Christian Wolmar

We hear little of some of the buzzwords of Labour’s early period in government such as integrated transport and ‘joined up thinking’ That is perhaps because there is a total lack of either in many areas of government policy, notably transport. In my capacity as a cyclist and board member of Cycling England, and its various predecessor bodies, I have been struggling for much of the past decade to ...

After three years of the congestion charge, it is difficult to remember the enormous fuss that attended its introduction. There were predictions of chaos, talk of mass non-payment campaigns and suggestions that the whole economy of central London would be wrecked. But none of that has happened. Instead, the charge is so well entrenched that there was remarkably little dissent when Ken Livingstone cheekily hiked it to £8 last year. We ...

Brushing aside a Parliamentary put-down by Alistair Darling, CHRISTIAN WOLMAR insists that the proposed new closure procedures will be a powerful weapon for those who want to cut rail spending. Oh dear, oh dear. I’ve made people cross again, and this time it’s not just the editor of this esteemed magazine. None ot her t han Alistair Darling mentioned me in Parliament, but did not even venture to use my name, ...

Business models follow fashions as much as those on the catwalk. The prevailing business model adopted over the past two decades in transport, as in many other fields ranging from hospital cleaning to local authority leisure centres, is based on the notion of outsourcing as many functions as possible. The principal driver behind this idea is the assumption that the private sector is more efficient at providing services than public ...

Review of Not a Normal Country: Italy after Berlusconi by Geoff Andrews Pluto Press Never did a book have a more apt title. On the face of it, Italy is quite normal. Every time I visit, I am always impressed at how things seem to work well. The town centres are clean and the autostrade are engineering marvels, the trains are cheap and certainly more punctual than ...

Unlike his boss Tony Blair, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling seems determined to bequeath no legacy, argues CHRISTIAN WOLMAR - and tramway schemes are being axed as a result. The most disappointing thing about our deliberately dull Transport Secretary is that he has no ambition to leave any kind of legacy. In particular, what is it about trams that Alistair Darling hates so much? Most people go into politics to do things, make ...