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].
- • Getting about Sydney (Transporting Cities)
- • NYC Subway track map (CityLab)
- • Portland’s disabled friendly rental bikes (StreetsBlog)
- • Every large North American city’s transit vehicle pictorial (Transit Oriented)
- • LA expands LRT network to great effect (Washington Post)
- • LA’s Olympics transit rail network plans (LA Curbed)
- • LA Bus Service Declined as Rail Expanded, system ridership dropped (StreetsBlog)
- • San Francisco commuter trains running on light rail tracks? (StreetsBlog)
- • Summer Transport Reading List (CityMetric)
Another article of interest. Apparently tfl investigating decking over some major roads to create development land. Including Aspen Way (east of Limehouse Link). Would be an ingenious way of connecting Canary Wharf area with communities just north, which currently are totally disconnected.
http://www.egi.co.uk/news/tfl-looks-to-head-underground-for-more-houses/
@IslandDweller: Sign in required…. 🙁
@IslandDweller Having looked at a map and not the article: sounds interesting. From Crossrail place to the upper level of Poplar station to the third floor of Poplar high street (if they’d welcome the rebuild/gentrification) is space used in the 80s 2 dimensional way that now doesn’t fit in.
Savills have a preview mentioning Leyton E10, Leytonstone E11, North Circular and hundreds of acres. That article is based on an FOI that may turn up here https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/search?Query=are+associated+with+potential+development+in+the+area&Sort=date%2Cdesc&TimePeriod=24&PageSize=10
When did London Reconnections become just “Reconnections” ?
Love the article on San Francisco commuter trains running in the streets and how they are panicking over main line trains in the streets. Yet the South Shore Railroad still does that, at least for the foreseeable moment, in Michigan City.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XvS_0MbCic
Can I second Confused’s question. One of the strongest points of LondonReconnections has been its London focus; not becoming a discussion of transport services UK- or World-wide. Indeed, many times commenters have tried to open it up ‘too far’ they’ve been brought back into line with a statement that this is about *London* and its environs.
I feel it would be sad to lose that strong primary focus.
AlisonW and Confused are quite right. However I think it would be nice to cover other areas sometimes with good reason, like Manchester Metrolink, Merseyrail, Tyneside Metro, Welsh Valleys, Glasgow, Dublin, (all including buses too.) There must be a lot of potential material in those locations – shows what we in London are missing out!
@1LondonBlog -the trouble is that the world doesn’t stop at the places you mention and the risk(no, certainty) is that it would become a universal transport site covering everything from rickshaws in Vientiane to the lesser known railways of the Falklands . People here have to be disciplined….
Oh don’t worry – we know where we’re from. And even if we didn’t our policy is to write only about what we know, which is mostly London!
Not to say that we haven’t – and won’t continue to – stretch our pens beyond that. Not least because often there’s lessons for London elsewhere, or things abroad which will affect London. A good example of that is that, at some point, I really want to write about Bombardier’s Canadian woes, as they’re a big driver for how they’re approaching the UK right now.
Similarly, I really want to do a piece comparing the current state of the New York Metro with the Underground in the 1980s. Because there are some really disturbing similarities.
That’s never gonna stop us waxing lyrical about the Victoria line and it’s quest for 40tph though!
@JB: That’s what I like about the Friday reads. It gives a bigger perspective, so that we can all see that the very same problems here in London are being experienced around the world and how these are being solved (or not).
Let’s face it, if we don’t look over the fence, then we’re bound to make big mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided!
Oh, I’ve no issues with ‘compare and contrast’ London with anywhere/everywhere else, it’s just that “RECONNECTIONS” (which my spellcheck doesn’t like either) at the top of the screen where it used to have London too.
“I’m just a soul who’s intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”