In the UK, van traffic has grown by 71% over the last 20 years, compared to growth of 13% for cars. This has congestion and clean air ramifications for cities. A “Bikes for Business” program will be launched later today by Team London Bridge, a Business Improvement District which has 400 members in the London Bridge area, including News UK, Imperial War Museum, and Network Rail. The behavior change program is supported by the local government body Transport for London (TfL) and is being ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads: • London bike share use jumps on Xmas day (Forbes) • Tube applied psychology experiments (Wired) • Schwebebahn Centenary, and accident (HydeParkNow) • The importance of connectivity (PedObservations) • Ways to tap New York’s vast wealth to fund subway improvements (CityLab) • Arizonans attack self-driving cars with rocks & knives (NYTimes) • San Francisco’s century of streetcars (WaPo) • Diamond crossing uncovered in ...

With things not going well for the Mayor and TfL on the railway front, they could have probably obtained some solace in the thought that the Mayor’s ambitious Healthy Streets policy was making good progress. Unfortunately, a first blow has been dealt by the City of Westminster with their about-turn on the planned pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. We now look at a further potential setback following a judicial review (JR) hearing brought the City of Westminster. This challenged the ...

Accounts of what is happening in the world of transport in London in the past few months have largely been focused on Crossrail and Thameslink. Whilst these two major construction projects (together totalling over £22billion) have their own problems, it should not be forgotten that other issues in the transport world continue to make their presence felt. The publicity concerning the big projects tends to mask the substantial issues that TfL are now experiencing on a lot of their smaller, but ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. • Cost comparison of London’s cycle commuting options (Urban/Rural) • Did the Blitz enhance London’s economy? (SpatialEconomics) • Network visualisations of a different kind (Aeon) • Impact of the World Cup on worldwide productivity (Tableau Public) • Romanian railway tunnel of love (AtlasObscura) • Uber, Lyft decimating NYC taxis & increasing traffic (Bloomberg) • LIRR pilot program slashes Brooklyn-Queens fares ...

Bus speeds are to be limited in order to help boost the safety of cyclists – transport bosses are preparing an “ambitious” plan to boost the safety of cyclists and pedestrians on London’s roads. Due to be published this Summer, the document will outline how Transport for London will deliver on two targets set down by Mayor Sadiq Khan – that 80 per cent of all trips are made on foot, by cycle or by public transport by 2041 and that no-one is killed or seriously injured on London’s ...

A surge in the use of electric bicycles throughout the United States is prompting cities to revise regulations that restrict their use, including bans against riding them on sidewalks and trails. The nation’s capital and other Washington-area jurisdictions are among those taking steps to modernize and streamline policies advocates say are outdated, set unrealistic restrictions and confuse riders of bikes that can be run on electric power as well as by pedaling. “The number of bicyclists in ...

After dockless bike-share companies blanketed cities in China with millions of bicycles, firms like ofo and LimeBike set their sights on American markets, backed by heaps of venture capital. They’ve put thousands of bikes on the streets of Seattle, Dallas, and Washington, and they aren’t about to stop there. If they haven’t tried to set up shop in your city yet, odds are they will soon. In D.C., the city government has taken a measured approach, phasing in fleets from the dockless ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. This week’s lineup: • 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) ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. This week’s links lineup: • Next generation Santander Cycles roll into London (London Assembly) • Turn off your mind, relax and take the Tube upstream (BoingBoing) • River Bus pier opening at Battersea Power Station (Your Local Guardian) • Piccadilly Circus Lights are back (Engineering & Technology) • Uber offers no relief for NY Subway overcrowding (Crain’s New York) • Chicago’s three separate passenger transport ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, please email us at [email protected] • Post Office Mail Rail stations, above ground (Londonist) • Who is working with Uber, Lyft, & other transport network companies? (Information is Beautiful Awards) • Mapping the cleanest cycle routes (AirQualityNews) • Caledonian Sleeper gets double beds & new look in £150m revamp (Guardian) • The ...

Chicago’s popular Divvy bike-sharing system, which claimed bragging rights for sheer volume of riders in 2015, will soon be accessible via the cash-less Ventra cards that residents use to ride Metra. The announcement comes from Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld, who said Monday that she’s working on an integration plan for the two modes, the Chicago Sun reports. Riders can rent a Divvy bike with a 24-hour-pass for $9.95 or an annual pass for $99. Allowing Ventra card holders to ...

If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, please email us at [email protected] Airlander 10 resumes flight tests – Ars Technica Citymapper Smartbus London circulator – Medium Network Rail considering options for south rail access into Heathrow – RAIL Forgotten 1930s UK cycleways – Guardian Paris steampunk/Punk de vapeur Métro station – Transport Designed European Cities leading global shift towards cleaner transport ...

If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, please email us at [email protected] Night Tube noise complaints – Railway Technology Mail Rail BT Cold War cable removal – BT Oxford St cab free of Crossrail opening? – IanVisits When Peckham was almost obliterated for Eurotunnel – Londonist Raildar, the UK rail network interactive map of trains – Railway Technology London Underground prints – Diary of a Printmaker NYC ...

As anyone looking to properly understand London’s transport needs and network knows, context, background and best-practice are important. As readers might imagine, behind the scenes here at LR Towers we thus spend a lot of time sharing links and reading around the subjects we cover here. We also occasionally share links containing good information about transport topics that we know we just don’t have time to cover. We also all, as authors, occasionally write elsewhere on this or ...