Zero-emission bus pledge as Mayor of London enters third term
Newly elected Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has pledged to make all the capital’s buses zero-emission by 2030.
The Mayor made the pledge in a speech marking his appointment to his third term in office following the recent elections.
As part of his commitment to make London the best city in the world to grow up in, he has made a commitment to be ‘at the forefront of climate action’. He said: “We’ve already made significant progress cleaning up our air, with the introduction of the world’s largest clean air zone.” He went on to say that as part of this, the city will be delivering a 100% zero-emission bus fleet by 2030.
Media outlets were quick to point out that this could see the New Routemaster fazed out of service in the capital. It has been reported that the preferred method of making the city’s bus fleet 100% zero-emission would involve new vehicles rather than upgrading diesel buses.
The pledge to shift buses over to zero-emission by 2030 steps forward last year’s plan to make the switch by 2034.
Other pledges made by the Mayor include keeping TfL fares frozen until at least 2025 and never introducing a pay-per-mile road charging scheme in London.
So a fares freeze – a revenue reduction in real terms, an on-going reduction in passenger numbers and what would seem to be a huge investment in new vehicles. I wonder how the deficit will be made up? Will Mr Khan resort to his last tactic of threatening the Government with withdrawing high profile services unless they bail him out?