major funding to encourage taxi owners to upgrade to low emission vehicles such as electric black cabs. Taxi owners who are upgrading their vehicles will be able to make use of the fund to upgrade to the cleanest vehicles available. The Mayor has pledged to work with taxi manufacturers to develop an affordable zero emission taxi by 2020.
Whilst our modelling suggests we are on track to meet European legal limits for PM10, intensive measures are being introduced in the handful of places in central London where we are most at risk of breaching these limits. We have been awarded £5 million from the Government to establish a Clean Air Fund, which we are using to fund a package of local measures. These include using dust suppressant techniques on the most polluted roads. This is a solution of Calcium Magnesium Acetate which makes particulates stick to the carriageway rather than re-circulating them in the air. Early results show it is reducing emissions by 20 per cent in some locations. We will also install green screens, which are walls of green vegetation which act as a barrier between the road and footpath absorbing pollutants and the Mayor wants to tackle unnecessary idling - vehicles which leave their engines running using up fuel unnecessarily and increasing emissions. Marshalls will work at main taxi ranks with cabbies to cut the number of vehicles left running and we will work with the bus and coach industry to get this crucial message across.
PROVIDING LONDONERS WITH GREENER CHOICES A cycling revolution is well underway in London with unprecedented investment meaning more and more people are switching over to this cleaner way of travelling. We have invested in the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme which has seen 5.2 million cycle journeys in under a year since it launched, with 20,000 cycle journeys on the scheme on an average weekday and 125,000 members. We are delivering new safe cycle routes and facilities. We are planning 12 Barclays Cycle Superhighways, clearly signed bike lanes providing easy routes from outer London into the city centre. Two of these are already up and running, with two more opening this summer.
Electric driving is set to increase – manufacturers are investing hundreds of millions into electric vehicles, and by 2020, we can expect a large proportion of cars to be electric. For example, Ford predicts one in four of their car sales could be battery powered electric. London already has more electric drivers than anywhere in the UK and we want to make London the electric car capital of Europe. To capitalise on their environmental benefits, the Mayor wants to see 100,000 electric vehicles as soon as possible.
In May the Mayor launched the first city-wide electric charging point network and membership scheme, Source London. By 2013 this network will total 1300 charging points, more than the number of petrol stations currently
in London. A new policy in the draft London Plan, the Mayor's spatial planning strategy, has placed a condition that 20 per cent of parking in new developments should be equipped with charge points - this could yield over 7,000 charge point spaces per year. The Mayor has also granted electric vehicles (along with other low emission vehicles) a 100 per cent discount for the London congestion charge.
Electric vehicles suit Londoners way of life and are cost effective; using an electric vehicle brings a cost saving of around £3500 per annum. Because of the capital's good public transport network and most things being on people's doorstep Londoners do not drive far. In fact, 90 per cent of all car trips are less than six miles, totally within the range of the current crop of electric cars.
GREENING LONDON Greening our city not only makes it more attractive to live in but has a role to play in absorbing pollution. London’s leafy suburbs and green spaces are the lungs of the capital. They help breathe life into our communities, protect the environment and speak to our national yearning for the countryside.
At a local level, trees and vegetation can reduce concentrations of PM10 by 20 per cent and leaves and branches act as a filter to trap toxic particles. A tree- lined street has only 10-15 per cent of the dust of a street without.
We have planted over 9500 of the promised 10,000 street trees in the last three years. The Mayor also wants to increase tree canopy in the capital from 20 per cent to 25 per cent by 2025 which is the equivalent to approximately two million extra trees. We have redoubled our tree planting efforts with the launch of the capital's RE:LEAF programme, working with major tree and environmental organisations to boost volunteer planting.
All this activity means we are successfully cutting the capital's dangerous emissions. This is testified by the European Commission's recent decision to grant the UK an extension to comply with PM10 limits, a clear sign of confidence in the hard work of the Mayor to tackle the legacy of poor air quality he inherited.
We have put and will continue to put in place innovative measures to improve air quality, all part of the Mayor’s vision of putting the “village” back into our great capital city. This is about a better quality of life, improving the look and feel of our city and fundamentally cleaning the air. I believe we have put in place a robust set of measures to help us achieve what the Mayor and every Londoner wants to see, which is a cleaner, greener, leafier city for Londoners both now and for generations to come.
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