> Easier to start with one big zone over the whole city, and keep making the requirements stricter automatically.

Good luck getting your average person to not only understand this but being able to actually do the calculations. And it'll be impossible to enforce efficiently.

The expansion is part of the official road map. Next year the first zone will be put in practice (stage one), and part of the second half next year the expanded zone is set to be drafted and a new date set for the deployment of stage 2. It is planned that stage 2 should be deployed no later than 2026.

But that's hard to get political traction for.

The whole city already has a congestion tax with cameras reading number plates, and of course a variable congestion fee with much higher fees at rush hours.

The simplest way forward I think would be to just double the fees for ICE cars, and cutting them for EV's. It would be a software only solution, so cheap-ish. It would only be possible to do for the whole inner city though. Can't do it for half the city.

Loads of towns in the UK have pedestrianised streets going back to the 80s, it's totally doable, and we're pretty car centric.