In the 1960s, people were convinced that there was a huge and growing problem with transport. The then Ministry of Transport commissioned engineers and economists to look at those problems and suggest solutions. The Beeching Report recommended closing all except the very core main lines of the railway network. The […]
I bought a second hand copy of Traffic In Towns, the 1963 Buchanan Report to the Minister of Transport on the future of urban mobility and development. It’s fabulous sci-fi full of depictions of the future of British cities, except that it was never intended as sci-fi but as a […]
That’s the most common question asked by people who responded to the GLA survey of London cyclists. Looking into the raw data I find out just how little the cycle superhighways have achieved, and the one thing that London cyclists say over and over again makes them such a joke: […]
Way back at the start of October we mentioned that the London Authority’s transport committee were seeking your views on the hire bikes and the two trial cycle superhighways. The results are in, and we must have had a massive influence because the results seem to match what we were […]
Most road “accidents” may be accidental in the sense that they are unintended. But few, if any, can be considered accidental in the sense that nobody was to blame. In road accidents, somebody did something wrong, and it’s almost always a driver doing some wrong. It’s bad driving that causes […]
Despite being fully up to date with the latest city driving rules, the Serco/Barclays hire bike relocaters are worrying the Evening Standard today: Cyclist David Ellis, who was knocked over by a trailer used to transport the Mayor’s hire bikes between docking stations, today branded the vehicles “ludicrous”. Continue reading […]
Prominently reported in the Camden Cycling Plan update: The latest update from Spring and Autumn 2008 shows a positive growth in cycling. Between 2007 and 2008 there has been an increase in numbers cycling by 44.6% and the estimated modal share for cycle use is 11.19%. An impressive achievement that […]
The M4 bus lane was a fascinating thing. Introduced in 1999 by John Prescott, ostensibly as a “green” policy to allow buses to pass the traffic jams into London, it became the icon of the so-called “war on the motorist”. At At War With The Motorist I explain why, despite […]
Epidemiologists at a London medical research institute have looked at the police records of fatal accidents involving cyclists on London’s roads between the late nineties and mid noughties, and notes some interesting trends in where they occur and who is involved in them. At At War With The Motorist I […]
Over at At War With The Motorist, I take a skeptical look at the Mayor’s latest brilliant idea for solving London’s car problem: charging utilities companies by the hour for road words. You can read it here.
In April 2008, the science writer Simon Singh wrote in The Guardian that chiropractors “happily promote bogus treatments”. Singh was outlining the serious concerns he had about practitioners of unproven alternative medicines encouraging people with serious diseases to pay for expensive consultations and therapies with poor evidence basis, rather than […]
So I mentioned that Carlton Reid and I both like the idea of mass bicycle use, and that we agree that high volumes of fast moving motor vehicles are a barrier to it. But while I have drawn the conclusion that high-quality conspicuously safe dedicated cycling infrastructure is a pressing […]
The bicycle blogosphere has been buzzing about bike paths lately. It’s an old argument in the UK, where nine out of ten bike paths are so badly designed that bicycle users conclude that they would always be better off on the road. Many have taken to actively campaigning against them, […]
The media and the road/car lobby have together created an entity the motorist. Apparently they all think that they should be able to park wherever they like and drive at whatever speed they consider to be appropriate, and that anybody who says otherwise is waging war on them. At At […]
I rode a bike before that. It was just a convenient way to make the short journeys I needed to make. Initially to the university in Bristol, where helmets didn’t really seem to be the style. Then around the sidestreets and sidewalks to the lab when I worked in Cincinnati. […]
(This is another archival repost, written for the old blog in 2009.) If you’ll excuse my tabloid headline writer… A year ago, I wrote Lies, damn lies, and tissue culture, describing some of the reasons why caution and healthy skepticism are required when assessing the conclusions of tissue culture studies. […]
At War With The Motorist‘s tongue-in-cheek name and sarcastic attitude is usually to make fun of people who misuse and overuse the private car. But at least as big a problem with our transport and built environment is the misuse and overuse of freight and delivery vehicles, especially in London […]
In last week’s the week before the week before last’s post, if you build it they will come, I described why we should expect that building proper cycle superhighways — fast, capacious, direct and sensible routes that are segregated from high volumes of fast moving motor vehicles — should unleash […]
The awesome Science Is Vital campaign organisers kindly asked me to accompany them to Downing Street to capture the delivery of their petition of 35,000 opponents of science cuts. Over at cotch dot net, I have a short photo essay on how to deliver a petition.
With everything that has been happening, I’ve neglected to mention the Thames Barrier to Teddington exhibition at the gallery in Foyles bookshop at the top end of Charing Cross Road, or indeed even been to look myself. I usually ignore calls for entries in photography competitions, since 99.9% of them […]
I love the Durham Township photoblog — all the fabulous atmospheric shallow-focus photos of rural Pensylvania. Especially the ones of the traditional county fairs and farm shows. The kids with candyfloss, prize livestock on display, and old fashioned family entertainment. Continue reading at cotch dot net…
This is another archival repost originally written for the old blog in april 2008. I listened to a sermon[1] by Ken Ham, creationist head of Answers in Genesis, the other day. I was erm … researching a role? Anyway, it was great fun. My knowledge of church services is limited […]
On saturday, a couple of thousand nerds gathered outside the treasury to be noisy, and to argue the case that science is vital. The scientists are getting their contribution in early ahead of the “comprehensive spending review” that is to be announced this month. Having been accused by their secretary […]
The “I Pay Road Tax” campaign has done an excellent job of reaching out to cyclists. Every cyclist now knows that “road tax” was abolished in the 1930s, that what motorists pay is “vehicle excise duty”, and that VED goes to the treasury and not directly to the highways agencies. […]
On the London Cyclist thread “is there anything super about the Cycle Superhighways?,” we hear Chinese whispers on the reason why TfL decided against making real superhighways and instead came up with the overpriced and failed PR exercise that are the blue lines on the side of the road: “TfL […]