Things that don’t mean optional
Earlier last week (before the story about the multiple rapist John Worboys being released from prison) the news was dominated by two stories, one about health and one about transport. The first was that...
Category: Transport
HS2: worst of all possible worlds
The juggernaut of HS2, the new high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham and, we are told, eventually beyond, ploughs on. Today the government awarded the contracts to various major construction companies to build...
On Corbyn, trains and renationalisation
Earlier today I heard Owen Jones, the Labour-supporting Guardian columnist and author of Chavs and The Establishment, on Radio 4’s Today programme defending Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to “re-nationalise” the railways if he became prime...
The electronics ban: malice or stupidity? Protectionism or security?
Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that ‘large’ electronic items such as tablets and laptops were to be banned from US-bound flights on some airlines, all based in the Arab world or Turkey, from airports...
Time for a rethink on third rail?
Last Thursday a major (for this country) storm brought strong winds and rain, bringing down trees and power cables across coastal areas and central and eastern England and Scotland. Virtually all the major railway...
How to make sure wheelchair users can ride the bus
‘Wheelchair v buggy’: Disabled man wins Supreme Court case — BBC News Today the Supreme Court gave its ruling on whether FirstBus, a major provider of bus services throughout the UK, discriminated against a...
Heathrow: No free ride for Zac Goldsmith
Today the government announced its preferred option for airport expansion in the south-east of England, and as had been expected, that was a third runway at Heathrow in west London. The other main option...
Jeremy Corbyn, ‘Islamists’ and women-only carriages
Earlier this week Jeremy Corbyn (right) gave his support to considering reintroducing women-only carriages on trains, which were found in the UK until the 1970s and still in a number of other countries, particularly...
Time to bring the air industry down to earth
Yesterday a story started circulating on social media in which an American female Muslim chaplain named Tahera Ahmad, who was travelling on a United Airlines flight (run by a partner, Shuttle America), asked for...
High Speed 2: London to Nottingham, the long way round
Earlier this week it was announced that the route for the proposed high-speed rail line from London to Manchester and Leeds, known as High Speed 2, had been released. The line is already projected...
Final Overground section opens; BBC mourns ‘loss’
Tomrrow (Sunday) the last section of the London ‘Overground’ (a mostly overground but partly underground group of railway services which run mostly just outside central London) is opening; this is a line from Clapham...
On free transport passes and invisible disabilities
Epileptic Jess McGee, 19 Ordered Off Bus After Driver Calls Her Illness A ‘Pisstake’ The other day my new Asperger’s job consultant in Kingston asked me if I had a Freedom Pass (a free...
HS2 will destroy beauty, not deliver it
Where are the new airports and railways we so desperately need? | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer This article by Will Hutton appeared in today’s Observer, arguing in favour of...
Crossrail
Earlier today I went to an exhibition for Crossrail, the project to build a railway line under London from east to west, to match the existing north-south route. The project was begun in 1989...
Yes, the law DOES apply to middle-class White people
This past week or so, there have been two major news stories in the UK about men arrested for saying things on the Internet that made a strong suggestion of violence that may not...
The X26 and why it sucks
The X26 is the bus I’ve been commuting to work on most of this week. It has one main benefit, which is that it runs directly from New Malden, where I live, to Croydon,...
Wheelchair access at Green Park is money well spent
There is an article in the current issue of The Spectator by Andrew Gilligan, attacking a project to make Green Park station, an important London Underground interchange, wheelchair accessible or, in London Transport jargon,...
Greyhounds to run in southern England
American Greyhound buses to ply UK roads from Portsmouth to London | UK news | guardian.co.uk (also here) This shouldn’t really be any surprise since the First group operates bus services around the UK...
Elephant in the carriage
Yesterday, the government decided to withdraw the franchise of National Express, a coach operator, for running long-distance trains on the East Coast Main Line, which despite its name, runs from London to the north-east,...
Test running the new Javelin
Recently while in London, I’ve seen adverts for the new high-speed commuter trains to go from London to Kent, which run along the new Channel Tunnel link. That line runs out of St Pancras,...