Christian Wolmar

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 yesterday reported that retailers had reported a two per cent decrease in sales during the ...

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 interest in developing the railways or greener methods of transport, and was only keen to ...

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 railways. There is always something of a lag, but ...

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 various all London bodies such as Transport for London and its predecessors to agree on ...

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 panic but it is not, as opponents have claimed, an attempt to blackmail the electorate ...

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 seen since the Romans, the idea was that transport had to be ...