Clean Break :: CO2-based parking permits approved

This Blog is maintained by Tyler Hamilton, an energy reporter and business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. Tyler writes a weekly column in the Star called "Clean Break," which focuses on emerging trends, technologies and investment opportunities in the cleantech space. This site is a personal endeavour that aims to complement that column, offering a space for anyone to express views and report on developments related to the area. Tyler's other areas of interest include consumer privacy and wireless technologies. He co-authored The Privacy Payoff with Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's privacy commissioner.

This site uses the Blogware platform from Toronto-based Tucows Inc., which kindly offered free use of the software for demonstration purposes. Please note that this blog is a personal project that operates independently of the Toronto Star.

Main Page

Previous:	Water: A glimpse of the future?
Next:	Clean company alert: Climate Energy

CO2-based parking permits approved

by Tyler on Tue 30 Jan 2007 04:19 PM EST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

Richmond, a borough in southwest London, has approved a parking-permit pricing scheme based on the carbon-emissions profile of the vehicle being parked. "The new plan would cut charges for owners of compact cars and raise them for drivers of larger vehicles," according to a report from Bloomberg News. "London Mayor Ken Livingstone is considering a similar pay scale for the city's traffic-congestion charge zone."

Hey Toronto, what about testing this out here????

I first wrote about this back in October, when Richmond council was first considering the new sliding-scale parking fee. It's nice to see that they followed through.

Posted to:

Main Page

Comments

Post a comment

Re: CO2-based parking permits approved

by Tom Konrad on Tue 30 Jan 2007 05:05 PM EST | Permanent Link

A great step. The other big regulatory innovation I'd like to see tried is a switch to pay-per-mile vehicle registration and pricing (I great idea I heard recently from Todd Littman at the Victoria Tranport Policy Institute.

It's even better than that:

by Anonymous on Tue 30 Jan 2007 09:08 PM EST | Permanent Link

Many of the other London boroughs are considering doing the same. And Manchester is considering a Congestion Zone on the London model. There's a real domino effect going on with eco-measures.

What's best about the Richmond plan is that (unlike the congestion charge) it's being justified on purely carbon-emmissions terms. A first carbon tax?

However, as critics point out, it doesn't catch people with driveways. Some are considering paving their front yards to avoid the tax. Apparently, when you're already paying thousands extra for your car and fuel, a couple of hundred extra for parking is intolerable.

It remains to be seen whether people's paving their front yards will make the tax more unpopular, or the people themselves.

Re: It's even better than that:

by Jp Warren on Wed 31 Jan 2007 10:19 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

And how such paving will increase the city's difficulty in achieving it's wet weather flow management plan objectives. Policies unintentionally negatively interacting. The smoke-free workplace laws creating heated patios in winter.

Re: CO2-based parking permits approved

by Scatter on Wed 31 Jan 2007 05:08 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

It's very good news and should be a very strong driver in people's choice of new car.

The London congestion charge is moving towards a CO2-based fee with a proposal for the most polluting cars paying £25 a day, the least polluting paying nothing and the ones in between paying £8. More info here: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/11/mayor_of_london.html

Post comment:

Format Type:
	Convert newlines
	Receive comment notifications for this article
Subject:

Comment:

Comment verification:

Please enter the text you see inside the graphic to post your comment:

You are not currently logged in. If you would like your user information to be displayed with your comment, please enter your login information below.