FTL

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026 Since the extension of the Elizabeth line to Heathrow passenger numbers on the Heathrow Express (HEX) have plummeted – there are now an average of 80 passengers on each 460-capacity train. A recently published position paper from Future Transport London1 suggests that this is an inefficient use of the heavily used lines out of Paddington and that the contract, which expires in 2028, should not be renewed. The Eliz

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026 The scheme put forward by business group Camden Town Unlimited in 2023 to open an elevated public park and greenway from Camden Town to King's Cross alongside the North London rail line has been ‘paused’. The proposal was to make use of currently disused railway land alongside the live railway. Future Transport London objected to the scheme principally because the land is likely to be needed in the future to incre

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026 By Neil Roth Future Transport London had been campaigning (notably in Camden New Journal) for years against the proposed ‘temporary’ Camden Highline walkway, the collapse of which was announced on 12th May 2026. It was a campaign on which all members are agreed: that the two, currently disused North London Line (NLL) tracks between Camden Road station and York Way, should be returned to railway use instead. What

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026 By Andrew Bosi The High Speed 2 railway rivals Sir Keir Starmer for the number of resets yet it clings on to its existence albeit in a truncated form. The latest announcement by the Secretary of State for Transport followed the publication of the Lovegrove report into what went wrong, and some interim recommendations from Mark Wild’s on-going review of how the project should be reset. The Lovegrove report is usefu

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026 By Dick Dunmore In 2003, Transport for London introduced a Contactless alternative to magnetic ticket readers and optical scanners. Instead, yellow electronic ticket readers transmit a Near Field Communication (NFC) signal powerful enough to charge and operate a circuit on chipped card at a distance of up to 40 millimetres. Passengers buy and use Oyster cards, which can store a Travelcard, a pass such as a Freedom P

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026 Mayor’s bid to run Great Northern Inners The Mayor has submitted a proposal to take the clumsily named ‘Great Northern Inners’ out of GBR control and absorb them into London Overground. The lines from Moorgate extend beyond London to Welwyn Garden City and Stevenage. They include the Hertford Loop, which would need the kind of improvements associated with London Overground if plans for a new town at Crews Hill

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter April 2026 SL11 Neil Roth reports: new Superloop route S11 seems to have made a good start. Its scheduled 45 minutes compares with 60 minutes for the 472 which it has replaced. His journey took slightly more than 45 minutes because of roadworks but loadings were good, enhanced by bus enthusiasts. The average speed of about 9mph for the 472 is now about 12mph for the S11, a good average compared with general London bus speeds

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter April 2026 By Neil Roth In an article dated 13/01/26, Murky Depths says that TfL ….seemingly fail to realise many in Thamesmead – both existing and future residents – will want to reach Abbey Wood or Woolwich for the Elizabeth line and so persist with the flawed DLR project which will do nothing to improve that situation.’ The current DLR project is intended to serve new housing on both sides of the river: at Beckton Riversi

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter April 2026 This is the final version of Dick Dunmore’s series on accessing underground rail stations Lifts and locations The provision of lifts at new stations has led to two new issues. First, avoiding steps completely on long journeys still involves careful study of lift guides like the one below, which suggests that merely to cross Paddington from Elizabeth line to Paddington Basin means finding and using six lifts. On a r

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter April 2026 By Andrew Bosi The recent decline in bus passenger numbers now exercising the Mayor and GLA Transport Committee is not a new phenomenon. From 1958 to the early 1980s there was steady decline in bus usage. In the ten years to December 1969 the scheduled fleet fell from 7756 to 6900, if Country buses and Green Line services are included. Scheduled red buses fell from 6451 to 5785. This decline reflected a growth in p

The Future Transport London newsletter has been produced three times a year. This will now be increased to four times a year so this issue is April. We are still looking for a new editor and I would be delighted to hear from anyone who feels they would like to take this on. Please email me on chrisjbarker46@gmail.com for further information. As usual we cover a variety of different forms of sustainable transport in this issue and conclude Dick Dunmore’s survey of methods of

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter April 2026 By Vincent Stops FTL Newsletter no. 51 (May 24) led on the controversy around SUBBs – Shared User Bus Boarders, the type of floating bus stops where passengers must cross a cycle lane to get between a bus stop and a bus. In November 2025 a pause in the installation of SUBBs was announced by the DfT. Now SUBBs have come under further criticism, following the publication of updated DfT guidance on the installation o

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 2026 Plans for Oxford Street On Sunday afternoon, 21 st September, thousands of people thronged Oxford Street eager to experience it totally free of traffic. The closure of this half mile section was a foretaste of what Mayor Sadiq Khan hopes will become permanent. He was present at the opening of the street and said the one-day trial banning traffic from part of Oxford Street marks ‘the day the fight back began to r

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 202 6 In mid November City AM reported Housing Secretary Steve Reed as suggesting that housing developments around railway stations would be ‘permitted development’, ie not requiring planning permission. Mayor Sadiq Khan opposed building on the green belt in his first two election manifestos but more recently has changed his view. There is some misconception of the green belt. It is not all green pastures. It wa

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 202 6 London’s E-Bike Boom: Convenience Meets Chaos E-bikes have transformed the way Londoners travel over the past few years, offering a convenient, zero-emission way to move around the city. They’ve quickly become a favourite for commuters and casual riders alike, so popular, in fact, that it’s often a race to find one for the morning journey to work. But this boom has also brought confusion and frustration. Many

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 202 6 Funding was announced in the Autumn Budget for the £1.7 bn. 3-km DLR extension to Thamesmead. The scheme includes one new station at Beckton Riverside (to serve new housing); another in Thamesmead Town Centre (also to serve new housing). These stations will be linked by twin tunnels under the river. The elevated DLR station at Thamesmead is explicitly designed for further extension and, in response to the most r

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 202 6 At Clean Cities, we recently launched the Carspreading campaign to tackle a trend that is quietly reshaping our streets: cars are getting bigger, wider and heavier and the consequences of this shift are significant. Research shows cars are becoming around 1cm wider every two years, while average vehicle weight has increased by around 400kg in the past seven years. This shift is being driven by the rapid rise o

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 202 6 Part 3 of Dick Dunmore’s look at accessing underground rail stations By the early 2020s all was not well with the Cutty Sark escalators, and eventually all four were closed. The limited capacity of the single small lift forces most passengers to use up to 121 steps, or use the next station, above ground at Greenwich. The closures have led to several Freedom of Information requests and petitions, many of them a

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter September 2025 With the HS2 tunnelling stopped at Old Oak Common, is now the time to...

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter September 2025 Express orbital bus routes were not invented with Superloop: the Trans...