In case they are any use to anybody else responding to TfL’s Stockwell Cross consultation: some hastily bashed out and poorly edited down thoughts I gave them. There are lots and lots of problems you could pull out of the details — positioning of lanes on bends, dangerous lane merges, up […]
In 2000, London’s previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, began the process of fixing forty years of mistakes that had been made in the pursuit of the impossible — the comfortable accommodation of mass motor vehicle use in a dense city centre. He recognised that cities are supposed to be places for […]
In a post about designing ever increasing amounts of truck and van dependence into business models, I mentioned that an “Edgar’s Cool Water” had followed me on twitter and had justified their business with the argument that some people in London and the South East need water deliveries because their […]
After the Conservative group of the London Assembly walked out on the first attempt to discuss Jenny Jones’s Blackfriars Bridge motion, the members redeemed themselves somewhat by voting unanimously — all parties, all members — against making Blackfriars Bridge and the Blackfriars Station road junction even worse for cyclists and […]
This is the view from my office kitchen back when I had that real job (before I gave it all up to do this instead). The sun is rising over the city, with the Docklands towers just visible, pale in the distance between the Barbican towers. The street in the […]
It is wrong to think in terms of “private” versus “public” transport. That is important only to the bureaucrats who have to manage transport problems and fund transport solutions. What matters is social versus anti-social transport. Originally posted at At War With The Motorist.
Paul says: The post is implies, that there is a huge latent demand for cycling in the UK, which will translate into actual cycling if the infrastructure is provided. The truth is that many adults in the UK prefer to drive a car, live in a low-density suburb, and at […]
I take everything back. I was wrong. I realise now that in a place like Stamford Street, Southwark, the car offers outstanding convenience and time savings that will make my life better. Now I just need to know whether to buy the Renault, which promises to save me “secs” (a […]
On the urban motorway that is Whitechapel. Whitechapel should be the quintessential neighbourhood High Street: it has the tube station, the bus stops, the shops and pubs and library — sorry, “Idea Store” — and the street market that these vans supply. As Andy Cameron would put it, Whitechapel has […]
On Saturday I wrote about the leaked draft of the Tories’ coalition’s draft new planning policy document: LAs are told to take into account existing local car ownership rates when doing this. Fair enough, but why aren’t they also told to take into account the elasticity of modal share in […]
This was during the first of the student protests last year, when Conservative Party HQ was smashed up for the cameras. It was long over by this time, but there was still a large backlog of arrests being processed in the background and obviously it was still the top story […]
Brian Haw had a few weird ideas amongst the good ones in his head — in that he was not unusual. But the weird ones do not mean that we don’t all owe him thanks for the good ideas and the way he acted on them. For ten years he […]
While working on my photography stuff, it occurred to me to add a new recurring feature here… A cloud of single occupant vehicles. This is London’s Silk Road — Theobald’s Road for the West End on the right, heading into Clerkenwell Road for the East End on the left, […]
The sky lightening, I head for a bridge with a scene that would suit a subtle sunrise photograph, as Big Ben rang for four fifteen. Bored policemen loiter beside their van, parked in the Westminster Bridge bike lane. Tired taxi drivers inch across advance stop lines and cautiously through red […]
According to SCIENTISTS, “pollution is not improved by c-charge.” (“Improved”? These scientists are so sloppy with their language.) Journalists all over the city are this week reporting that the congestion charge has not reduced air pollution problems in central London, and that’s a fact, proven by science. (As far as […]
Inspired and motivated by the Cyclists in the City blog, cyclists and bicycle and pedestrian friendly local politicians have been fighting a road redesign in London. There is nothing unusual about the road design — it is much like the road designs that we have been given for decades, which […]
I was sitting in a cafe on a major central London road eating breakfast and watching the morning rush go past. The sheer quantity of dangerous and law breaking motorists driving through the central zone inspired a blog post on “business models”, and the force behind bad driving. You can […]
We don’t have to accommodate private motor vehicles in places like central London. The world wouldn’t implode if we did not; the economy wouldn’t collapse. We don’t have to accommodate any specific number of private motor vehicles in central London. We could choose to accommodate twice the number that we […]
Apologies for the extremely strained pun. In his election manifesto, Boris Johnson promised to treat all cars in central London equally: no extra congestion charge for Chelsea tractors, and no exemptions for little low-emission cars. I explore why Boris thought that was a good policy, and why he has since […]
Continuing the exploration of the history of Motorism in the UK, a video (not mine) and commentary (mine) maps the London Ringways plan, and tried to explain what was wrong with it and why Londoners didn’t want it. You can view/read it at At War With The Motorist…
This evening, Tom from BorisWatch will review London’s transport policies over the years since the city got its elected leadership back in 2000. It’s at The Yorkshire Grey on Theobalds Road / Grays Inn Road (doors open 6pm, talk sometime around 7ish). Hopefully I’ll see some of you there. So […]
A young smartly dressed woman gets on, concentrating on her phone call. The bus pulls out before she has time to mount the stairs, and the motion throws her to the side, her bag swinging and bashing the passenger behind her. Fifty. Nine. To. Streatham Hill. She climbs slowly, letting […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]