How poor public transport policy is putting the brake on cities | Letters

David Andrews suggests a tram network could be the answer to London’s clogged streets, while V Narayanan says unused cycle lanes are a waste of valuable road space Your analysis of slowing buses in global cities sets out the mechanism exactly, and the remedy follows from it ( London buses in decline? Why public transport in global cities is slowing to a crawl – visualised, 23 September ). Transport for London’s own calculation that a 10% fall in speed costs 6% of demand and Imperial College London’s finding of the same decline across 15 cities show what happens to buses as the traffic thickens around them. Retiming the lights will not reverse it, and London is already trying. The phrase to n

What is happening The Guardian reports: David Andrews suggests a tram network could be the answer to London’s clogged streets, while V Narayanan says unused cycle lanes are a waste of valuable road space Your analysis of slowing buses in global cities sets out the mechanism exactly, and the remedy follows from it ( London buses in decline? Why public transport in global cities is slowing to a crawl – visualised, 23 September ). Transport for London’s own calculation that a 10% fall in speed costs 6% of demand and Imperial College London’s finding of the same decline across 15 cities show what happens to buses as the traffic thickens around them. Retiming the lights will not reverse it, and London is already trying. The phrase to n The problem The public problem in this report is the one named by the source: “How poor public transport policy is putting the brake on cities | Letters”. A response on MLAIEL should not add a cause, a number, or a remedy the source does not state. Open the source for the detail. What a team can do on MLAIEL A team can look at the transport problem the source describes — a cut, a delay, a closure, or a safety warning — and open a project whose claims match that report. Source The Guardian — How poor public transport policy is putting the brake on cities | Letters https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/01/how-poor-public-transport-policy-is-putting-the-brake-on-cities