Two disastrous transport projects
This week the Labour government announced that it supported the plan to expand Heathrow airport with a third runway as well as to build the East Thames crossing, an additional road tunnel (or two)...
Category: Transport
Post-Covid transport policy and ‘Eco-Ableism’
Today I read a news report about a disabled woman in Brighton who has been left trapped in her home since January by a road closure the city council has imposed on her street...
What use is Manston? A geography lesson for corporate ‘local’ media
Anyone who uses Facebook will have noticed a pattern recently: that their news feed has less of their friends’ posts and more adverts and clickbait from various ‘news’ sites. The clickbait is often poorly...
Why are there conspiracy theories around traffic reduction schemes?
A couple of weeks ago the Canadian philosophy professor Jordan Peterson claimed on Twitter that a traffic reduction scheme in Oxford amounts to a scheme by which “idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat...
An unfortunately necessary upgrade
Last week, the government announced that a proposed upgrade to the M3 motorway’s junction with the A34 outside Winchester, a cause of major delays going back years, had been accepted for consideration by the...
Relaxing drivers’ hours is a bad idea
Last week the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, announced that the government were going to be temporarily relaxing the maximum daily driving hours for truck drivers in the UK by an hour. Normally the daily...
Sadiq Khan’s new doughnut stragegy
Today I learned that Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London who has had his term extended for an extra year because of the pandemic and who is standing for another four-year term, plans a...
Reasons reasons: why the Tube never reached Croydon
This morning I watched a video on YouTube about a plan to build an Underground line that would link King’s Cross and Victoria stations, major London rail terminals serving the north-east and south respectively...
Not expensive
Yesterday a report into the death of a partially-sighted man, Cleveland Gervais, who was hit and killed by a train at Eden Park station in south-east London last February was published by the Rail...
Newark: a pointless road scheme
On Thursday the Guardian reported that the government had ignored official advice to review a massive road-building programme on environmental grounds; taking such advice has been a legal requirement since 2014. This revelation forms...
There’s already a Queen Elizabeth II Bridge
In today’s Guardian there’s a news story that there is a dispute between local politicians in Gloucestershire and South Wales about a plan to rename the old Severn Bridge. The Welsh want it renamed...
Expanded congestion charge is just an unjust tax
It’s been reported over the last week or so that, in exchange for a government bail-out of Transport for London, the London public and road transport body overseen by the mayor, that the government...
London driving and the heatwave
So, the heatwave in the UK has finally ended after six days of temperatures in the mid-30s (Celsius) every day. Yesterday or the day before, much of the south has had at least one...
Review: Britain’s Killer Motorways
This week’s BBC Panorama (available until January 2021) was about a recent report into the smart motorway system, which has been revealed to be what many of us who have to use them regularly...
20mph speed limits: a dishonest ‘consultation’
Last August I wrote on here about the new 20mph zone that has been imposed by Richmond borough council (in London) across the whole borough, with a few main roads exempted. Since then a...
Disaster waiting to happen
Yesterday a car and a truck collided on a road I’ve travelled along a lot while doing air freight work around Heathrow airport, namely the Bedfont Road south of the Longford and Duke of...
Stonehenge by-pass is vital
As a truck driver I have regularly had to use the A303 which goes past Stonehenge, the prehistoric stone-circle monument in Wiltshire. In today’s Observer there is a piece by Tom Holland which claims...
Yes, we need our hands-free phones.
Last week it was reported that the UK Parliament’s transport select committee (a committee of MPs drawn proportionally from each party with seats in the Commons) had recommended that consideration be given to the...
Reality check for BBC’s Brexit reality check
Yesterday the BBC News website published a “reality check” feature on what might happen at Britain’s sea ports in the event of a no-deal Brexit this coming October (or any other time), which the...
Mind the gaps (not just the gender gap)
Earlier today someone flagged up an event taking place next Monday by which female travellers on the Berlin public transport system will pay 21% less than men (€5.50 rather than the usual €7.00) to...