Emission Based Parking Charges BY PETER GUEST


impact on the planet and use less pol- luting and more sustainable resources. Unfortunately in most cases this rhetoric is just that; long onwordswith no actions or actions that are so limp wristed that they are unlikely to be much more than a minor irritant to drivers with gas guzzlers. For example in the UK annual vehicle tax bands depend on the output level of pollution but for the worst polluters the charge is little more than a pound a day extra compared with a small family saloon.


T Forgive me but I do not think that someone who a) has and


b) is thinking about investing a six figure sumin a so called super car is going to really think again because hor- ror-shock it will cost a £1 a day more to run than aToyota Prius. In 2007 the London


HERE IS A LOT OF TALK about the use of cars and pollu- tion andmany stirring state- ments about how we must


reduce our


most polluting vehicles paid £450 a year for the same privilege. Now historically any attempt to raise residents’ (aka voter)


Borough of Richmond took the first steps in applying the same logic to how it charged its res- idents to park in the street. A new scheme was introduced which set the charge for a resi- dent’s parking permit according to the government’s banding for annual road tax. Thus a super “clean” car which produced less than 100 gmofCO2 per kmcould have a free permitwhereas the


Someonewho is thinking about investing a six figure sumin a so called super car is not going to think again because itwill cost a £1 a day more to run than a Toyota Prius.


parking charges to even a cost recovery level was political sui- cide but surprisingly this initiative has survived and three years on seems to be generally accepted by Richmond’s environmentally aware electorate.There is how- ever no figures pub- lished which would sug- gest that the average car owned by the good citi- zens of Richmond has become less polluting as a result of this initiative. Richmond has now


gone one better and introduced a “Richmond


Card” to pay for all parking both on and off street.TheRichmond Card is a smart card which stores information about the owner’s vehicle registration and its government emission band and when


14


JUNE 2010 • PARKING WORLD • www.parkingworld.com


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