Boris Johnson is scrapping the congestion charge in the western zone despite clearly having doubts over the policy after his election victory. He is bowing to the pressure from his cheer leaders in the Tory party and the Evening Standard, despite the thinness of the evidence suggesting that the charge was doing any harm.
The Standard [...]
Archive of November, 2008
Nov
28
Boris is a Tory!
It was perhaps inevitable, but the way that Alistair Darling has completely ignored the opportunity to produce a pre budget report with any significant environmental measures is shocking. In particular, his allocation of an immediate £700m to spend on roads confirms what we knew about him when he was transport secretary: that he had no [...]
It is a bit early in the year for Mystic Wolmar predictions but the railways are going to face a triple whammy in January which will set the tone for what will be their most difficult year since privatisation.
First, obviously, there is the credit crunch. Recessions always hit both leisure and commuter traffic on the [...]
Nov
21
Oxford Street is doomed
Having dropped into the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush out of curiousity rather than a desire to buy anything, it soon became clear that Oxford Street is doomed, and all because of transport policies. Britain’s premier shopping street is a ghastly hassly mess because of the failure of the retailers, Westminster Council, and the [...]
Ministers are clearly worried that people in Greater Manchester are going to reject the proposal to have congestion charging in exchange for a massive investment programme. Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary, set out clearly in The Times today that a no vote will cut off all the proposed funding. That is clearly a sign of [...]
It is ten years since the relatively new Labour government issued a remarkably sensible document entitled A new deal for transport which was supposed to bring in a different approach to transport policy. Rather than the old ‘predict and provide’ model favoured by the Tories, which had resulted in the biggest road building programme [...]