There are some deep politics here.
It's an inevitable consequence of the pandemic that TfL's farebox income has fallen off a cliff. They need national government subvention to prevent them becoming insolvent.
What conditions did national government impose for providing that subvention?
Was extending the ULEZ to the A405/A205 so as to add the consequential fees/fines a condition?
If those fees/fines are less than expected and TfL are once again in deficit where does the fault li?
Khan wanted to do this anyway, thus the government insisting on it as a condition of TfL getting more government (national taxpayer) money to keep it going during the Pandemic is rather moot.
The main issue for TfL's loss of revenue was due to politicians of all hues buying into the fallacy of telling everyone to work from home/furlough during the pandemic. If everyone retruned to their offices, then I suspect the loss of revenue due to the extension of the ULEZ would be minimal, given, some would be made up by fares and less local spending on polution-related health services.
What doesn't help either is that London doesn't have proper 'park and ride' car parking for people who live within 20 miles or so of the zone to use train/tube stations instead of their car (buses are rarely a viable alternative, mainly because those doing so are normally going shopping and need the storage space, which buses down have, plus they are slow [often taking convoluted routes]).
Bear in mind also that Khan just gave many of his top grade managers huge bonuses. Not exacly the actions of someone desperate for cash.
Edited by Engineer Andy on 19/11/2021 at 13:53
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