Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. This week’s lineup:
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- • Visualising the daily pulse of the Tube (Tube Heartbeat)
- • TfL claims public transport users subsidise London’s roads (CityMetric)
- • Disused passenger tunnels to reopen at Knightsbridge tube (Ian Visits)
- • Oyster and Contactless off-peak grace periods (What Do They Know)
- • Londoner asks if Cycle Superhighways jam traffic, Computer says No (PeopleForBikes)
- • Why Uber and Lyft should pay for streets (CityLab)
- • 7 Cities That Are Starting To Go Car-Free (Fast Company)
- • Boston Green line LRT extension awarded (Metro Report)
- • New York City East Side Access Program Report (with construction photos) (MTA)
Check out our most popular articles:
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and some of our other sections:
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If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, please email us at [email protected].
The CityLab article on getting Uber/Lyft (etc) to pay for the streets they probably clog up is … interesting.
Vital point in the piece on removing cars altogether from city centres & elsewhere …
Though Hamburg isn’t planning to ban cars from its city center (as has been misreported elsewhere), the city is making it easier and easier not to drive. …,
But “we” ( London) are not making it easier not to drive, are we? Hamburg is using a carrot as well as a stick.
@Greg: Roads cause congestion… Until politicians wake up to that fact, nothing will change.
The facetious bit aside, yes a very interesting idea…
Two things the tax should discourage:
1. Cruising while looking for a fair
2. Hanging around waiting (like around Heathrow)
Modern technology (such as that employed by Über) could be compelled to work this out, conveniently pushing the cost onto the taxi companies themselves.
The question of who pays for the roads usually also ignores costs such as:
– traffic policing (paid by the Home Office/Council taxpayer)
– ambulance and emergency response (paid by the DoH)
and sometimes even street lighting (paid by the council taxpayer)
Put all this together and even the notional argument that motorists pay more in tax than they get in expenditure becomes a bit threadbare.
Having said that, we wouldn’t expect drinkers to receive expenditure equal to the tax paid on alcohol, so why do motorists expect to get back what they pay in motoring taxes?
I found the “Visualizing the Daily Pulse of the Tube” fascinating and educational. As someone who will be moving to the area in January (and has only to this point ridden the Picadilly from King’s Cross to LHR), I believe the first lesson of being a new London resident is “avoid the Central Line, regardless of hour”.
Dannoh – until CR1 opens, at least!
The Tube Heartbeat is fascinating, thank you for highlighting it. One surprising aspect (for me) was how relatively quiet the whole subsurface lines are compared to the busiest sections of the tube lines. Even the Bakerloo line looks to be busier all day than the northern half of the Circle line
@ Dannoh
In my experience the Central Line is very reliable and feels fast, and never as horrible as the City branch of the Northern Line – each train has two extra carriages and it runs more frequently.
Heartbeat is fascinating. Would love to see it for DLR and heavy rail too.
@Greg: Seems a bit unfair! The Central Line is perfectly fine just before midnight when heading for Bank from Leytonstone on a Thursday night!
😉
There is more on the data behind Tube Heartbeat graphic at here.
Sorry to be a pain, but “The Victoria line’s quest to be the fastest railway in the world” is still clearly nonsense.