It’s another frequently raised fact in comment threads and pub agreements. Everybody knows it’s true. If it wasn’t true, why would everybody know it and repeat it all the time? They can’t all be wrong. You would think though that such a fact, with all of the resources of the […]
“End to the war on the motorists? No, driving’s never cost more,” declares Mark King, Money Editor, in The Observer today. To be fair to King, he doesn’t actually say anything as absurd as that driving has “never cost more” in his article — but newspaper headline writers have never […]
Apparently Steve Coogan is a huge fan of Top Gear. I’m told by many that, whatever you think of the presenters’ contributions to xenophobia and misogyny, you have to admit that the show is funny and entertaining. Continue reading at At War With The Motorist…
Boris Johnson thinks that he can solve all of the barriers to cycling just by splashing some paint on one or two roads. As anybody who does not cycle could tell him, what is needed if we are to achieve mass cycling is infrastructure that is complete, conspicuously safe, enjoyable […]
So much of our understanding of the city — its areas and their relationships and divisions — have been determined by the traditional motorist’s road map. (London is luckier than many cities because its river and tube lines also help define its structure in people’s minds.) Continue reading at At […]
Boris Johnson is “doing an awful lot to try to encourage cycling“. He’s doing Skyrides. Did he mention that he’s doing Skyrides? He is, you know. He’s doing Skyrides. Continue reading at At War With The Motorist…
The Mayor of London is “doing an awful lot to try to encourage people to cycle”: telling us that there is a cycling revolution going on and all he needs us to do is get on out on the lovely London streets to be a part of it. Meanwhile, York […]
This is another archival repost, originally written for the old blog in march 2007. Shockingly, it’s a new article on the blog. Even more shocking: there will be several more following over the next few weeks. “All those people who feel that denial of ID is heresy are missing the […]
“The great highway will never look empty again.” When they opened, the first motorways were the sparsely populated playgrounds of the privileged few — the few who could afford a car. They could drive as fast as they liked and would never meet a jam. But perhaps they could see […]
Central government have decided to roll back their red tape and give power back to the people! In reality, this is power going to the county and borough councilors (who don’t have the budgets needed to do anything productive with their new powers), or in some cases it could amount […]
It was Transport Question Time at City Hall this week: the 25 London Assembly members’ monthly-ish check up on the chair and the commissioner of Transport for London — Boris Johnson and Peter Hendy respectively. If you’re as big a loser as me, you’ll want to watch it here. Alternatively, […]
I stopped off at Ludgate Hill one morning in October, after reading this on Cyclists in the City: …most of the elected politicians [in the square mile] don’t seem to care about cycling or walking. What they do care about is this zebra crossing opposite St Paul’s on Ludgate Hill. […]
Henry Ford is often quoted as saying: If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said “a faster horse”. VAT and fuel duty have just risen, while petrol prices continue to rise as it becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous to source at the same time that global demand […]
On Sunday I took a look at Glasgow, a town I have previously only passed through without stopping. Here’s my commentary: a mix of cameraphone and proper camera photos; some of the commentary comes from the live tweets that accompanied the cameraphone pictures. Continue reading at At War With The […]
The Lake District is generally agreed to be England’s finest national park. Unlike last week’s Scottish Highlands suggestion, though, during spring and summer in the Lakes you won’t be alone in the wilderness: you’ll meet hundreds of others out enjoying the countryside. Which is great, except that most of the […]
I’ve not had a moment to write anything this week. Instead, here are some more videos, from monday morning between 8 and 8:15. Continue reading at At War With The Motorist…
It’s hard to define what you mean when you ask whether something helps — whether it is helpful to do something. What I mean is, whose lives will be better when HS2 is running? That question isn’t really any less ambiguous, is it? What positive effect might HS2 have on […]
I’ve just been scrolling through Google Reader clearing a couple of months worth of posts with videos that got saved-for-later when using a mobile connection. Peter at Pedestrian Liberation asks whether we are winning, citing London Bridge as evidence that maybe we are. Continue reading at At War With The […]
“Pickles and Hammond to end the war on motorists.” The Department for Communities and Local Government put these words in a press release and today 221 national and local newspaper journalists* copypasted them into their newspapers, noticing nothing nonsensical in their conjunction. Great job, The Media. Continue reading at At […]
It’s January and all the magazines are overflowing with supplements trying to sell you Mediterranean cruises and horrible beach holidays 4,000 miles away. AWWTM will therefore overflow with easy-to-organise alternative holidays, giving far greater satisfaction at a fraction of the price. They involve no sweltering traffic jams, no crowded beaches, […]
Way back in July, when the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme launched a couple of months late, we had a little play around with the bikes to get our first thoughts. Just a quick back-and-forth beside the BFI. The bikes were fun and sturdy, just right for their particular job. It […]
I’ve been meaning to write a bit more about the M4 bus lane, and the interesting things it says about psychology, but haven’t had the time, so here’s a rather crude brain dump while I sit in the dark on a bus somewhere on the A9 in the snowy Cairngorms. […]
Last week I posted about tracked hovercraft and straddling buses — a tongue-in-cheek look at how through the ages engineers have proposed ever more overcomplicated engineering solutions in an attempt to manage our out-of-control transport problems. I assumed that my learned readers would get the point without labour. WordPress.com very […]
I’ve been away from London for three weeks now, taking a break from the noise and the taxi drivers. I needed to eliminate distractions to get a couple of work and writing projects completed, so I’m doing an extreme telecommute experiment for the winter, while observing the transport and environment […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog, written in september 2009. I’m putting the wrong key in the lock, confused by lack of interaction with garden gate. It is, after all, an epic journey from W1 to SE21. It starts at Goodge Street tube, a museum piece of […]