Wednesday 27 July 2011

TfL’s Leon Daniels is indignant about delays to motor vehicles

TfL said closure of two lanes in Marylebone Road this weekend had led to "long queues" and was "unacceptable".

Thames Water said the work to identify the cause of seepage at Baker Street station was brought forward by two weeks at the request of TfL. Pin-pointing an underground leak was "easier said than done", it added.

Leon Daniels, TfL's managing director for Surface Transport, said: "We have had another busy summer Sunday with long delays whilst the problem with the leaking water main remains unsolved. "I contacted Thames Water on Sunday to draw their attention to this unacceptable failure and to demand an explanation.

Sounds like Mr Daniels got stuck in the jam himself, he sounds so peeved…

When ‘traffic’ is ‘flowing smoothly’ along Marylebone Road it is one of the most polluted locations in London. Cyclists are advised to minimise the risk from to their health from air pollution in this way:

"The best way to protect yourself against pollution is to avoid hotspots such as Marylebone Road, Euston Road and Upper Thames Street rather than adopt a sticking plaster solution like masks."

Leon Daniels, like TfL as an institution, is obsessed with motor vehicle flow, irrespective of its consequences for health, cycling or walking. TfL is a cancer at the heart of London, relentlessly pushing for faster, easier driving.

Congestion for cyclists and pedestrians troubles Mr Daniels not one jot. In fact he is one of the people who is making it worse.

At his Street Talk in June Andy Cameron from WSP argued for an additional green man phase at Oxford Circus, on the basis that it’s used by 40,000 pedestrians an hour and only 2,000 vehicles an hour at peak times.

An additional green person phase? We don’t need that. We need Oxford Street and Regent Street closed to ALL motor vehicles during the day and access strictly restricted to service vehicles at night.