Piéton engagé… n’a jamais la priorité. Du moins dans ce pays.

Vous vous rappelez Frogger, ce jeu des années 1980 où il fallait aider une petite grenouille à franchir sans encombre des routes traversées à grande vitesse par moult voitures, avions et autre motos, le tout sur un bon vieil écran Atari en noir et blanc ?

Eh bien, maintenant, la grenouille, c’est moi. Et pas seulement parce que les Anglais se plaisent à surnommer ainsi les Français.

C’est l’une de mes premières découvertes, mais comme souvent, je suis un peu longue à comprendre : à chaque fois que je traverse la rue ou presque, je déclenche des klaxonnements furieux. Les taxis, pourtant si pittoresques…

… se révèlent particulièrement hargneux. Est-ce que je les offusquerais par mon oubli de l’uniforme local : minijupe, talons aiguilles et bourrelets qui dépassent ?

Eh bien apparemment, non. Tout simplement, il semblerait que le Code de la Route britannique diffère radicalement de son homologue français : ici, il me faut laisser passer les voitures… encore… encore… encore… et toujours.

Incrédule, j’interroge le caissier au supermarché - ben oui, je n’ai personne d’autre à qui demander. Effroi. Si je me fais percuter, et contrairement à ce qu’on pourrait raisonnablement penser, c’est bien moi, fragile petite piétonne, qui suis responsable. Oui oui. Enfin, j’avoue, je n’ai pas vérifié officiellement, mais au vu du comportement des automobilistes, il semblerait bien que ce soit le cas : ce n’est pas compliqué, si une voiture arrive, je n’ai JAMAIS le droit de traverser. Or, malgrée les protestations véhémentes des maires successifs et la prohibitive congestion charge, Londres semble encore et toujours faite pour les voitures. A elles, les routes en parfait état, les parkings, les grandes artères sans aucun feu ni passage piéton. Aux piétons, d’innombrables subways, passages souterrains sordides, mal éclairés et nauséabonds.

 Je ne me laisse pas démonter. Sûre de mon bon droit – le droit français – je décide de leur en remontrer : eh oui, dans les pays civilisés, on considère, à tort ou à raison, qu’une grosse berline s’en sortira toujours mieux qu’un piéton possédant pour toute armure un épiderme de quelques millimètres. Semaine après semaine, je traverse donc la tête haute. Je regarde droit devant moi. J’ignore totalement les voitures qui déboulent à toute allure.

Pour leur part, les automobilistes m’ignorent allègrement eux aussi et attendent le tout dernier instant – c’est-à-dire lorsqu’ils arrivent à quelques centimètres de moi et qu’ils ne voient plus mes jambes – pour s’arrêter enfin. Je réchappe de peu à quelques accidents graves – et dont, je le rappelle, je serais tenue responsable.

Je pressens confusément que mes chances de gagner ce jeu de poker menteur sont minces, et que c’est moi qui ai le moins intérêt à continuer de bluffer en faisant fi de ce qui semble être une habitude de conduite profondément ancrée : faire comme si les piétons n’existaient pas.

Bien. La mort dans l’âme, je me résous enfin à laisser la priorité aux voitures – mais je me jure de ne JAMAIS cesser de tambouriner furieusement sur les capots des jolis taxis anglais.

A real example of the prospects facing the country can be illustrated by the fate of the proposals for a Cross River Tram.  The plan is to link Camden Town through Waterloo to Brixton and Peckham. (Let me declare an interest, as a Camden resident it would be very helpful when it rains to be able to get to the Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras in the dry.  Only in the rain, I hasten to add, as I try and walk to St Pancras as much as posssible.) 

The tram has plenty of other, more universal, benefits:

- Easing overcrowding on Londons public transport, especially stretches of the Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines which are among the most overcrowded in London.

- Helping to clean-up the capital by providing an environmentally friendly link to the centre of London as a real alternative to cars for trips into and around town.

- Acting as a commercially-attractive spur to greater investment as well as linking regeneration projects valued at more than £7 billion along its route including Kings Cross, Elephant and Castle, Peckham and Brixton.

- Halving  journey times into central London for some sections of the route, allowing people living in some of the most excluded communities in the UK easy access to the jobs and opportunities of central London.

I think the last point is the most important.  Theose communities who would benefit most from the Cross River Tram are amongst the poorest in London.  They, above all, deserve the chance the Tram could provide.

The Mayor of London has done much huffing and puffing about the western extension of the congestion charge.  I am very angry at Boris Johnson’s callous attitude.  The congestion charge helps our environment and our economy.   Instead of diverting effort and money into abolishing the congestion charge  in this area, the Mayor could have been productively applying his brainpower to the Cross River Tram. Instead progress on the tram has been frozen.  Regrettably, a project to help all Londoners and which could also help reduce carbon emissions is not a priority for London’s Conservatives.

You can read a full report on the Cross River Tram  proposal here, and a shorter summary here. If like me, you conclude that Transport for London should be giving this greater priority then please sign the petition asking Boris Johnson to back the Cross River Tram. You can so here:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/cross-river-tram.html

Janette Sadik-Khan

“Learning from New York”

Shifting Gears II series SFU City Program at the Convention Centre, October 19

This was probably the largest audience for one of these lectures that I have seen: somehow everyone managed to get in although that meant a late start at 7:25 due to the length of line up.

Gordon Price opened with his memory of  New York in the late seventies when everything looked bleak and dangerous. But New York has now surely earned the title of The Resilient City.  No matter how bad things look cities can come back  faster and in ways you could never imagine. At the same time as this meeting, the convention centre was also hosting a conference called “Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities”.

Larry Frank introduced the speaker Janette Sadik-Khan

Janette Sadik-Khan

What most impressed her on her first visit here was that we have an integrated transit system, where one ticket allows one to ride on a bus, ferry or SkyTrain. “For ten years I have longed for your “golden ticket””

She said that much of success had depended on her ability to borrow best practices from other places. “We have to do a better job: to restructure our cities [to serve people better].  Cycling is just one component.”

Mayor Bloomberg started with a planning exercise – PlanNYC – a systematic examination to reduce the environmental impact of urban systems.   The transportation area is the one that has the most profound impact, and the plan calls for transit expansion as well as cycling and congestion pricing. A plan to introduce a charge of  $8 per car entering Manhattan had majority support in the city but was defeated by the state legislators,  who did not even vote on it .  Only 5% of people drive in NYC.  Sustainable streets 2009 is the strategic plan – with benchmarks so that NYC DOT will be held accountable for major goals. The basis is that streets are for people. NYC has  6,000 miles of streets which are valuable public spaces, not just for making cars go as fast as possible. They will become green corridors and are part of a social and economic plan. She noted that people quickly take over these spaces “once the orange barrels are rolled out.”  Times Square and  Herald Square (both on Broadway) were the first part of a  rapid implementation program. The  World Class Streets Report was commissioned from Jan Gehl which found that 30% of Broadway [sidewalks] were covered in scaffolding with only 3 outdoor cafes and no seats.  “We want to provide seats for New Yorkers.”

Roads are now much safer with the lowest traffic casualty figures since 1910. Children and seniors are over represented in the statistics of fatalities, so NYC is looking at both safer routes to school and for seniors. They targetted 25 focus areas: senior traffic fatalities are down 43% in one year.

The new mobility network is based on selected bus services which now get bus priority lanes with camera enforcement. 98% of riders were satisfied (“This never happens!”) Bus Rapid Transit is much cheaper and faster to deploy than rail. NYC has the largest bus fleet in North America and the slowest bus speeds.  “The only way to get across town was to be born there.”  [Most subway lines in Manhattan run north-south]

Infrastructure repair has been taken care of and now all of the bridges and most of the roads are in a state of good repair. They have created a network of cycling “backbones” – bike lanes on the four East River bridges and a bike highway on the West Side. There are now 200 miles of bike lanes and they starting to fill in the network. Some of these are innovative such as the bike lanes on the centre median of the Manhattan Bridge, use of advanced boxes at traffic signals and protected bike lanes, an idea imported from Copenhagen where bikes are put inside the parking lane. This uses the parked cars to protect cyclists and reduces collisions with drivers opening doors, but also preserves parking and truck loading/unloading. Crashes are down 50% and cycling is up 50%.

New York City has to accommodate 1m more people by 2030. But she also noted that the average New Yorker has one third of the carbon footprint of the average American – simply because they do not drive so much.

She showed an image of a family on bikes on a new lane that had not been completed. “Families are the indicator species: if you are 7 or 70, you should feel safe on the street.”

These changes are good for business. Bryant Park 20 years ago was an open drug exchange,  now is now surrounded by some of the most desirable real estate in the city.   They recently completed the “park in the sky” – the High Line – a former elevated railway which has stimulated $50m of investment along its route.

The linear plazas on Broadway mix pedestrians and cyclists but the bike lanes are not for racing at top speed. Cycling is not an extreme sport, which is what it used to be. “It is not alternative, it is fundamental”. The  pedestrian space was achieved through lane re-allocation.  Broadway is no longer a through street. Broadway is the only diagonal in a the grid, and was always a nightmare for traffic engineers. They have now reconnected the grid and restored the space needed to accommodate the 300,000 or more pedestrians who use it every day. Now that there is enough space, even New Yorkers are enjoying Times Square.

From this experience a new street design manual has emerged through the partnership of 11 agencies,  to ensure that the approach continues.  NACTO is to develop guidelines to become an alternative to MUTCD.

NYC is also adding bike parking with new designs of bike racks and they have tripled the number  of bike racks in the city.   David Byrne, author of  ”Bike Diaries” has been responsible for some of the more innovative designs. The demand for bicycle parking at bus stops has been so great that NYC is now creating bike parking on street at transit stops. Indoor parking for bicycles has also been a huge issue because of the fear of bike theft. They are now creating indoor parking in government buildings and bike access is being legislated for private buildings.  All new buildings have to provide bike parking.

Bicycle use increased by 35%  in 2008 and is expected to double by 2013. Casualties are declining: there is  safety in numbers but also due to an awareness program LOOK

America faces a crisis of obesity and diabetes. New York started summer street closures – 7 miles of Park Ave. “I want to see many yellow checkered bikes” she said that they have been looking at the Montreal bixi system.

All the information she referred to is available on line

Q & A

Gordon Price pointed out that Translink had paid to bring Janette here.

1. What can we most teach each other?

New York should adopt Vancouver’s use of the bike symbol on signs. Vancouver should adopt protected bike lanes

2. There seems to be a cultural debate: The  Netherlands uses unregulated  shared space to encourage social interaction.  We tend to use signs and separation.

But Paris has seen great success with bike lanes and advanced boxes as well as its Velib program.  Different cities need different approaches. An unregulated space in a city like New York would become a scrum. “It’s a war out there!” We want to engineer safe streets. She referred to their approach as  “urban acupuncture”, applying pointed approaches to specific critical locations and this has been driving down fatalities to a third of what they were.

Q follow up on the scale and speed of changes in NY:  what made that possible?

Firstly the umbrella of  PlanNYC. There was  tremendous buy in, with the  recognition of the need for more effective solutions. New York was tired of plans that take 25 years to happen. The rapid implementation was literally painting the outlines. There was not much digging [in sharp contrast,  I thought, to what is still not yet complete on Granville Street]. Once we  rolled out the orange barrels, people took over.  Since Robert Moses paved a lot of NYC we had a lot to play with!

4     You said that your plan was better for business with lots of pedestrians and you referred to property values. That would not be the same for muffler shops. Are you prepared to purchase the businesses that are car dependent?

No

5   Please tell us more about “creative financing” as referred to by Larry Frank

The 7 line extension is using tax increment financing: the  increase in property values due  to the new facility should  go to the agency that provides it. PPPs make sense if the terms are good, but the public sector needs to up its game: the private sector has been better at securing its own interests.  They could apply to both port and rail expansions. TIF is a simple idea: zone around the project to identify properties that will benefit (our whole city is TOD) and capture that incremental value. Increases in property tax revenues are then used to service a bond issue.

6   How much is the change in mode share worth in terms of reducing pressure on infrastructure?

We don’t have that data yet: it is a ripe area for research and is an effective way to make the case. We  can make the case for transit in terms of the roads and bridges not built.

While there are doubtless significant savings in infrastructure, there are also on major benefits to health side. The lack of active transportation is a public health crisis.

7 – How does this work outside of Manhattan?

There is a huge program in all five boroughs – e.g Bronx hub and extensive BRT.  “People can’t be wished onto buses” we have to increase capacity so that the buses are seen as  “surface subways”. The population of New York is 8.2m – which effectively means there are 8.2m traffic engineers. We hold 200 meetings a month to listen to the concerns and suggestions. There is a strong appetite for transit and we plan “8 to 10 BRT networks” in the next few years

8  The questioner spoke at length about China and how the use of bikes has declined due to “market forces”. In fact driving is promoted by vested interests who will undermine your program just as they conspired to kill the streetcar. Most of the federal stimulus funds are going to roads and freeways. He also suggested that urban communities should be limited to a maximum of 5,ooo population max . He cited Plato who pointed to the complexity of problems of large cities. In Canada 80% of the population is now in cities and we need to read Lewis Mumford again to deal with this problem.

China is  investing heavily in transit – for example in Shanghai. This is a strong sign.  We are going back to the cities in the US. There are now over 100 streetcar city projects and an increase in the role of ferries. The  world is increasingly urban. People moving back into NYC  “We kinda like hanging out”. We can save the planet with cities and make cities work much better by sharing what works.

9 – The questioner liked the idea of changing streets as a better use of resources but said that “in the turf war for asphalt, bikes are getting squeezed out.” He asked are painted curbs safe? New Westminster uses concrete curbs which tend to reduce the overall amount of usable space.

Times Square shared the streets and  is curbless, but we had to tread carefully so that bikes don’t race through. We are not at a “cultural tipping point” [I think she was referring to earlier remarks about Dutch "naked streets".]

10 – Referring to her comment on how congestion pricing was defeated, “we no longer control Translink”.  How would you have transportation funded,  planned and implemented in an ideal world?

Look at Portland:  the regional growth boundary has teeth.  The region has therefore a robust transit system with incredible perform of the network. They extended MAX to the airport using a  P3.

She also noted that there are three different entities in New York and they don’t have common fare system.

11 – The questioner came from Ladysmith where, he said,  no-one rides – they are afraid.  How do we get the sceptics to use bikes

The NYC Summer Streets program includes bike teaching and gave away 25,000 helmets. They introduced weekend walks programs. However it is recognized that “etiquette” and “New Yorkers” are not often in the same sentence and  traffic signals are treated as suggestions.

12 .  Can you speak more about metrics and agencies – 3 Es [effectiveness, efficiency - there seems to be many suggestions for the third] pedestrian safety

“I’m big fan of pilot” – communities know their streets better than anyone else. You can use paint to produce some sidewalk extensions and use potted plants to impose a quick traffic calming scheme. In 1990 it was 365 pedestrian deaths a year. We now make more interesting places which send different cues to drivers that slows them down.

15 – Tell us more about covered bike shelters

The rain in Vancouver is a myth -  just like in Portland. It is something you tell people to try and stem the influx.  More is better. But also you need to look at  connectivity – fill in the network , and protected bike lanes. We both need a  bike share program.  Each city has to make strategic choices and in our case the is now increasing  bike parking in buildings.

Big news today on London Transport fares. Boris Johnson is introducing an unprecendented rise to London Transport charges – THE LARGEST EVER in tube and bus fares!

Here’s what they’re all saying about it:

Bus fares are to go up by 12.7% and Tube fares will rise by 3.9%. Oyster card pay-as-you-go bus journeys are to rise from £1 to £1.20.
The Congestion Charge is rising to £10, while Mr Johnson said a £9 charge for those using a new account system would be operational next year.
The mayor said the price of a seven-day bus pass will also jump from £13.80 to £16.60 but London Travelcard prices will be frozen in the vast majority of cases.

Source: BBC

We’ve got a very, very clear choice. It is to pay a comparatively small price now, or [rather] in January, or pay a huge price later on, in five, ten, 15 or 20 years time. If we miss this opportunity to continue the upgrades and the improvement of London’s transport infrastructure, which will make this city not only much more liveable and better for everybody to move around in, but more competitive for generations to come.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson

I left Boris Johnson with very large Transport for London reserves and plans to raise more funds and protect the environment. He has cut investment, reduced protection of the environment and hammered ordinary Londoners with above inflation fare increases. In essence his policy is that the majority of Londoners should pay to subsidise the better off and worst polluters. That is no joke for London.

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone

The Mayor is pricing people off public transport, whilst favouring motorists by going ahead with plans to cancel the western extension of the congestion charge. Part of his fares increase will pay for the gap left by losing around £55m of congestion charge income. The Mayor has today highlighted the pollution caused by old buses, but he was the one who dropped the £25 congestion charge on gas guzzling cars, which would have generated around £30m in its first year. Everything the mayor does shows a bias in favour of the motorist and against public transport users. Even the long delayed increase in raising the congestion charge will be after bus and tube passengers have already started paying their extra fares.

Green Party London Assembley Member Jenny Jones

pdf Document with the breakdown of the changes from the BBC’s website: LINK

.. and from the Evening Standard: LINK

Mayor of London Boris Johnson insists motorists in the capital will not be hit by an extension of road charges during his term in office.

The announcement follows an article in the Evening Standard on Monday which claimed that Mr. Johnson was proposing to introduce a system of flexible charging, in addition to the Congestion Charge scheme already in operation.

Mr. Johnson described as ‘completely crackers’ and ‘barmy’ the Evening Standard article, which said he was proposing to charge motorists ‘around £1 per mile for using the busiest roads’ in London.

‘Never, as long as I am Mayor, will there be any extension to road charging’, Mr. Johnson told Assembly Members at yesterday’s Mayor’s Question Time.

Mr. Johnson said that the only possible change to the current system of road charging would be to reconsider extending the congestion charge to the west of London.

Criticism

Following the announcement, Mr. Johnson came under fire from Labour AMs, Len Duvall and Valerie Shawcross, for contradicting his own Transport Strategy.

Proposal 129 of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy states that ‘the Mayor may consider road user charging schemes if other measures at the Mayor’s disposal are deemed insufficient to meet the strategy’s objectives’.

Mr. Johnson responded to the criticism by saying that his lawyers had advised him to leave as many options open as possible, when drawing up his Transport Strategy. But he reiterated that he would not act on Proposal 129. 

BNP Assembly Member, Richard Barnbrook, told the University of Westminster that he thought Mr. Johnson’s decision not to introduce further road charges in London was ‘brilliant’.

When asked about the apparent contradiction between Mr. Johnson’s announcement and his Transport Strategy, he said that ‘sometimes you may have to change that policy to fit in with demands and requirements’

Nick Hamilton and Jack Atchinson.

It’s been a while since I bothered writing anything, but Boris Johnson has really angered me.

Prices are, again, rising on the tube, London busses and, for the first time, the C-charge. (source)

There is so much wrong with this move and I hope we are seeing the beginning of the end of London’s (and Mr & Mrs Johnson’s) greatest mistake.

Prices always rise, what’s the problem?

“Why is this such a bad move?” I’m sure you’re wondering. Well the issues come from the fact that, whilst trying to get elected, Mr Johnson made the following statements in his manifesto (source):

“After eight years of a Labour Mayor, we too often spend our mornings and evenings in cramped, overcrowded carriages or sitting for hours in traffic, and we pay the highest fares in Europe.”

Boris is hard at work then...

So he obviously feels the fares are scandalous, but yet he’s willing to increase them? Johnson goes on to say:

“We pay the highest fares in Europe and we deserve value for money:

• Londoners must see more police on the buses, especially in outer London. This is why I will double the number of police officers to patrol them.
• Suburban stations need to be safer, which is why I will provide funding for 50 extra British Transport Police Officers to patrol the worst stations.
• The bendy bus is unsuitable for London’s streets, they are twice as dangerous as non-articulated buses and have almost three times the rate of fare evasion. I will phase out bendy buses and run a new competition to find a 21st century Routemaster that has full disabled access, runs on clean fuel and has conductors.
• I will introduce live, interactive bus tracking so you can see where your bus is and avoid long waits at the bus stop.
• The tube needs to be rescued from the ruins of Gordon Brown’s finance deal, so that vital upgrades that were promised actually happen. I will look again at having an air-conditioned tube. We need to take the thumbs of the RMT off the windpipe of London commuters with a no-strike deal that gives both sides the benefit of an independent arbitrator.
• The Congestion Charge must be reformed. Congestion has now risen above pre-Congestion Charge levels. Ken Livingstone’s £25 levy will not improve congestion or emissions and will hit families and small businesses – it is a stick with which to beat motorists which is why I will not introduce it.”

I’m not sure about you, but I have seen little to none of the above executed, despite already forking out 10% more for my transport costs since Boris came to power. After these costs, I’ll probably be paying between 15-20% more for a Boris-run administration than I did for “Red Ken”. And let’s not even mention the utter hypocrisy of the last statement. Mr Johnson won’t introduce the £25 levy, but he’s happy to take any amount up to £25 from a city of strangled motorists (of which I have to admit, I am not one of). Furthermore, did we not have a tube strike as recently as this summer? (source) The only way you can describe any promise made by Mr Johnson is using a phrase I’m sure he is familiar with: Balderdash and piffle!

But hypocrisy and lies should be expected from a politician, particularly a Tory Etonite politician. What angers me the most is the absolute contempt for London’s working population in bringing these moves about and complete lack of sensible management! Let’s look at the BBC article which announced these changes (source).

"Oh bother! I've only gone and glued my hand to my head again"

Boris here says:

“Nobody wants to make an announcement like this, especially when Londoners are feeling the effects of the recession.”

Nice to see that he has recognised we’re all under pressure before he decided to turn the screw a little more.

“The mistakes of the past and the current economic climate have conspired to present us with a huge challenge.”

Nice little dig about Ken there, echoing his previous “we’re raising prices because Ken gave it to you too easy” quotes.

“He said he had only been persuaded of the need for fare rises after ensuring every efficiency possible – at least £5bn in total – was being made at Transport for London (TfL).”

Hold on…stop there a minute…you got to be kidding me, right? Back when he raised fairs the first time, it was stated that,

“The Mayor warned there would be more “tough choices” ahead to tackle the £84 million deficit in TfL’s £7 billion budget this year.” (source)

If there was a shortfall of £84m last year which required increased fares, where during this time where £5bn of savings have/are being made, is the additional £4,916,000,000 going to? Has Boris wasted that much money on-as he called it in his manifesto,

“While we now have greater spending on transport, the money is not always invested wisely.”

Hmm.

Good to see that they let the special kids have a go...

Well according to the BBC, part of the problem could lie in the fact that:

“The budget deficit has also been hit by a fall in passenger numbers on London Underground due to the recession. Passenger numbers on the Tube fell by 6.4% in August. The 190,000 fewer journeys was the biggest monthly fall in 20 years.”

I have to admit, the bit that angers me most isn’t the injustice of this decision-I’m used to Tories (and even Labour) screwing us over for more money. It’s the fact that this decision makes no business sense! If you’re product is being used less, try reducing the price to increase the number of people using it? Public transport does have fairly inelastic demand, however people will respond to a price cut, especially in this current climate. If our Mayor, a supposedly educated and connected man, cannot see this then I despair.

So the only sense is spoken by a John Biggs, Labour’s Deputy Leader of the London Assembly (believe me, I’m just as surprised as you!):

“This is a massive kick in the teeth for hard pressed Londoners at a time when many are struggling with the recession.”

If you actually consider the lack of business sense as mentioned above and the fact we are only just coming out of a recession, barely recovering, and you see how absolutely brain-dead this stupid dullard really is.

Boris, the man, the MP…

What we're all thinking now, surely?

But before I go in to a subjective rant, let us objectively look at Mayor Johnson’s records as an MP. The foundations of my dislike for this pleb are rooted here.

• He has never voted for a transparent parliament. Very interesting to see that he doesn’t care enough about whether the general public who elected him can hold him accountable for his actions and his behaviour.
• He strongly voted for the war in Iraq. This is a miraculous fact considering that Labour have lost so many seats in London out of protest because for the Iraq war. It’s great how the Tories will criticise Labour on the Afghan and Iraq wars, but many Tories were behind the decision and supported us going in with the US to forcefully impeach Hussein.
• He voted, as an MP, in only 45% of votes. What the hell was he doing then? It certainly couldn’t have been constituency work as he lived in London. Could it have been his work on The Daily Telegraph for which he was paid up to £250,000? Or maybe the GQ articles he wrote for up to £5k a pop? We all know that MP’s live on rations, as one of his colleagues, Alan Duncan stated, but was Mr Johnson so out of touch that he even couldn’t identify with the plight of his fellow MPs?
• That must be so-in his last year of parliament (2007/08) He was joint 1^st for the Additional Costs Allowance (£23,083) and Staffing Allowance (£94,240). Now consider, with that, the fact that in his last year he participated in only 14 parliamentary debates and you see that we were not getting value for money. (source for the facts above)

The muppet

Boris with his chums. I bet one of them is called Tarquin.

And now, what you were all waiting for; the unintelligible, subjective, expletive strewn rant:

Boris Johnson is a mayor that was voted in because Ken Livingstone had overstayed his welcome as Mayor and because of his celebrity. He is a prime example of how the current cult of celebrity that plagues our media is not a harmless distraction, but a very real threat to the political landscape of the United Kingdom and abroad.

Barack Obama understood the importance of celebrity and worked to get elected-which is a good thing, by all means-however let’s not forget that whilst this worked beautifully for Obama, the centre-right and right-wing parties can do just the same. How long before Jordan tries to run for MP of a constituency? The worrying thing is not the complete lack of intelligence by these celebrity politicians, but the fact that these faces are tools for others who will manipulate them behind the scenes and really be in control of the political system. A perfect example is George Bush. He was obviously as dumb as a post, but he wasn’t really in control; it was Rove and Cheney and Rumsfeld (in the first term) who ran things. Now we’re seeing the same happen in the office of the Mayor of London with Boris and his corrupt aides wringing every drop of money out of Londoners without providing any sort of service for us.

Boris is a typical Tory: lying, thick as pig-shit twat with good connections, nice nest egg and no connection with the voters, some of whom are still feeling the effects of a recession, even if he and his city wanker chums are fine to pay the higher prices, if they were ever going to use them. Dont forget, the Tories have MPs who are happy to screw us out of money as shown by today’s latest Tory-robbing-us-blind scandal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8308098.stm

"Wait...hold on...right...I have to TALK to these peasants???"

It is time to end this pox upon our politics and social culture and show that we demand more than celebrity buffoonery and distinctive looks from people who deserve our respect. At the next election we should look at the facts, weigh up the histories of the candidates and make an educated, informed decision about who we want to lead this country. We shouldn’t just vote for change, because change is not always better. We should vote for who we think, once we have read their material and considered facts from independent sources, is the most equipped person to run this country in the fairest possible way for the general population.

Don’t look at yourself, look how you want this country to be and look at who will suffer most under the different regimes presented to you. I’m sure once you do that you’ll realise the Tories are the wrong party to run the UK. You’ll probably feel the same about Labour too (understandably) in which case vote for a smaller party. People may say voting for a smaller party is a wasted vote-that’s bollocks. If enough people did vote for a smaller party, we could change the political face of the UK and finally begin a cohesive and intelligent debate about the state of the nation and the direction it wishes to go.

But whatever you do-stop Boris from sullying our beautiful and magnificent city that I have loved throughout all of my 28 years, despite its many wonderful flaws.

A couple of days ago I got this ‘update’ from the Boris Johnson page on Facebook:

I’m making damn sure he gets kept to that promise, despite the rumours in the press since this came out. If he doesn’t, he’ll be a walkover at the next London mayoral election…

Look, I think Lady Scotland, the attorney general, made an honest mistake. She thought a Tongan lady married to a local solicitor had the right to work as her housekeeper. But she should have checked.

I don’t think she should have resigned. She’s not only a role model for both women and ethnic minorities, but she is also quite capable. Felled by paperwork and bureaucracy she created, ironically.

But she’s not like most people in Britain. They don’t have housekeepers so it’s another faux pas by an upper-class member of the nuLab elite.

And, to show the Government’s disregard for our borders, they say she made a mistake akin to dodging the congestion charge. Now that’s the real scandal.

It seems that Transport for London feel they can take my money, without giving anything in return, because it will cost them too much to issue a refund. 

I pay my congestion charge weekly (every Monday), so I never forget.   I can’t do it monthly, because, more often than not, I do not work every business day in a month.   However, last Wednesday I had a car accident and my car is now off the road.  I applied to Transport for London for a refund, only to be told they only issue refunds on monthly or yearly payments, because its too expensive.

To quote:

“When Congestion Charging was set up it was with the intention of encouraging greater use of public transport, so that essential journeys by car would be quicker and easier, which is certainly the case.

The money we collect is spent directly on improvements to the transport network. Over the first 10 years of the Scheme it is expected to raise more than £1.3 billion to re-invest in transport improvements across London.

The cost of refunding daily or weekly charges is high and undermines the whole Scheme. We really can’t justify it, which is why we only refund unexpired monthly or annual payments.“

I’m sorry, but I cannot use public transport, because when I finish work there is no way of my getting home.   I have no option but to drive to and from work in central London.   Even if transport were available, this female would not travel alone in the wee hours of the morning on said public transport, having witnessed what happens to male bus drivers on the routes to be undertaken.

What annoys me is that I cannot afford to pay out this extra £24 because I have to find £250 to pay the excess for my repairs to my car; money I just don’t have; and I have to fork out more than £8 a day to get into work (three buses and one train – I also walk the last leg, but that’s free).   What’s more, its costs over £80 per night by taxi to get home.  Yes!  That’s right.   £80 a night. 

So, where do Transport for London get off saying its too expensive for them to issue me a refund for the unused congestion charge?   Thieving b@stards.  I wonder just how much extra money they make every year from unused congestion charge payments? I’m betting its around the £1,000,000 mark.  How can this be legal?

My taxi driver was so lovely tonight and happy to answer whatever question I wanted. I went half down the celebrity route – asking about the nicest / worst celebs he has driven. (Richard Madeley from Richard and Judy was the worst).

Then I went down the ‘general questioning route’ – London tips and congestion charging. What’s best?

Ho letto suL’Eco di Bergamo (25 maggio 2009) le differenti ricette dei due principali candidati sindaci ai problemi della viabilità e della mobilità in città. Oviamente meglio Bruni che ha indicato tutte le tratte ferro-tranviarie da realizzare, oltre ai ben noti tappi che abbisognano di ponti o gallerie (pontesecco e val seriana in direzione Bergamo) mentre Tentorio (che sul ferro ha parlato solo di Orio) mi sembra fermo all’antico, ancora col pensiero di allargare le strade per far “fluire” meglio il traffico, salvo poi attirarne sempre di più . Nessun riferimento esplicito alla ciclabilità, ma questo credo sia responsabilità dell’intervistatore. Bruni bravo e “moderno” soprattutto su un punto, ovvero quella delle ZTC ovvero “Zone a Traffico Controllato” e relativi sistemi elettronici di “infomobilità”. Si comincia dunque a ragionare esplicitamente sul fatto che la città ha una capacità di assorbimento limitata per le auto, era ora! , Interessante invece per un punto (ma solo uno) la Lega Nord che riprende un’osservazione che, come Legambiente, scrissi personalmente assieme ad Angela Ceresoli, esperta di mobilità a livello internazionale, nelle osservazioni al PUM (Piano Urbano della Mobilità), ovvero l’individuazione di un “anello” a senso unico che lambisce le zone centrali della città. La differenza con gli avversari della Lega Nord, oltre alla paranoia sulla sicurezza e le telecamere,  è però sostanziale sul lato del trasporto pubblico. Ciò che se ne deduce è però che il “ring”, l’anello protettivo (vedi mappa) proposto da me in tempi non sospetti, è realistico, seppur con delle sostanziali differenze di dettaglio.L’anello che si può individuare su questa mappa dovrebbe diventare un anello a SENSO UNICO in una direzione. Nell’altra direzione dovrebbe invece correre con moto continuo, in senso opposto, un bus-navetta su corsia riservata.  La Lega Nord vede invece un senso unico solo per le auto (differenza non da poco direi). Tale area ha un’estensione di 2km in lunghezza per 800m in larghezza. Possiamo dunque intuire come la navetta potrebbe percorrere tale “ring” in tempi assolutamente dignitosi.Si noti altresì che tale anello, per le auto, è attualmente punteggiato da molti parcheggi-silos a pagamento che non vengono adeguatamente sfruttati.

Il rilancio, su cui nessuno ha il coraggio di pronunciarsi e che, da ambientalista e “verde”, è ciò a cui punto, è che tale anello dovrà essere l’area della “congestion charge”. Dati tutti i servizi che ci saranno per raggiungere tali zone nevralgiche della città, chi vorrà entrarvi comunque con l’auto privata, pagherà un contributo che andrà direttamente alla mobilità pubblica nonchè al servizio della navetta.

Dentro a questa zona protetta ci dovranno essere invece tante bici del bike sharing, ad ogni fermata della navetta, cosicchè scesi dal bus i cittadini possano saltare sulla loro bicicletta pubblica per fare quelle centinaia di metri che possono mancare alla loro destinazione.

Secondo me c’è una bella differenza!

Dav

Just got back from taking a few days off in London.

We flew out last Thursday to do a little shopping (I say “we” somewhat loosely in this respect) and take in an Eric Clapton concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday. More on Clapton tomorrow, but first, after roaming the streets for three days, some quick observations on London in general.

London Female Fashion: If you are under 30 (and regrettably, in some cases, considerably older) – Black tights under a loose fitting top. Why did I notice this? Because about 80% of all women in the target group were dressed this way.

Three best T-shirts seen:

I use a lot of wine when cooking. Sometimes, I even add it to the food!

You are just jealous because the voices only talk to me!

F*ck Google. Ask Me!!

The Congestion Charge works. Traffic was moving and pollution (aka exhaust fumes) was way down.

Tony Blair: Has only two policemen on duty outside his town house in Connaught Square. Compare this with the Barnum and Bailey circus that exists 7/24 outside Bibi Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea. I wonder what ranks higher, the Quartets envoy to the Middle East or an Israeli prime minister?

Primark: If you haven’t heard about this company yet, you will. Wherever you go in the London Tourist areas you will see people carrying brown paper Primark shopping bags. Bucking the trend in High Street mass market clothing stores, they have become a rag trade legend across Europe. In April, they opened a mega store at the corner of Portman and Oxford Streets. Apparently some people were queuing outside from 2:00am. Here’s what happened when they opened the doors at 10am.

And, it hasn’t got much better since. This place is a “feeding frenzy nightmare” and definitely not for the faint hearted!

Shambolically useless interview with Chief Exec Bum Disease Ormondroyd in this week’s issue of Venue.

Unfortunately I’ve left my copy at work so can’t post it in full until tomorrow but mainly the interview’s a study in what happens if you let an uninformed arty-farty twit from Southville conduct a political interview and I’ve twittered various comments on it already.

The key claims made by Ormondroyd consist of what she sees as “the challenges” for the city. These are congestion, which she says we need to have “a debate about”. Education, which is “improving” (go tell that to parents of four year olds) and “selling the city”, which we don’t do enough of apparently, as if anyone really cares.

The one that caught the Blogger’s eye was this idea that we should have a debate about congestion. What? After Jan’s sent a Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) bid to London agreeing to “demand management measures” – or a congestion charge as normal people call it – for Bristol?

So it’s decide first and debate afterwards is it? What’s the fucking point of that Jan? You’ve already taken the decision. Now you want us to have a false debate for PR purposes. You really think we’re stupid don’t you?

Perhaps a better debate we might be having is one about whether we need these mendacious little shits running the council on six-figure salaries any longer?

Unfortunately not a debate we’re likely to get in our abominable local press.

Former Mayor Livingstone would be proud...

So.

The recent cold-snap in London managed to put the entire bus network out of action. Something Nazi Germany never even managed, where on earth did our blitz spirit go!?

My favourite (paraphrased) quote has to be from London’s Major, Boris Johnson. Harking back to the days of British Rails leaves on the track faux pas, he said: ‘It wasn’t so much the wrong type of snow, more the wrong amount of snow…’.

Genius. Still, at least he axed the congestion charge for the day!

Iain Morrison is a senior marketer in the British Tourism Industry. And rather enjoyed his extra day off in the snow / working from home (delete as applicable)

I’m afraid I have to disagree with many people’s opinion that Boris Johnson – the Mayor of London – is a loveable buffoon.

Personally, I think he’s a fucking idiot.

In this BBC interview the floppy-haired cocktard acknowledges that the snowy conditions in the capital are the worst ‘for a couple of decades’ (18 years to be precise, but that’s just a minor quibble), that the buses, if they were allowed to run, would be ‘lethal weapons’ and that the drivers who came into London would have the congestion charge waived.

So far, so good, but after really ramming it home that conditions in the capital are really rather awful, he then goes on to say that he’s been biking about today, and he wouldn’t recommend it to everybody, but that the weather is no excuse for a ‘mass skive’.

Back to those drivers who braved the appalling conditions – the ones Boris refers to as ‘hardy’…

Would they be those people who have judged it OK to ignore the advice of the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency, the RAC,  the AA and other authorities?

Maybe Boris left the ‘fool’ off  ‘foolhardy’, eh?

But that’s perfectly all right with me if wants to reserve the term ‘fool’ for himself only…

Congratulations New york for taking the bold steps needed to socialize and humanize the scale of interaction on the streets of New York.

Jan Gehl, the Danish urban planner who has transformed Copenhagen into the wonderful bike-and-pedestrian capital that is today, has been hired to transform the Big Apple’s notoriously hostile streets into something a little more civilized. Now this is something that more of is needed. Manchester is a prime example of a UK city crying out for it. Twice a day the Victorian city centre is gridlocked with traffic and cars and  buses limp along the arteries of the city. Yet when presented with a viable beginning to expanded the cities woeful public transport network through part congestion charging, the citizens of Manchester voted overwhelmingly no. No to financial restrictions on their car usage, no to 20 further miles of tram tracks, 62 trams, and an increased capacity of 30,000 passengers each and every morning and evening, with 20% reduction in public transport fees and a further reduction for those on minimum wage. Shortsightedness I feel.

Manchester would be perfect for someone like Gehl to take by the balls, the sometimes impossibly grand buildings of the city centre lend themselves perfectly to the flâneur. open spaces such as Picadilly gardens, when the weather is fine, are packed with people lunching, talking and enjoying the city. Yet it remains an extremely difficult city for the cyclist.

a keen cyclist I virtual gave up for commuting in Manchester. Putting one’s life in the hands of criminal bus drivers, and the sheer insanity of Rusholme, combined to the lack of decent, safe facilities for bike storage in the city centre take the lustre of what should be an ideal mode of transport. Manchester flat as a pancake, with a compact city centre with the main population centres spoked off from this. So for starters build at least one decent cycle only route from each of this direct into the city centre. Build decent, secure, modern bike locking facilities in all locations. Reprioritize who owns the streets, wall to wall pavements, with dual-direction pedestrian and cylcle flow, but one way cars with access only to the segment to which they need to get to enables deliveries to be made and vital traffic to continue yet rids the city of the car.

Manchester also has springing up the new residential blocks of Castlefield and Ancoats. Brand spanking new apartments, too often of the laminate-floor and “Juliette balcony mold” springing up. These often hatefully designed developments, often with a pathetically small second room to fulfill shortsighted planning guidelines lack local shops, cafes etc. At least we can integrate them into the transport network.

Instead of supplying car parking space or all residents,have a bank of car share cars and encourage residents to find alternative transport to work. These apartments are withing easy walking distance of the city centre, some have good public transport links. There is no need for a two-person household to depart for work each morning in two separate cars.

So well done to New York, and commiserations to Manchester. A pity that a city with such a forward-moving urban regeneration plan for the past 20 years hasn’t inspired its citizens that we can carry on, and make the city a true delight to work and live in.

How are you all, by the way? Good? Happy and healthy and enjoying the new Obama universe? Good good. I like to check in on my readers every so often. All 7 of you.

Anyway, if you’re short of anything really, really long but QI to read this evening, have a look at the DfT’s Delivering a Sustainable Transport System plan. I got to it from a link in an email from the Campaign for Better Transport, who would like people to respond to the plan highlighting its omission of transport incentives to encourage greener transport. In other words,  Q- ‘How do we get more people to get the train instead of flying?’ A – ‘Cap train fares, fool.’

The problem, as we know, is that the government don’t especially want people to get the train instead of flying, because, as it says in the summary of their report, ‘there can sometimes be tension between the different goals when considering decisions about future investment. In particular, supporting economic growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be the most challenging to deliver in parallel, at least in the short term’. (While I disagree entirely with the go-ahead on the 3rd runway, I do accept that the government made this decision for more honourable reasons than the ‘Tories for Cheap Flights‘* group has in mind.)

So, how does the DfT possibly hope to reconcile the economic agenda with the environmental? We know it can be done – I seem to recall a certain scheme in Manchester that would have stimulated Manchester’s economic growth while cutting carbon emissions, had it not been foiled – but see what you think of this:

‘For domestic transport, we shall be looking to maximise the contribution from improving the carbon efficiency of all modes of transport, encouraging behavioural change, and supporting the provision of lower emission transport. This will support freedom of choice about when and how to travel.’

Nngh. In the absence of genuine, congestion-charge-stylee ’synergy’ (yes, I know it’s a horrible word, but you know what it means) between economic and environmental goals, ‘freedom of choice’ will always take precedence. What this translates to is making it easier and easier and easier for people to fly. If it’s actually cheaper to fly to France than to get the train to St. Pancras, what kind of freedom of choice is that?

* Yes, I linked to Guido. I’m not planning to make a habit of it.

The Fleet, for those not in the know, is one of many of London’s lost rivers, long since paved over to make way for urban sprawl and burgeoning traffic. These rivers still run, but mainly in pipes below ground.

    Why bother with an expensive gym membership and a rowing machine? Should you wish to burn off the calories whilst also saving the eight-pound-a-day Central London congestion charge you could well consider investing in a rowing boat and rowing yourself to work.

Commuters get an early start to beat the rush hour.

 

   Anyone that listens regularly to Robert Elms on Radio London will soon realise that at least once every fortnight he’ll have a guest on to talk about, and usually to promote a book about London’s hidden rivers; today was once again one of those days.

   You have to ask yourself: how many books do we need about London’s hidden rivers? Rumour has it they’re considering building a new wing to the British Library just to house nothing but books on London’s hidden rivers.

London's lost rivers.

 

Talking of rivers, some months ago I visited Chester, a picturesque market town that sits on the River Dee, about forty miles south-west of Manchester. The River Dee was named by the National Rivers Authority in the days when they used to name rivers in alphabetical order; it followed closely on from the river’s Aye, Bee and Sea. Soon after the naming of the rivers Ewe, Exe and Wye the National Rivers Authority silted up and was subsequently dissolved.

Has anyone seen the National Rivers Authority?

Did I imagine it, or was this story on the MEN website yesterday under the headline ‘Cameron ‘promises’ TIF cash’, or something very similar? Daring use of inverted commas. Even the usual anti-TIF MEN commenters can recognise that “My view is that if you have got good schemes to go ahead with then you should have the money anyway” in no way amounts to a promise of £3bn. Mind you, promising the earth while opposing every conceivable way of paying for it is Cameron’s favourite hobby just lately, so I suppose it wouldn’t be so out of character.

I was fortunate enough to spend half an hour in the company of a much more admirable group of people yesterday: passengers on the 142 bus route on my way home. The Stop The War vigil outside the BBC was continuing and as we stopped next to it, one of the demonstrators thrust a handful of flyers at the window – and the nearest passenger opened it, took them, and handed them out to the many others who wanted one. A lovely moment. There are a LOT of coaches going from Manchester to the national demonstration on Saturday – the Manchester Stop The War website keeps crashing on me, which might be my laptop’s problem rather than the site’s, but you can email jacquidarbyshire@hotmail.com to go from the city centre, nahella_ashraf2002@yahoo.co.uk for Rusholme and david.sewell@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk for the university.

Also on the Gaza conflict: while I agree to an extent with Nick Clegg, I think we can file his comments under ‘things you can say if you know you’re never going to be in government’.