Category Archives: Transport

Booming London gets new lines

Posted on May 15, 2013 by David S Taylor

More trains are coming online  – but plans for more planes are still up in the air. Yesterday the proposed routes for Crossrail 2 went into public consultation.  This £16bn project will create fast new north-south connections through the capital. … Continue reading →

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Fear of flying

Posted on February 13, 2013 by David S Taylor

2012 was the safest year to fly since the start of the jet age Last year only 475 people died in air crashes, while around 3 billion flights were made.  According to an M.I.T. statistician, quoted in Monday’s New York … Continue reading →

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Stansted gets a lift

Posted on December 19, 2012 by David S Taylor

Stansted, London’s third airport, always seemed destined for greater things Architects Foster and Partners saw the brown field site as an opportunity to build a new kind of airport. They created a magnificent airy glass structure with a ‘floating’ roof … Continue reading →

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My nest egg hits the buffers

Posted on October 4, 2012 by David S Taylor

The farcical handling of the West Coast franchise leaves us all counting the cost The Department for Transport’s decision to award FirstGroup the franchise to operate the West Coast Main Line was always controversial. Yesterday, the department announced a reversal: the … Continue reading →

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Flight delayed

Posted on September 6, 2012 by David S Taylor

The Coalition and Labour want to defer a decision about London’s airports until 2015: it can’t wait that long Yesterday the Prime Minister announced an independent inquiry into the future of London’s airports.  Sir Howard Davies’s team will not report … Continue reading →

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Chocks away!

Posted on September 4, 2012 by David S Taylor

The overdue debate on the future of London’s airports is finally taking off. I’ve been blogging for about a year, and my most consistent topic is transport and the need to take grown-up and very urgent decisions about the future. … Continue reading →

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Have I missed the bus?

Posted on June 26, 2012 by David S Taylor

What happened to the new Routemasters? Launched onto London’s streets in February, the streamlined double-deckers borrow the ‘iconic’ style of the original 1950s Routemasters. Best of all, they bring back the rear platform which – when open – allows people … Continue reading →

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Midlands mega-city proposed to ‘obliterate’ countryside

Posted on March 26, 2012 by David S Taylor

Yesterday The Sunday Telegraph revealed a plan to “exploit the new and highly controversial” National Planning Policy Framework” to build up to 100,000 homes on green belt land in the Midlands. This development would “obliterate the open countryside … to … Continue reading →

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Economy can’t fly without airports

Posted on March 19, 2012 by David S Taylor

It is sixty-six years since a full-length runway was built in the South East of England. While Amsterdam-Schipol, Frankfurt and Paris have been adding miles more runway, Britain has held ten aviation inquiries since 1946 and gotten nowhere.  The coalition … Continue reading →

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Light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually.

Posted on January 20, 2012 by David S Taylor

Thinking about HS2… Twelve years ago I worked for West Coast Route Modernisation (WCRM) – the programme to increase speed and capacity on the world’s busiest mixed-use railway.  Basically, WCRM was about stitching together the messy compromises of a 150-year-old … Continue reading →

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