BBC News - Council faces legal action over Oxford congestion charge - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Reporter didn't mention that the two shopowners quoted are next door to each other, by Longwall junction, or ask if they'd like a wider pavement when there's less traffic.

Beautiful data from @benansell.bsky.social - (vertical axis is cultural, horizontal is economic, grey blobs are don't knows) Labour would clearly be more comfortable in culturally liberal territory: probably better to govern authentically and give the don't knows at least one decent option.

Heyford Park "significant" challenges

Piling through Tamworth at 125mph, crossing the WCML (also 125mph). Is there anywhere else in the country where you can do 125mph on two distinct axes?

A few months ago there was a small news story about northern leaders sticking to the airport route between Liverpool and Manchester. From which you might surmise that a more direct route had been advised and rejected.

Maybe, just maybe, DfT/HMT/No10 could line up behind some projects that are value-for-money.

Oxford’s congestion charge will come into effect on 29 October. Oxfordshire County Council announced the start date this morning as well as opening up the online portal to apply for permits. www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-an...

Little is yet known about how Great British Railways will be organised. Will it be one amorphous brand, or divided geographically, or by market? Around the edges, the emerging pattern is geography-with-exceptions, but what do we do about the seven operators in the middle? 1/6

It's almost as if you cut and paste their press releases ... is a line that could stick

The LibDems could do with curating a few key active challenges to current govt policy. But sensible+stunts is fine.

There's an interesting balance in rail economic cases between more frequent local services (high benefits, low revenue, low webs) and longer distance (lower benefits, higher revenue, higher webs)

£161m is the cost they originally agreed for widening the bridge, building a new platform, and a new west entrance, so not sure if this is a coincidence or wires crossed.

The mad bus man strikes again!

I appreciate that some are currently feeling threatened. But you dont fight fire with fire.

Listening to the gentle roar of the A34 at Binsey Church and realising that a lot of my basic approach to transport is essentially aesthetic.

Typical per capita funding for rail enhancements is £30 per person per year. Or £15m/yr for Oxfordshire. To give a sense of scale, the current debacle at the railway station has blown that budget for at least ten years. It's completely unclear how this "plan" could be afforded.

Flags are a mark of respect to your counterpart; an acknowledgment of the rules of engagement. That your opponent might win. Flying a flag unilaterally undermines this association with rules. Show some respect.

New route into town from Botley Road. Narrow/windy to start with then decent under bridge.

Any BRES experts out there? Has south-east Hemel Hempstead (Breakspear Park) really grown from 2500 to 58000 employees? That's the same number of jobs as Liverpool city centre (Liverpool 062; Pier Head).

Paul Swinney (@paulswinney.bsky.social) criticises the West Mids growth plan for failing to focus on Birmingham city centre. Very fair, though there are also similar opportunities for Coventry, and possibly Wolverhampton. Commuting from the edge of either to Birmingham is a bit of a trek.

The end of this article (from February) about learning not to react is interesting, and perhaps explains Labour's current approach to Reform's silly season endeavours.

New walking route under Botley Road railway bridge emerging. No wider than existing but straighter/shorter.

Nice bit of nominative determinism with the name of that photographer!

The essence of Northern Powerhouse Rail is having a large positive economic impact on the major cities of the north. Building a new fast rail line on that axis would indeed have that impact, but it would be rather at the expense of everyone else (since we all would be paying for it). 1/4

They're just trolling him now

One of the few instances where a log scale would be appropriate would be in a comparative graph of earthquakes. But no. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...

Most of the English have about as much enthusiasm for racism as Mrs Bennet had for concertos

The DfT's attitude to land is basically that they'll acquire it when they need it. So not really surprising that they stop safeguarding the HS2 Eastern Leg and sell the land. The route along the M1 was unlikely to be resurrected any which way.

Not sure the rapid rollout of tactiles included for maintenence. Thousands of trip hazards developing.

The lesson from HS2 is probably to maintain flexibility, so politicians can gracefully change their minds. Always have a fallback (or growth) option available.

The politicians wanted a shiny high speed line, and broadly that's what they are getting. Just not quite as much as they hoped for. Key learning: it does help if the numbers also add up. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Shippea Hill station must be somebody's idea of a joke. No hill anywhere near!

Domestic transport carbon is dominated by lorries, cars and vans. Most trips aren't readily shifted to rail. So the absolute priority as far as carbon is concerned is battrification of lorries, cars and vans. Building railways is mostly about city-focused jobs/growth/housing.

This bridge in Norwich nicely puts the pedestrians on the edge and the bikes in the middle. Keeps the bikes away from the parapet and uses road-style priorities to manage conflicts. Better than the more-normal 50/50 split.

Nice to see #HS2 coming along Here's the Colne Valley viaduct

There will always be limits on rail capacity, with trade-offs between local, intercity and freight. Rather than try to argue our way to a consensus, maybe it'd be more sensible to challenge promoters to provide fallback options. Because that is actually what you are choosing between.

There are at least a dozen operators providing services as part of London's integrated transport system. Having a common ticketing system (travelcard, then oyster) is much more important than liveries or management.

Kudos to the civil servant who got the words 'new approach to appraisal' into the Green Book review.

I'm thinking that the Financial Case might come before the Economic Case. First you work out what you need to do. Then assess what resources might be available. Then figure out if there's a practical way to achieve the result with the resources.

This is what caused all the extensive rail disruption around Birmingham yesterday. I'd like to see the maintenence report into why the defect wasn't spotted and rectified before it caused all that disruption.

I do wonder if the focus on agglomeration has distracted us from the fact that a large chunk of the population *don't* live in the biggest cities. It's a big tail to ignore, if its issues can reasonably be addressed. Arguably, small cities are easier than metro suburbs.

A normal solution to boarding/alighting passengers conflicting with passing traffic is ... put the tram/bus platforms in the middle of the street. (This means taking more space away from cars.)

In most places you can achieve a pretty good outcome for cyclists by organising parking, painting cycle lanes and 20mph. Most places could also do with restricting car use for journeys to town/city centres, but that's more a for-everyone policy.

The UK govt now has a rationale for increasing taxes in the autumn - protecting the elderly and infirm. I don't think this was deliberate, just the way it panned out.

There are severe delays on the Elizabeth line between Gidea Park and Shenfield... due to *unforeseen circumstances* Eh what?

Unusual facing ecs move on the up slow line at Bletchley derails (heading north roughly at the gantry)

The Infrastructure Strategy does not even mention rail electrification.

20/20 hindsight review of the HS2 business case: Coherent strategy - yes Value-for-money - no Affordable - no Supplier capability - no Sound governance - no It should probably have been structured to be done in stages.

For me this sums up James Stewart's review of HS2: 'the HS2 Programme is an order of magnitude bigger than any other UK infrastructure project' We bit off more than we could chew. That doesn't mean we can't manage it better, but also: maybe take smaller bites in future.

The county council is at this moment discussing a possible congestion charge for the City of Oxford (being reported live by @oxfordclarion.bsky.social). Here seventy years ago on 5 December 1955 John Betjeman states on Panorama how he would solve the congestion caused by cars in central Oxford