Re falling bus passengers, likely to be partly hire bikes, but mostly increased bus journey times. Sometimes when this happens TfL install 24/7 clearway, bus priority, doesn't need bus lanes can be done with signals, and bus journey times improve. Sadly in key locations, junctions, and roadway, maintaining capacity for people to drive takes precedence over bus priority, walking and cycling
OK serious nerdom, Traffic Management Act requires highway authorities HAs, such as TfL to maximise the efficiency of their network, broadly maximise the number of people who can travel. In the same space buses are the most efficient, followed by walking and cycling, single occupancy private motor vehicles massively inefficient, and as for using valuable roadspace for parking. Hence clearway bus priority. Life IME is mostly not conspiracy, the way HAs "prove" efficiency is by measuring and then modelling private motor vehicles. If bus priority shows "saturation" congestion it won't go in. Cruel irony is that where expensive research is done into driving including by TfL, around 80% of people don't have to drive. Other info. Reallocating roadspace away from driving to buses, walking and cycling, allows more people to travel so actual capitalists and socialists both love it, customers, greater access to employment, only road pricing, congestion charge, reduces congestion. Anyone still with me? Google motor traffic evaporation, community severance. If anyone gets this it will be because we have a cognitive ability to think in networks, and/or get emotionally, people don't have to drive. IME linear thinkers mostly don't get it, journalists, politicians lawyers, Mayor Khan for instance, who unlike Livingstone has not stood up to TfL. Thank you for listening
The active travel and bus activist bird spotting equivalent is clocking all the maintaining motor vehicle capacity elements on a cycling walking or bus journey. Lack of physically segregated cycle tracks or ones that peter out E&C gets several points. Long waits at ped signals, followed by insufficient time to cross. Dog leg crossings. Ped islands, no not a safety measure, parking on the roadway preventing bus priority, cycle tracks. Roundabouts and gyratories, only about increaing driving capacity. I am rarely bored
Part of the answer to slower bus journeys is in Sadiq’s hands. LTNs just push more traffic onto arterial and “boundary” roads (eg Haringey reported a 5% increase after their massive LTN programme), while segregated cycle lanes narrow major routes and force traffic into ever-narrower lanes, slowing travel down for everyone. Encouraging cycling is all well and good (especially for Lime and their local authority financial partners), but the “two wheels good, four wheels bad” brigade never appear to stop and consider that it’s not just cars that use London’s roads. “Floating” bus stops and other cycle-friendly hazards also make life potentially dangerous and off-putting for bus passengers and pedestrians, so a re-think and rebalancing of priorities to acknowledge and help bus passengers — especially older and disabled ones — as well as cyclists is long overdue.
There has been plenty of reporting around the fact that LTNs are NOT just pushing traffic onto major roads - they are reducing total traffic. A 5% increase is pretty marginal after a “massive LTN programme” and means that the solution is not as simple as scrapping LTNs.
Car journeys are massively inefficient (in terms of road space and pollution) compared to other modes of transport. The obvious solution is to reduce the use of cars and vans as much as possible.
A 5% traffic increase on an already at-capacity road such as Green Lanes is significant given the existing volume and outweighs the traffic reduction in LTNs. My general point — to both you and Heather Glass — is that overall traffic reduction is a good thing, but it’s being carried out back-to-front: unless car users have an incentive to use buses first, just making their lives harder won’t change behaviour. Improvements in bus travel (eg bus lanes, junction priority) need to come first, not afterwards. TfL themselves acknowlege that buses are even slower than before the pandemic so the incentive to use them is even less. Cars are not the only vehicles on major roads and, so far, there’s little acknowledgement that buses need priority, which they can’t have if even the same volume of traffic now has far less space in which to move thanks to other traffic schemes. If anything, current plans will make the situation even worse: pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, for example, will seriously affect anyone relying on buses or who is unable to walk easily. Not everyone is in a position to use a Lime or TfL bike, but cyclists have had major infrastructure changes in their favour for over a decade and bus users have been de-prioritised.
Given the patchwork of bodies and powers across London there’s always a risk of the perfect being the enemy of the good when it comes to sequencing. We’ve seen how political pressure has caused the mayor/TfL to chicken out of road charging - I’m willing to bet that bus priority measures take far longer to implement than they should due to people fighting tooth and nail against any loss of parking or longer car waiting times at junctions.
Sometimes you just need to start somewhere otherwise everyone stands around pointing fingers at each other and nothing ever changes.
I agree about the push-back, but it didn’t stop the building of the cycle “super-highway” on Farringdon Road — which must have cost a pretty penny — or local schemes such as the northbound cycle lane on Haverstock Hill which was created in the teeth of local opposition from residents as well as shopkeepers and is barely used (possibly because only Tour de France cyclists would tackle its steepness, as was always obvious!). Sadiq is again committing millions to pedestrianising Oxford Street and pushing the remaining bus routes onto narrower and less-convenient Wigmore Street, banishing taxis from useful spots such as the Selfridges cab rank at the same time. Planning all these schemes wasn’t done overnight, so I don’t see why similar effort and money can’t be put into prioritising bus services that are used by a far wider cross-section of the public than the vocal minority who cycle. Why not start there?
Cars/traffic slowdown buses. Anything that makes driving cheaper and easier will (all else equal) lead to more car journeys and slower buses. Anything that makes it a bit less convenient will mean fewer journeys and faster buses. Ideally we’d have road charging to really free up capacity on main roads but the (mostly) same people who oppose LTNs also put paid to those plans
Similarly dubious enterprises are often soliciting at folding tables set up in the ticket hall of Holland Park Station. I am surprised that TFL allows them on the premises.
A charming bunch calling themselves “Veterans Association” very stridently calling for donations in the lobby of Notting Hill Gate station this morning. The signs are different, but the setup is similar.
I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that they always appear shortly after racially aggravated violence has made the news headlines.
Congratulations on the nominations. Thanks for highlighting issues around organisations fundraising. One of them is particularly persistent if you're female and comments on one's appearance. I run the other way now. Unfortunately this may mean crossing the road, which isn't easy on a crossing in central London, as the e-bikes do not stop at red lights, which mean it's an adrenaline-fuelled experience as a pedestrian.
These fake 'charities' infuriate me. So many groups ARE doing good work, and ARE spending their money properly, and these bad apples can really challenge people's faith in all charitable enterprises.
We sometimes have door knockers asking for money for football teams/leagues that I have a feeling are fake. Next time they knock I will ask for more details and do a bit of googling.
Congratulations on the well deserved nominations! 🥂. I get so much more information from London centric than other publications and am often quoting facts at friends/family around the latest hot topic. Excellent journalism 👏🏼
Why should non-Muslims try to understand Islam? Does it matter?
Let me start by saying: "Islam is unique among the world's major religions at the structural level, that is rarely discussed plainly." it contains, within its own authoritative legal tradition, a framework for governing people who never chose it. What i mean by that is: That those who follow Islam [The house of Islam] are required to govern those who never chose to follow Islam [the non-believers or house of war]. This is not an interpretation from the fringes. It is the mainstream position of classical Sunni jurisprudence. Ibn Kathir, Al-Suyuti, Al-Shafi'i. These are not extremists. They are the tradition's own most respected voices, and they say it plainly.
Every other major religion exists to transform the lives of those who voluntarily embrace it. [Islam does that too]. But Islam also contains a legal architecture that is derived directly from its foundational texts, which divides the world into the house of Islam and the house of war. Islamic doctrine imposes perpetual conflict between Islam and those who do not embrace Islam, until the house of Islam prevails against the non believers. ALL of the Islamic branches and sects across the various Islamic theological and legal schools have codified this. And it has been established by its greatest classical jurists. Mandating ongoing conflict until Islam absorbs the kafirs, and specifies legal conditions under which non-Muslims may be permitted to continue to live, under Islamic authority. And subject to specific taxes, restrictions, and formal ritualized humiliation. This is why Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
There is a second thing non-Muslims need to understand, which is abrogation.
The Quran contains verses of patience, coexistence, and tolerance. It also contains verses commanding perpetual warfare against unbelievers until Islam prevails. These two sets of verses do not coexist as equal options. The Islamic legal tradition has a formal mechanism called naskh. In English we say abrogation. Abrogation is a fancy way of saying that the most recent instructions over ride the older instructions. Like a software update. But it can also help to think of it in a historical seance when looking at the Quran, where later revelations override earlier ones. Because the Quran was not written down all at once, but piecemeal, as it became convenient for Muhammad to receive words from his pet Angel. Al-Suyuti counted more than one hundred peaceful verses abrogated by a single later verse. The peaceful Quran that is typically presented to Western audiences is from the earlier verses. Because the Quran is entirely out of chronological order in an effort to impress the critics by placing the bigger and more impressive chapters at the front of the book and the smaller ones tucked away at the back. This is when Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
And then there is taqiyya. The doctrine that grants permission, under subjectively convenient conditions, to be deceptive. To an enemy, to your wife, or to further the goals of Islamic domination. According to the judgment of the deceiver. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented feature of Islamic jurisprudence, debated and defined by the tradition's own scholars. And agreed upon by the top schools of Islamic studies. This is precisely how shariah law creeps into our institutions and law codes.
None of this means every Muslim is your enemy. It means that understanding Islam from its own authoritative sources, not from its most marketable presentations, is not optional for anyone who wants to think clearly about the world they are living in.
“Like other groups spotted soliciting money outside London stations, such as Inside Success and We R Blighty, Homeless In Need is not a charity – although this distinction might not be immediately apparent to anyone rushing by on their way to work.”
Re falling bus passengers, likely to be partly hire bikes, but mostly increased bus journey times. Sometimes when this happens TfL install 24/7 clearway, bus priority, doesn't need bus lanes can be done with signals, and bus journey times improve. Sadly in key locations, junctions, and roadway, maintaining capacity for people to drive takes precedence over bus priority, walking and cycling
OK serious nerdom, Traffic Management Act requires highway authorities HAs, such as TfL to maximise the efficiency of their network, broadly maximise the number of people who can travel. In the same space buses are the most efficient, followed by walking and cycling, single occupancy private motor vehicles massively inefficient, and as for using valuable roadspace for parking. Hence clearway bus priority. Life IME is mostly not conspiracy, the way HAs "prove" efficiency is by measuring and then modelling private motor vehicles. If bus priority shows "saturation" congestion it won't go in. Cruel irony is that where expensive research is done into driving including by TfL, around 80% of people don't have to drive. Other info. Reallocating roadspace away from driving to buses, walking and cycling, allows more people to travel so actual capitalists and socialists both love it, customers, greater access to employment, only road pricing, congestion charge, reduces congestion. Anyone still with me? Google motor traffic evaporation, community severance. If anyone gets this it will be because we have a cognitive ability to think in networks, and/or get emotionally, people don't have to drive. IME linear thinkers mostly don't get it, journalists, politicians lawyers, Mayor Khan for instance, who unlike Livingstone has not stood up to TfL. Thank you for listening
As soon as I saw this comment come in with "serious nerdom" I was clicking to read it.
This was a very early London Centric story that might be of interest to anyone reading that comment! https://www.londoncentric.media/p/london-road-charging-tfl-secret-plan
The active travel and bus activist bird spotting equivalent is clocking all the maintaining motor vehicle capacity elements on a cycling walking or bus journey. Lack of physically segregated cycle tracks or ones that peter out E&C gets several points. Long waits at ped signals, followed by insufficient time to cross. Dog leg crossings. Ped islands, no not a safety measure, parking on the roadway preventing bus priority, cycle tracks. Roundabouts and gyratories, only about increaing driving capacity. I am rarely bored
Right back to the day job
Can confirm Clare is an excellent source of insight on all nerdy transport things!
Bus enthusiasts, IMO correctly, point to splitting routes. Research confirms people don't mind a longer single journey
Congrats on the nominations!
Part of the answer to slower bus journeys is in Sadiq’s hands. LTNs just push more traffic onto arterial and “boundary” roads (eg Haringey reported a 5% increase after their massive LTN programme), while segregated cycle lanes narrow major routes and force traffic into ever-narrower lanes, slowing travel down for everyone. Encouraging cycling is all well and good (especially for Lime and their local authority financial partners), but the “two wheels good, four wheels bad” brigade never appear to stop and consider that it’s not just cars that use London’s roads. “Floating” bus stops and other cycle-friendly hazards also make life potentially dangerous and off-putting for bus passengers and pedestrians, so a re-think and rebalancing of priorities to acknowledge and help bus passengers — especially older and disabled ones — as well as cyclists is long overdue.
There has been plenty of reporting around the fact that LTNs are NOT just pushing traffic onto major roads - they are reducing total traffic. A 5% increase is pretty marginal after a “massive LTN programme” and means that the solution is not as simple as scrapping LTNs.
Car journeys are massively inefficient (in terms of road space and pollution) compared to other modes of transport. The obvious solution is to reduce the use of cars and vans as much as possible.
A 5% traffic increase on an already at-capacity road such as Green Lanes is significant given the existing volume and outweighs the traffic reduction in LTNs. My general point — to both you and Heather Glass — is that overall traffic reduction is a good thing, but it’s being carried out back-to-front: unless car users have an incentive to use buses first, just making their lives harder won’t change behaviour. Improvements in bus travel (eg bus lanes, junction priority) need to come first, not afterwards. TfL themselves acknowlege that buses are even slower than before the pandemic so the incentive to use them is even less. Cars are not the only vehicles on major roads and, so far, there’s little acknowledgement that buses need priority, which they can’t have if even the same volume of traffic now has far less space in which to move thanks to other traffic schemes. If anything, current plans will make the situation even worse: pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, for example, will seriously affect anyone relying on buses or who is unable to walk easily. Not everyone is in a position to use a Lime or TfL bike, but cyclists have had major infrastructure changes in their favour for over a decade and bus users have been de-prioritised.
Given the patchwork of bodies and powers across London there’s always a risk of the perfect being the enemy of the good when it comes to sequencing. We’ve seen how political pressure has caused the mayor/TfL to chicken out of road charging - I’m willing to bet that bus priority measures take far longer to implement than they should due to people fighting tooth and nail against any loss of parking or longer car waiting times at junctions.
Sometimes you just need to start somewhere otherwise everyone stands around pointing fingers at each other and nothing ever changes.
I agree about the push-back, but it didn’t stop the building of the cycle “super-highway” on Farringdon Road — which must have cost a pretty penny — or local schemes such as the northbound cycle lane on Haverstock Hill which was created in the teeth of local opposition from residents as well as shopkeepers and is barely used (possibly because only Tour de France cyclists would tackle its steepness, as was always obvious!). Sadiq is again committing millions to pedestrianising Oxford Street and pushing the remaining bus routes onto narrower and less-convenient Wigmore Street, banishing taxis from useful spots such as the Selfridges cab rank at the same time. Planning all these schemes wasn’t done overnight, so I don’t see why similar effort and money can’t be put into prioritising bus services that are used by a far wider cross-section of the public than the vocal minority who cycle. Why not start there?
Cars/traffic slowdown buses. Anything that makes driving cheaper and easier will (all else equal) lead to more car journeys and slower buses. Anything that makes it a bit less convenient will mean fewer journeys and faster buses. Ideally we’d have road charging to really free up capacity on main roads but the (mostly) same people who oppose LTNs also put paid to those plans
Similarly dubious enterprises are often soliciting at folding tables set up in the ticket hall of Holland Park Station. I am surprised that TFL allows them on the premises.
Do get in touch and we'll look into it!
A charming bunch calling themselves “Veterans Association” very stridently calling for donations in the lobby of Notting Hill Gate station this morning. The signs are different, but the setup is similar.
I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that they always appear shortly after racially aggravated violence has made the news headlines.
Congratulations on the nominations. Thanks for highlighting issues around organisations fundraising. One of them is particularly persistent if you're female and comments on one's appearance. I run the other way now. Unfortunately this may mean crossing the road, which isn't easy on a crossing in central London, as the e-bikes do not stop at red lights, which mean it's an adrenaline-fuelled experience as a pedestrian.
Does anyone know how much the rise of Uber and other "ride sharing" schemes has had an effect on reduced bus usage?
Alas Homeless in Need appears to have migrated to London Bridge station as of this week
These fake 'charities' infuriate me. So many groups ARE doing good work, and ARE spending their money properly, and these bad apples can really challenge people's faith in all charitable enterprises.
We sometimes have door knockers asking for money for football teams/leagues that I have a feeling are fake. Next time they knock I will ask for more details and do a bit of googling.
Congratulations on the well deserved nominations! 🥂. I get so much more information from London centric than other publications and am often quoting facts at friends/family around the latest hot topic. Excellent journalism 👏🏼
Why should non-Muslims try to understand Islam? Does it matter?
Let me start by saying: "Islam is unique among the world's major religions at the structural level, that is rarely discussed plainly." it contains, within its own authoritative legal tradition, a framework for governing people who never chose it. What i mean by that is: That those who follow Islam [The house of Islam] are required to govern those who never chose to follow Islam [the non-believers or house of war]. This is not an interpretation from the fringes. It is the mainstream position of classical Sunni jurisprudence. Ibn Kathir, Al-Suyuti, Al-Shafi'i. These are not extremists. They are the tradition's own most respected voices, and they say it plainly.
Every other major religion exists to transform the lives of those who voluntarily embrace it. [Islam does that too]. But Islam also contains a legal architecture that is derived directly from its foundational texts, which divides the world into the house of Islam and the house of war. Islamic doctrine imposes perpetual conflict between Islam and those who do not embrace Islam, until the house of Islam prevails against the non believers. ALL of the Islamic branches and sects across the various Islamic theological and legal schools have codified this. And it has been established by its greatest classical jurists. Mandating ongoing conflict until Islam absorbs the kafirs, and specifies legal conditions under which non-Muslims may be permitted to continue to live, under Islamic authority. And subject to specific taxes, restrictions, and formal ritualized humiliation. This is why Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
There is a second thing non-Muslims need to understand, which is abrogation.
The Quran contains verses of patience, coexistence, and tolerance. It also contains verses commanding perpetual warfare against unbelievers until Islam prevails. These two sets of verses do not coexist as equal options. The Islamic legal tradition has a formal mechanism called naskh. In English we say abrogation. Abrogation is a fancy way of saying that the most recent instructions over ride the older instructions. Like a software update. But it can also help to think of it in a historical seance when looking at the Quran, where later revelations override earlier ones. Because the Quran was not written down all at once, but piecemeal, as it became convenient for Muhammad to receive words from his pet Angel. Al-Suyuti counted more than one hundred peaceful verses abrogated by a single later verse. The peaceful Quran that is typically presented to Western audiences is from the earlier verses. Because the Quran is entirely out of chronological order in an effort to impress the critics by placing the bigger and more impressive chapters at the front of the book and the smaller ones tucked away at the back. This is when Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
And then there is taqiyya. The doctrine that grants permission, under subjectively convenient conditions, to be deceptive. To an enemy, to your wife, or to further the goals of Islamic domination. According to the judgment of the deceiver. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented feature of Islamic jurisprudence, debated and defined by the tradition's own scholars. And agreed upon by the top schools of Islamic studies. This is precisely how shariah law creeps into our institutions and law codes.
None of this means every Muslim is your enemy. It means that understanding Islam from its own authoritative sources, not from its most marketable presentations, is not optional for anyone who wants to think clearly about the world they are living in.
That is what my work is about.
There is a significant error in your story. Neither Inside Success or We R Blighty are registered charities.
From the article:
“Like other groups spotted soliciting money outside London stations, such as Inside Success and We R Blighty, Homeless In Need is not a charity – although this distinction might not be immediately apparent to anyone rushing by on their way to work.”