Financial and business news and articles
Posts tagged Transport policy
Brave new dystopia
Mar 12th
Patrick Blower: Livedraw: Imagining England along the route of the proposed London to Birmingham hi-speed rail when it opens in 15 years
Cycling and safety: some top comments
Mar 12th
My latest for Cif went live this morning. It’s about Boris’s Cycle Safety Plan and the majority of commenters have, all too predictably, been ignorant and boring Boris trolls. However, there were welcome exceptions. I thought some of their contributions deserved highlighting here. Here’s one from Constituent:
In Copenhagen, many roads have cycle lanes between the pavement and the road itself, higher than the road, lower than the pavement. These can be blocked by pedestrians when buses arrive at bus stops, and conversely I’ve seen pavements blocked by parked cycles, forcing pedestrians to use the cycle lanes.
Here, a bit of paint isn’t going to help much, unless we are talking about replacing the red and yellow lines telling you where you can’t park your car with green lines showing where you can park. The target should be for no one to go into London without having off-street parking arranged.
As things start, the biggest problem for cyclists is parked cars, and there’s a strong argument for more multi storey parking towers all over the place, perhaps with a café on the top where you can enjoy the view. Local residents currently using street parking in trafficked areas could rent spaces in the towers at greatly reduced rates.
And from Laurie1984:
Most of the traffic nowadays in central London is white vans, black cabs and lorrys. Very few ‘normal’ motorists drive into central London, as they have enough sense to not even try. Van drivers and cabbies depend on getting from A to B quickly for their livelihoods, and so make the more dangerous drivers. In my entirely anecdotal experience of a pedestrian in central London, it’s the cabbies and van drivers who seem to regularly try and kill me. Find a way to make them more careful drivers and I’ll start cycling. (In fact, use the carrot approach – convince them by driving safer, more people will cycle, thereby freeing up the roads for them to get around quicker).
This struck a chord with the reverent:
I have to agree with Laurie1984 above that there is a big problem with commercial vehicles in central London. Delivery van and private hire cars seem to be driven particually badly. With the delivery van they are often hardly full (when I’ve seem them open) so this could be done with far fewer vans, or even some delivery bikes. Private hire cars need much better regulation, as TfL give them a badge for the back of the car but won’t do anything about their driving afterwards.
I write having almost been wiped out by a Addison Lee car this morning on Threadneedle St as he was trying to get the red light first. He then tried to run the cyclist behind me into the pavement on Bishopsgate (who had some words at the next set of light).
Earlier, thereverent had observed of Boris’s approach:
[There] are some steps in the right direction, but still far too little. I still think that when transport planners re-design roads they only look at the car and bus point of view. This is why you get one-way systems with no cycle provision (when one could be easily put in) or a really poor one (Vauxhall). Or cycle lanes which either disappear, have bus shelters or other obstructions in them, and then throw you back on the road at a dangerous point. Certainly some of the roads in London that have tried to get two narrow lanes should be only one lane. Some driver re-education about Advanced Stop Lanes (ASLs) is needed.
Two small steps to make the superhighway much better would be:
- Ensure none of the cycle highway was part of a car lane (which some of it in the youtube clip). This might mean making some double lane roads single lane.
- Provide traffic light which have cycle-only phases allowing cyclist to get clear of the traffic (particularly left-turning traffic).
Thanks for all these comments and also to everyone who contributed so thoughtfully here and here and here earlier this week. This is the Mayor’s “year of cycling”. There’s lots to talk about. Keep the useful comments coming and have a collision-free weekend.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
TfL: staff cuts and future funding
Mar 12th
The start of my latest newsletter:
Cynicism is a dreadful thing. But when you receive a press release from a major public sector employer proclaiming a “vision for the future,” promising greater efficiency and containing a pledge on staffing that is hedged like the maze at Hampton Court, the jaded eye skips instinctively down the page to find where the job cuts have been hidden.
There will be 700-800, TfL thinks, 450 of them among ticket office staff (it’s all in here). Its defence is that more and more people are using Oysters and they have more points at which to purchase them, which means the need for ticket office staff is shrinking. It addresses concerns about safety – deserted stations and dead of night, that kind of thing – by pointing out that there are more police officers patrolling.
The Lib Dems aren’t impressed and neither are Labour, though their guns are semi-spiked by the fact that Ken Livingstone planned to close ticket offices too. I’d guess that Boris’s rationalisation for breaking a manifesto pledge, “ensuring there is always a manned ticket office at every station” (see page 2) may draw on this fact at next week’s MQT. Meanwhile, the RMT has pledged “an all-out fight”.
What happened to that no-strike deal (see page 6)? And what will happen to the flow of investment if and when George occupies the Treasury? Or indeed if Alistair remains there? Ponder this from Regeneration and Renewal:
Mayoral agency Transport for London is to publish a report next month to make the case for using a US infrastructure funding tool to fund a £600 million extension of the Northern Line to the Nine Elms area in Wandsworth.
Speaking yesterday in London at a conference organised by real estate advisers CB Richard Ellis, Matthew Hudson, head of corporate finance at TfL, said the report would set out a “concrete example” of how Tax Increment Financing could be used to unlock the regeneration of the Nine Elms opportunity area.
The Tif model, widely used in the US, finances infrastructure projects by borrowing against future tax revenues resulting from regeneration. “We have a report coming out in five weeks time, that will set out a concrete example of Tif, Hudson said. “It will have all the cashflows, all the structures, which I hope will stimulate the debate and move things forward.”
Remember Tif? Sounds like a nice girl. Boris thinks thinks so too.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
High-speed rail: All aboard! | Editorial
Mar 12th
There are two big decisions about high-speed rail. First, is it needed in Britain? And second, if it is, where should it go?
In many regards, yesterday was just another bad day for British transport. Rail maintenance workers decided to strike. Signallers may join them and shut the network over Easter. British Airways remained at loggerheads with its employees. The London tube network was digesting the news that it now has a £460m shortfall in its modernisation programme. Everyone expects cuts in transport spending, if not in the next budget then the one after that.
Faced with all this, only a visionary or a fool would stand up in parliament and announce plans for a £30bn, 330-mile, 225mph rail line, whose construction would not even begin until 2017, and whose completion will take much more than a decade. Yet that is what Andrew Adonis, the transport minister, did yesterday, and he deserves much congratulation for it. The case for high-speed rail is strong, but not so overwhelming that the line will be built without committed people arguing that it should happen, as Lord Adonis has done late in this Labour government and someone else will have to do if there is a Tory one. A thousand small cares could still knock the project off course, as well as one big one – paying for it, which is a subject all parties skirted around yesterday. But the principle of a new line has been established, and the government has set out detailed plans for its construction. This train, as British Rail used to boast, is getting there.
There are two big decisions about high-speed rail. First, is it needed in Britain? And second, if it is, where should it go? The answer to the first question produces remarkable consensus. High-speed rail is not just about travelling faster, and not just about links to London. It will join cities reliably and with much greater capacity than ever before, soaking up growth in transport demand while freeing up space on the existing network for commuters and freight. It is the alternative to more roads and planes, but it will also allow travel on routes badly served by existing transport lines – such as Leeds to Birmingham, or Nottingham to Scotland. That is why cities, political parties, environmental groups, unions and business are all in favour.
The subsequent question, about the route, is less easy to answer. Lord Adonis has been desperate to built a pre-election consensus around his particular plans, and the Conservative party, which backed high-speed rail before Labour, has been just as desperate to avoid joining it. This is a pity, since the detailed route published yesterday by the HS2 company makes sense, if the trains are to head west from London towards Heathrow before turning to the north. They include city centre terminals, proper interchange with the new Crossrail scheme and a reasonable compromise between environmental intrusion in the Chilterns and a direct line to the north. The Conservatives want a route from London that would come nearer Heathrow, which sounds attractive but would also be slower and more expensive to build. Nor – since the trains would run only near the airport, not under it – would it allow seamless travel to the air terminals. Under the HS2 scheme announced yesterday there will be easy connection to a 10-minute Crossrail shuttle to Heathrow; the Tory alternative is worse.
The next step will be to consult on the route, and changes will be made, although they cannot be large without simply directing the consequences of construction into someone else’s backyard. The route cannot be put underground without greatly adding to the cost. It will be narrower, less polluting and less noisy than the M40 and A413 roads which already cut through Buckinghamshire, but to the people most affected by the line that will not be much compensation. Nonetheless, the government must introduce a hybrid parliamentary bill and begin the debate on its financing. This line will make Britain a better place. No one will regret building it when it is open. The hard part will be getting from here to there.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Guardian Daily podcast: Transport revolution as 250mph trains to run between London and Birmingham
Mar 12th
Transport secretary Lord Adonis has published £30bn plans for a 250mph rail link between London and Birmingham. The proposals, which would revolutionise Britain’s rail network, are subject to parliamentary approval and public consultation. Even after that, work won’t begin on the route until 2017, with the first stage expected to take 10 years to complete. After that, the government intends to extend the high speed rail network to northern England and Scotland.
Peter Walker hears the views of the people of Wendover in the Chilterns, an area of outstanding natural beauty which the new rail route would pass through.
Transport historian Christian Wolmar says the key question is whether the high speed rail plans would increase capacity.
Guardian columnist Julian Glover says the plan will bring economic benefits to the whole country, while Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker believes the consultation process will allow members of the public to be heard, and for their views to be given due consideration.
Days of building intercity roads are over, says transport secretary Andrew Adonis, as government announces network of 250mph trains to be completed by 2026
Mar 11th
£30bn high-speed rail plan signals end of the road for motorways
The government signalled the end of intercity motorway building today as it announced plans for a £30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026.
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said the motorway network had reached its limit and the burden of ferrying millions more people between cities would instead be taken by fleets of trains travelling at up to 250mph. Work on the first phase linking the capital and England’s second city could begin in 2017 after a formal public consultation, Adonis said.
Having pledged to eliminate demand for domestic air travel with ultra-fast trains, the transport secretary took on motorways in a 152-page “command paper”. He said: “I do not envisage building another generation of intercity motorways.”
The last new motorway, the M40, opened in 1991 and the government’s strategy now is to widen the UK’s major road arteries or to make hard shoulders into new lanes. The news was attacked by a motoring thinktank, which warned the government not to sideline roads when they account for more than nine out of 10 UK passenger journeys, against 7% for rail. “It is not enough to deal with growing demand,” said Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation. “What is the government going to do instead? If it does nothing, inter-urban congestion will just get worse.”
Under the high-speed rail alternative, London and Birmingham will be linked by a route carrying 18 trains an hour in each direction, with every one carrying up to 1,100 passengers. Journeys will be slashed from 84 minutes to 49 on a line originating at London’s Euston. At Old Oak Common in west London an interchange with the Crossrail service, due to be completed in 2017, will take passengers to Heathrow.
Controversially, the line will then run through the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, past picturesque villages such as Wendover, partly following the A413 road and the Chiltern rail line before joining the track-bed of the former Great Central Railway. Before entering central Birmingham there will be a stop near its airport, which will be 31 minutes from Old Oak Common. There will be a new terminal at Curzon Street in Birmingham centre but the main body of the line will sweep through the Trent valley to join existing tracks north of Lichfield, where journeys will continue to Manchester and Scotland at conventional speeds.
Adonis said it would lead to the demolition of just 440 houses, against 700 for the planned third runway at Heathrow.
The transport secretary also unveiled the blueprint for a wider network, with a Y-shaped route splitting off from Birmingham to go westwards to Manchester and eastwards to Sheffield and Leeds. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would come down from about two hours 10 minutes to 75 minutes. However, the document makes no formal provision for a direct route to Scotland and Newcastle and time savings from London to Scotland’s major cities are less impressive, falling from four-and-a-half hours to three-and-a-half hours.
Acknowledging Tory objections over the Heathrow proposal, Adonis said the case for a station at the airport would be examined by the former Tory transport secretary Lord Mawhinney. The Tories have pledged to build a high-speed network instead of a third runway at Heathrow, and to start construction in 2015.
Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said: “In leaving out Heathrow and setting out plans that give no firm guarantees north of the Midlands, Labour’s plans are flawed both by lack of ambition and undermined by their inability to grasp the basic truth that high-speed rail should be an alternative to a third runway, not an addition to it.”
The London-to-Birmingham phase will cost up to £17.4bn, with the full 335-mile network costing £30bn. Adonis said he expected the financing to be “state-led”, costing about £2bn a year. The environmental benefits will be negligible, however, as the Department for Transport admitted that the London-to-Birmingham route will be carbon neutral.
Green groups also warned that the proposals must not squeeze funding from the conventional rail network. Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport, said:”The danger is that a high-speed line will suck money out of the current transport network. The last thing people want is service cuts, higher fares and more potholes, while the executive classes are treated to gleaming new high-speed trains.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Beauty of Chilterns may be put at risk by fast rail link, say critics
Mar 11th
Historic town of Wendover in Buckinghamshire in path of London to Birmingham high-speed network
Sitting in a favourite armchair, the family’s elderly collie snuffling about at his feet, Richard Cooper surveys the rolling Chilterns view he and his wife have enjoyed from the rear of their house for half a century.
“It’s hardly changed at all since 1963,” the 84-year-old retired businessman says. “You can just see the pylons, of course, but the trees block out the bypass.” His wife, Patricia, says: “I can’t imagine would it would be like if they build this railway. It could all be different.”
Though 35 miles from central London and a mere dozen from the far north-western reaches of the tube, much of the area around Wendover has barely changed in decades. Set within a fold in the Chiltern hills, in an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), strict green belt rules have maintained Wendover as a distinct market town, surrounded by rolling greenery.
But if the high-speed rail plans announced by Lord Adonis come to fruition, at some point within the next 10 years what are now fields to the west of Wendover could be land bisected by the fast track. Trains could be shooting through at 250mph several times an hour at peak times.
“The area is a huge and significant green lung for London. It’s completely the wrong place for this line,” said Colin White, from the Chilterns Conservation Board. “It’s an AONB. This is meant to be significant, not something that can just be put aside because it’s inconvenient.”
White’s organisation visited another AONB through which a high-speed rail line was driven, the Kent Downs, now home to part of the Channel tunnel route. They did not like what they saw. “We certainly wouldn’t want to see the same sort of corporate, concrete, design in the Chilterns. It’s not going to be the same for someone walking on the Chilterns if the dominant thing they see is all this concrete and metal.”
It’s not difficult to find residents in Wendover who share White’s views.
“It would ruin the whole area,” says Jim Fryer, walking his daughter’s poodle-spaniel cross. “My daughter lives very close to where the line would probably run. What would happen to her?”
But two other local views, perhaps more surprising, are equally common. The first is a near complete ignorance, thus far, about the plans. “I have to confess I’ve heard about it, but that’s it,” said one resident, settling off along the Ridgeway trail. In the town centre Ian Toplis, 78, gestures towards the proposed rail line site, adjoining a bypass and commuter rail link to London. “We’ve already got these two intruders, as it were. The bypass is quite noisy though it’s helped the town. I’m not sure how much difference it would make.”
Tony Ecclestone, 62, contrasts transport policy in the UK to that in southern Spain, where he has a home close to part of a high-speed rail network. “It would bring benefits to the country but affect us in Wendover, so you could say I’m split. This country is desperately short of high-speed rail communication. I think there may be an overwhelming case to put in a fast line up the Midlands, even if it goes here.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Adonis unveils £30bn high-speed rail plans
Mar 11th
Minister says building work on 250mph route cutting journey times between London and Birmingham could begin in 2017
The government today unveiled plans for a £30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026.
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said building work on the 250mph route could begin in 2017 once a formal public consultation has been completed.
The route linking the capital and England’s second city, which will cut journey times from 84 minutes to 49 minutes, will originate at London Euston and pass through Old Oak Common, in west London, where a Crossrail interchange will transport passengers to Heathrow airport.
Controversially, the line will then run through the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, past picturesque villages such as Wendover, before arriving at an intermediate stop near Birmingham airport. There will be a new terminal in Birmingham city centre, and the main body of the line will sweep through the Trent valley to join existing tracks north of Lichfield, where journeys will continue to Manchester and Scotland at conventional speeds.
“The time has come for Britain to plan seriously for high-speed rail between our major cities,” said Adonis. “The high-speed line from London to the Channel Tunnel has been a clear success, and many European and Asian countries now have extensive and successful high-speed networks. I believe high-speed rail has a big part to play in Britain’s future.”
In a nod to Tory objections over the Heathrow proposal, Adonis said the case for a station would be examined by the former Tory transport secretary Lord Mawhinney. “A complex decision of this nature should not be taken in a knee-jerk fashion but after a full analysis of the facts and opinions,” Adonis said.
The first phase will cost up to £17.4bn for 128 miles of track from London to the west Midlands, with the full 330-mile network costing £30bn.
The transport secretary also unveiled the blueprint for a wider network, with a Y-shaped route splitting off from Birmingham to go eastwards to Manchester and westwards to Sheffield and Leeds. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would come down from about two hours 10 minutes to 75 minutes when the new network is in place.
Formal planning for the route from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds will be completed next summer, with a consultation to follow in 2012. The route to Scotland would be completed on existing lines under the current proposal, even when the Manchester and Leeds sections are completed.
Despite the Mawhinney gesure, the Conservatives attacked the detailed proposal. The Tories have pledged to build a high-speed network instead of a third runway at Heathrow, and to start construction in 2015.
Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Labour have betrayed the vision we set out three years ago for [high-speed rail]. In leaving out Heathrow and setting out plans that give no firm guarantees north of the Midlands, Labour’s plans are flawed both by lack of ambition and undermined by their inability to grasp the basic truth that high-speed rail should be an alternative to a third runway, not an addition to it.”
The government-backed company that drew up the plans, HS2, believes there is no business case for a direct link to Heathrow airport and some industry experts argue that the Old Oak Common interchange provides an equally good link.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Does switching off an escalator at Victoria station really save energy?
Mar 11th
His email describes an experience he had yesterday evening:
At Victoria Station tonight at 8.00pm London Underground closed down one of the up escalators from Victoria Line to the main concourse. They put up a sign saying it was “switched off to save energy”. It goes on to say that this would happen during quieter times of the day as a way of saving energy. But this happened at 8.00pm on a weekday night when trains were still pretty full, which meant there was a queue of people trying to get up one escalator, forcing others to walk up a non-moving escalator. See Picture.
I was sceptical that any saving made would be greater than the cost of the inconvenience to Tube users (especially as there are lots of travellers with suitcases going to Gatwick airport) plus the unintended side affect of some travellers deciding to use cars or other more polluting forms of transport than Tube travel.
Interesting. The reader asks?
How much money is saved per hour turning off the escalators? My original guess that it would need to be thousands of pounds per hour, to outweigh the potential dis-benefits of the above.
Helpfully the TFL website tells us how much per year an escalator costs to run. There is a report from 2009 which states: “The amount of electricity used by an escalator varies depending on how long it is and how far it rises but as a guide will cost in the region of between £7,000 and £12,000 each year.”
This is from page 33 of the London Underground Carbon Footprint report 2008, published in 2009. My reader continues:
I was surprised by these low figures. If we assume that the escalator at Victoria station is one of the more expensive ones, the hourly cost is less than £2.00 per hour: £12,000 divided by 365 days divided by 18 hours per day.
£1.83, to be exact. Well, that’s what my calculator says.
In July 2009 Boris Johnson said about the £695million plan to improve the station: “This key upgrade will transform the experience for those using the station – making life easier and more convenient.” But TfL’s own figures suggest it doesn’t make economic or environmental sense to turn off escalators at 8.00pm in busy stations like Victoria.
I should disclose two things about this reader: one, I know him to be a very competent person; two, he is a Labour Party member. That done, I’ll be asking TfL if they think he has a point.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Is Boris’s ‘cycle revolution’ for real? | Dave Hill
Mar 12th
Posted by Dave Hill in Politics
No comments
Until he takes bolder anti-car measures, Boris Johnson’s plans to promote cycling in London are little more than hype
Here are two versions of the same story. The way the authorities tell it, London’s “cycle revolution” is set to intensify thanks to the brilliant innovations of its mayor, Boris Johnson. May’s completion of two of his promised dozen “cycle superhighways” linking the capital’s suburbs with its core will be followed by the summer launch of his central London bike hire scheme. Mindful that apprehension deters many potential converts to pedal-power, he has just produced a cycle safety plan that firmly asserts that “Cycling levels in London have increased sharply in recent years while the rate of casualties has declined,” and that Johnson wants these parallel trends maintained.
But some of London’s two-wheel travellers relate the tale differently. One has made a video of riding a stretch of one of the superhighways-in-progress and isn’t impressed. It seems to amount to a long, narrow strip of Smurf-blue where there were previously shorter narrow strips of green. I posted the clip here and high-grade comments ensued. All were critical, not least because the lanes aren’t wider or more protected against incursions by motor vehicles. “I’ve yet to hear a single experienced cyclist say anything good about the ’superhighways” wrote JimG, who linked to this critique of Transport for London’s plans. Its author, Dave Hembrow, was born in the UK but lives in the Netherlands. He says they do city cycling much better there.
And then there are the deaths. There were 13 in London last year and 15 in 2008. One took place near Guy’s hospital on Tuesday, coinciding with the cycle safety plan’s appearance. Another happened in Hackney the following day. Both followed collisions with tipper trucks. Lethal contact with large commercial vehicles is cyclists’ greatest safety fear, one Boris Johnson surely shares given his “near-death experience” in Limehouse. The safety plan points out that a “significant growth” in the number of cycle journeys between 2003 and 2008 was accompanied by a relatively small increase in the number of cycling casualties of all kinds, but also acknowledges that collisions involving cyclists are “still one of the most serious challenges to road safety in the capital”. Recorded injuries ranging from fatal to slight totalled 3,409 last year.
Anxiety about safety is a major obstacle to maximising cycling in London. Around half a million journeys are made on a bike each day, double the number in 2000. Yet this is a fraction of the number made by car, and Boris has argued that many of those could be cycle ones instead: a daily 2.4 million in the 12 Outer London boroughs alone – around half. His safety plan lists training courses, better information and education, improved vehicle technology and stronger action against irresponsible road-users as aspirations. His goal is for the present number of cycling journeys to have quadrupled by 2026. He’s obviously working on it, not least by setting a conspicuous example. The London Cycling Campaign seems broadly behind him. But should he be doing more?
As a bus addict I’m unlikely to ever switch to two wheels in a big way, but until London’s roads feel far less hostile to cyclists I remain reluctant to even sample joining their ranks. When commenters at my blog – enjoy their insights here and here – advocate doubling the width of cycle lanes, bold adjustments to road rules, markings and architecture or doing far more to highlight safe routes, it strikes a chord. I start imagining a future in which cars and trucks are minority road transport modes and buses and bicycles dominate. To reach it, though, would require the political will and skill to persuade voters to support bolder measures. The present mayor, mindful that motorists regard him as their friend, seems prepared to go only so far. Until a successor goes much further, the term “cycle revolution” will sound more like hype than reality to me.