A car-free London is within our reach

Repost: This article was originally published in the Guardian on the 19th January 2022.

Sadiq Khan’s pledge to cut traffic by 27% is welcome, but more must be done – not least to protect residents’ health

‘On bad days, the air pollution is almost palpable.’ A blue cycle lane in Tower Hamlets, east London.

Last Friday, everyone living in London was told to avoid strenuous physical activity. An intense area of high pressure meant pollutants were caught in the air, rather than being blown away as usual. The government forecast the highest level of pollution – band 10 – would be reached, with air pollution at its highest recorded level since March 2018. The advice to avoid intense exercise put the onus on the most vulnerable in society – children, elderly people, those living with lung and heart conditions – rather than encouraging drivers to move to more sustainable transport options or limit their journeys. But, as a report published on Tuesday shows, we will not effectively tackle the climate crisis without real traffic reduction.

If London is to be a city that works for everyone – drivers included – it needs to move seriously towards a future with fewer private cars on its streets. That’s why I was so heartened to see the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, acknowledging that traffic needs to go down by at least 27% in the capital to meet our climate targets. While I would argue that we could be more ambitious, Khan’s target is impressive, compared with the 2018 mayoral transport strategy, and marks real progress. Around the world, cities that have reduced cars have become better places to live and work: cleaner, safer, with healthier residents who have the option to move around in different ways, rather than relying on private cars.

London’s new deputy mayor for transport, Seb Dance, recently said that driving will soon be “socially unacceptable”, a “blip” in the history of transport, and I couldn’t agree more. I live in one of the most polluted boroughs in London, Tower Hamlets. And, while it has one of the lowest levels of car ownership in the country, the borough suffers from having three trunk roads – the A11, the A12 and the A13 – running directly through it. Tower Hamlets is one of the most culturally vibrant parts of the country – its rich history of political activism is, quite literally, painted on the walls. Yes, it’s beautiful, with docks and parks and mosques and museums. But on bad days, the air pollution is almost palpable. The impact of transport emissions on the health of residents here, including reduced lung capacity in children, is well documented.

Internationally, these problems are also increasingly coming to be recognised: in 2020, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, won a second term on a campaign platform advocating traffic reduction. Hidalgo proposed transforming Paris into a “15-minute city”, in which most daily tasks can be completed in short journeys on foot or bike, while Berlin is exploring introducing a car-free zone the size of Manhattan. The German capital has already installed 385 miles of dedicated cycleways, and ample public transport options mean the car is no longer immediately the best option. Decision-makers across Europe, and the rest of the world, are finally heeding warnings and witnessing, first-hand, the negative impacts of air pollution: impacts, I should add, that disproportionately fall upon communities of colour and members of low-income households, who tend to live in these areas of poorer air quality. Thankfully, leaders are coming to the same conclusion: the dominance of the car must end.

Smart-pricing measures – which would charge drivers for journeys depending on factors such as distance travelled, time and location – will play a major part in reducing traffic on the streets. Such a system could help Transport for London raise desperately needed funds to maintain and improve the city’s public transport system – while freeing up the city’s roads for essential vehicles, including emergency services, transport for elderly and disabled people, taxis and other workers who need to drive.

The necessity to radically rethink car use in London, and all of our cities, is something we can no longer ignore. London must be bold if it is to match Paris, Berlin and other pioneering cities in the global fight against climate breakdown. Implementing strategies like smart road-user pricing will put London’s city hall squarely in a leadership position in this regard. That’s something that makes me proud to live in London – to be a citizen of a city making genuine waves in its efforts to address the climate crisis and the dominance of car ownership. A city that is willing to ask itself serious questions about what it might look like decades in the future, and that offers innovative ideas for other urban centres around the world.

Hirra Khan Adeogun
Head of Car Free Cities | Possible