Christian Wolmar

The business plan for Transport for London due to be approved tomorrow is a brilliant piece of magic. It manages to combine £7.6bn worth of savings together with what it says is the greatest programme of investment in 80 years. Bits of this are true - there is a great amount of investment coming through, with Crossrail, the Tube upgrades and bits of nonsense,  some enjoyable, like the cable car ...

Transport for London has, wisely, played safe by appointing an old hand, Mike Brown, as head of London Underground to replace the much-missed American, Tim O'Toole. While O'Toole was selected after a worldwide trawl of experienced railroad managers, and was something of a surprise choice given that he had worked mostly with freight railways, Brown is an insider, a longstanding Underground man who left only a year ago to run ...

The harsh truth is that Boris Johnson has very little room to manoeuvre over his transport budget. He is likely to be forced to raise fares even if that allows his political opponents to make capital out of the increases. Virtually everything that has happened since he became Mayor has reduced the amount of money coming into Transport for London's s coffers. Most importantly, there is a four per cent reduction ...

Walking through Holloway, north London today, I was struck at how the road and pavement engineers deliberately make life difficult for pedestrians. To walk half a mile and cross a couple of major roads, I was shunted by so called pedestrian barriers in a way that ensured I had to cover an extra two hundred yards. In fact, as it was early morning, I dodged around them on the ...

Subterranean Railway Review Paris’s rattly underground system evokes affection (as in Louis Malle’s whimsical movie Zazie dans le Metro). The New York subway evokes fear (as in Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw’s stand-off in The taking of Pelham one two three). But there’s no psychological equivalent among Londoners. We mostly view the engineering miracle beneath our city streets with indifference or irritation. All we want to know is: odes it work well ...