According to this Guardian report today, London is the most congested city in Europe.
www.theguardian.com
I was struck by how light it is on actual explanations:
I'm pretty sure anyone could have come up with the fact London packs a lot into a small space as the reason. But since that hardly happened overnight, you'd have assumed London’s public transport system would have evolved to cope with that. London can't be, physically, the densest city in Europe, surely.
Other than that, surprisingly there's the implication it's down to roadworks on a single M25 junction backlogging commuter traffic to the extent it affects a large enough chunk of London's road network to become statistically relevant, as a specifc cause.
So is that the truth? Rather than something more obvious and oft-said, namely London is simply anti-car, could the reason be that either the outer London network and the commuter railway network is insufficent to meet demand? And while busy, the other modes suffice for their notional purpose, such as buses, tubes, tram/DLR and suburban rail moving London residents in their daily commuting needs.
The recent yearly rises do however seem to bolster the narrative that efforts to shift available road space away from cars to buses, cyclists and pedestrians, was a mistake. The point being to make it harder to drive so people actually switch to public transport, hopefully trains, as the mode with the most potential for short term improvement.
The tube being at capacity and other modes being less relevant due to their relatively small size. That being an error since there is insufficent capacity or attractiveness in the public transport system as a whole for that to force people out of their cars. Instead, people just take the hit and sit for longer in traffic, decreasing the attractiveness of buses and maybe even the efficiency of the perhaps overlooked but historically vital London taxis.
Notably, this increase is occurring even though Crossrail should have provided a step change in commuting capacity and the overall attractiveness of public transport. Although I guess therefore it could be said the real issue is London is too popular, with far too much of the UK's economic activity concentrated in the city region, such that adding more capacity (rather than making existing infrastructure more efficient or attractive) just fuels more demand, creating a vicious cycle. Or simply that Crossrail was too little too late.
Perhaps it's been a mistake to invest in buses? There having been significant increases in the fleet size, to no apparent benefit. Perhaps everyone who could make use of a London bus, already is, so this is having negligible impact on road use, other than ironically to slightly increase congestion?
The classic argument for a bus is that moves maybe fifty car's worth of people in the space of just three. But if people weren't literally being left behind in large numbers at peak times, you rapidly reach a point of limited returns by adding more large, slow, heavy, frequently stopping vehicles. There doesn't seem to have been a drive to create more routes rather than simply increase capacity on exiting ones, so perhaps that's the problem?
Maybe that means the focus should be on better coaches on key commuter routes? Notably, coaches are the last remaining mode whose provision is tied to profitability and set their own routes and schedules. At least this might mean SuperLoop was an inspired decision, with massive benefits for little extra investment. Or maybe just the right thing but in the wrong place, going round and round rather than in and out. Something it might not be able to do effectively due to ..... congestion.
Maybe passengers aren't the issue at all? Maybe it's freight? The movement of parcels, goods, foodstuffs, even industrial supplies, in slow, large, frequently stopping vehicles. Rather than anti-car, maybe London needs to be anti-van and anti-truck? More than it already is. But in the same way it approaches cars, namely provide the alternative capacity needed before setting up the barriers to road haulage. Outside the box thinking of the sort we perhaps haven't seen enough of in London.
I think perhaps the answer lies far from London, counterintuitively. Maybe even not that far. Improve transport and infrastructure not to improve connections to London, but with the goal of making it attractive for businesses to relocate away from the London area. Away from the A3 or the A40. That would necessarily require the diversion of funding away from the capital, since there is no new money yet.
Simply improving the pace of change when it comes to regional bus reform, national rail reform, and critical road improvements in the provinces, might oddly help London. Things do seem to be moving rather slowly, with the immediate focus instead being on the NHS and seemingly not much else, given changes in the NHS will take years to manifest in measurable benefits. But surely transport is even harder to impact quickly unless you move fast. Worryingly, there is this looming issue from the same report that could severely impact growth aspirations:
London is Europe’s most congested city, with drivers sitting in traffic an average 101 hours last year
The capital beats Paris and Dublin, in second and third place, as traffic congestion gets consistently worse
www.theguardian.com
I was struck by how light it is on actual explanations:
I'm pretty sure anyone could have come up with the fact London packs a lot into a small space as the reason. But since that hardly happened overnight, you'd have assumed London’s public transport system would have evolved to cope with that. London can't be, physically, the densest city in Europe, surely.
Other than that, surprisingly there's the implication it's down to roadworks on a single M25 junction backlogging commuter traffic to the extent it affects a large enough chunk of London's road network to become statistically relevant, as a specifc cause.
So is that the truth? Rather than something more obvious and oft-said, namely London is simply anti-car, could the reason be that either the outer London network and the commuter railway network is insufficent to meet demand? And while busy, the other modes suffice for their notional purpose, such as buses, tubes, tram/DLR and suburban rail moving London residents in their daily commuting needs.
The recent yearly rises do however seem to bolster the narrative that efforts to shift available road space away from cars to buses, cyclists and pedestrians, was a mistake. The point being to make it harder to drive so people actually switch to public transport, hopefully trains, as the mode with the most potential for short term improvement.
The tube being at capacity and other modes being less relevant due to their relatively small size. That being an error since there is insufficent capacity or attractiveness in the public transport system as a whole for that to force people out of their cars. Instead, people just take the hit and sit for longer in traffic, decreasing the attractiveness of buses and maybe even the efficiency of the perhaps overlooked but historically vital London taxis.
Notably, this increase is occurring even though Crossrail should have provided a step change in commuting capacity and the overall attractiveness of public transport. Although I guess therefore it could be said the real issue is London is too popular, with far too much of the UK's economic activity concentrated in the city region, such that adding more capacity (rather than making existing infrastructure more efficient or attractive) just fuels more demand, creating a vicious cycle. Or simply that Crossrail was too little too late.
Perhaps it's been a mistake to invest in buses? There having been significant increases in the fleet size, to no apparent benefit. Perhaps everyone who could make use of a London bus, already is, so this is having negligible impact on road use, other than ironically to slightly increase congestion?
The classic argument for a bus is that moves maybe fifty car's worth of people in the space of just three. But if people weren't literally being left behind in large numbers at peak times, you rapidly reach a point of limited returns by adding more large, slow, heavy, frequently stopping vehicles. There doesn't seem to have been a drive to create more routes rather than simply increase capacity on exiting ones, so perhaps that's the problem?
Maybe that means the focus should be on better coaches on key commuter routes? Notably, coaches are the last remaining mode whose provision is tied to profitability and set their own routes and schedules. At least this might mean SuperLoop was an inspired decision, with massive benefits for little extra investment. Or maybe just the right thing but in the wrong place, going round and round rather than in and out. Something it might not be able to do effectively due to ..... congestion.
Maybe passengers aren't the issue at all? Maybe it's freight? The movement of parcels, goods, foodstuffs, even industrial supplies, in slow, large, frequently stopping vehicles. Rather than anti-car, maybe London needs to be anti-van and anti-truck? More than it already is. But in the same way it approaches cars, namely provide the alternative capacity needed before setting up the barriers to road haulage. Outside the box thinking of the sort we perhaps haven't seen enough of in London.
I think perhaps the answer lies far from London, counterintuitively. Maybe even not that far. Improve transport and infrastructure not to improve connections to London, but with the goal of making it attractive for businesses to relocate away from the London area. Away from the A3 or the A40. That would necessarily require the diversion of funding away from the capital, since there is no new money yet.
Simply improving the pace of change when it comes to regional bus reform, national rail reform, and critical road improvements in the provinces, might oddly help London. Things do seem to be moving rather slowly, with the immediate focus instead being on the NHS and seemingly not much else, given changes in the NHS will take years to manifest in measurable benefits. But surely transport is even harder to impact quickly unless you move fast. Worryingly, there is this looming issue from the same report that could severely impact growth aspirations:
