adjacent to the river, there were the gardens for two of our four cottages - which had been vegetable gardens up to about 20 years previously - and a very large market traders vegetable garden. My grandparents, and others, used to grow their own vegetables in this 'polluted' soil, and never suffered any ill effects - in fact at the time my grandfather died, a lot of the people around were in their 70s/80s and had eaten produce from this 'polluted' soil with zero ill effects.

The membrane - in many areas - was laid at about 5/6" depth and is a b**ger to cut, so nothing can really be planted - even if it would grow in the alien, clay-heavy replacement topsoil.

Great planning, eh? And yes, it may have been Yorkshire Water that carried out the initial survey, but it was SCC in their wisdom that thought something that had been around for about 200 years had suddenly become a 'major health hazard' - if it wasn't so tragic, I would have laughed, but it seriously was a major unneeded exercise I nearly ended up crying.

[Arthur Ritus]

37 minutes ago, Planner1 said:

Do you actually think any of this this through before you write it?

 

Most cities built inner and outer ring roads from the 1960’s onwards. Governments encouraged the building of roads. I remember working on Sheffield Inner Ring Road construction back in the 1970’s. 
 

No one knew back then what problems there would be with nitrogen dioxide emissions etc and all the ills that would come with unrestrained car ownership and use. Building more and bigger roads was seen as the road to prosperity. 
 

Do you seriously think it’s still the same chief executive, directors, senior officers and councillors who were around say 20 years ago? Sure there are the odd ones who’ve been around a while, but many have come and gone. There’s a constant turnover. 

 

All major cities in the UK are wrestling with the same problems. The ways they are dealing with it are very similar. City centres will be restricted for car use ( through routes will be closed, just like they are here) and priority will be given to buses, cycling and walking. It’s the only way they are going to be able to comply with legal requirements on air quality.

 

That is the way the wind is blowing in transport policy. The policy direction and funding comes from central government. You may not like or agree with it, but it isn’t the fault of the officers and councillors here, who I don’t think are any better or worse here than they are elsewhere. Look around, do you see anywhere else doing anything that is really very different?

 

Certainly on the CAZ the choice is limited if your city is not compliant on emissions levels. You get to pick category A, B, C or D zone to implement. What type you need is based on the measured scale of the problem and the modelling that’s done on how the options will address the problem.  It all has to be discussed and agreed with the government ( who fund the work and the implementation of the CAZ).  The results of those would be no different irrespective of which officers commissioned the work or which politicians were in power. 
 

The fact that you don’t like the way things are going doesn’t mean that council officers and members are incompetent. They are just implementing government policy and doing the best possible job they can.

No way man, I don't know if you really believe that rubbish or  just brainled as many in such organisations are,   data manipulated to whatever required . "Encouraging" traffic to use side roads when transversing  the city via the main arterial routes to save money won't help air quality, it will make it worst.
How is a person going to feel, hes come in on the a57 from manchester way, crawled along outside the zone causing pollution he doesn't want to as its costing him in fuel, basically coasts down Netherthope road  causing barely any pollution in the only bit of the zone he's used but has to pay the fine for it, then crawls along stop start Penistone road polluting again because of all the fuel he's wasting.  It wouldn't have been quite as bad if the inclined sections only fined for going up.
The existing ring road is rubbish should have underpasses / overpasses so traffic doesn't have to stop start and crawl in low gears all the time having to heat / light etc the vehicle (kills electric vehicles just as much). I recon it could have easily been done at Broadlane/ university roundabout  when they put the tram under with a shared underpass road for tram and vehicle like they share elsewhere. Back in the day they were able to build an underpasss bellow redgates - admitably wrong place, from the time when traffic was still being took through the centre but right idea.
 

Ok, we should have petitioned our elected councillors more before hand, personally i thought it too daft to actually happen but there you go, before i vote again i will try to find out if the candidate was in favour of this nonsense, no doubt at election time they will all be saying they were against it. We need to find out if we can whether they supported it or not.