I'm writing this, probably my only post of today, from a perishing cold M4 service station. Even the Christmas tree is shivering. My only company is the juvenile patter of some piped-in DJ or other. Time for a travel update, pop pickers? All-righty! First, a paragraph from my latest for Comment is Free. It's all about walking:
I'm not a car-hater: I've no idea how the things work, but I enjoy driving mine outside of town. Yet I think we lose perspective on quite how they, and vans and lorries, dominate urban terrain. The planning history of any town or city tells a tale of obliging municipal accommodation of their rise and rise, with thoroughfares widened, parking provision made and everything else expected to give way. There are all sorts of good reasons, social and economic, why that's been so. But the motoring lobby's howls against any attempt to control the downside of the car's success demonstrates how decades of having things your own way can foster presumptuousness. Meanwhile, the urban walker stands at the zebra crossing dependent on the motorist's goodwill – and even that, if my own experience is anything to go by, seems to be in decreasing supply.
Mmm, nice! And now, a toe-tapper from the FT's transport correspondent Robert Wright:
London's mayor has told the company upgrading the Jubilee Line that confusion over the project's completion date is "unacceptable", amid signs that delays to the project could threaten a planned upgrade of the Northern Line.
Yeah! Read on! And, to close the show, a link to the agenda of tomorrow morning's meeting of the London Assembly's transport committee. On the agenda: Crossrail, Boris's transport strategy and the sheer crush of going Underground. That brings this groove-thang breakfast show to an end. Stay bright!
