London Transport

I've been spending a few days working in London proof-reading & editing some technical documents for a software development bid we are working on. Its not the most exciting work but a good little stop gap until my next project starts.

It gave me the chance to catch up with Shaun in the evening, a friend I worked with about 7 years ago when we were working with Pfizer. Shaun is now at the University of London and is on his summer break doing some temporary work for Transport for London promoting the Oyster Card.

Oyster is fantastic, I have one and it gives me discounted travel on buses and tubes, capped at the cost of a day ticket if I use it a lot. Shaun told me that the buses are capped at £3 so if you make 3 journeys, you can travel around for the rest of the day on the buses for no extra cost.

Public transport in London is getting better all the time and I rarely bring a car into the city as it becomes a liability. Some of my work colleagues are a bit snobbish about public transport and prefer to use taxi's, but I love it its usually so easy and fast.

London have some ambitious projects planned to continue to improve the infrastructure. I would like to see a ring of Park & Ride around the M25 to make it even more convenient. It has to be stick and carrot, you need to give people a viable alternative to using their cars before they will make the switch. In may towns and cities this simply does not exist.

A good integrated transport system is an asset to any city and does contribute to the strength of its economy.

Lib Dem Transport Plan Praises our Railway

The Lib-Dem response to the Eddington report outlines a A 6-Point Plan for the Green Transport Switch which includes proposals for a bigger and better railway.

The report praises our own excellent local Chiltern Railway which I use a lot when travelling to London or Birmingham. The report suggests that one reason why Chiltern is able to provide such a good service is down to its long franchise term which allows it to make the long term decisions required to run an effective railway.

Other proposals include Improving Local Transport Services to include greater control at a local level, more bus and tram services and A Realistic Strategy for Road Transport that will cutting down on building new roads.

As our roads become ever more congested, the answer has to be to invest in a modern integrated transport system to encourage a shift from our roads.