The transport engineers should leave the naming up to someone else as a swathe of papers are published by the Combined Authority – including an updated Bus Service Improvement Plan
One of the items it links to is a proposed improved Oxford-Cambridge cycleway.
Above – you can read about the Varsity Way here
“Who is England’s Economic Heartland?”
The sub-national transport authority that covers Cambridge looks westward, and I wrote about it before. The problem is that east of Cambridge is a separate body that represents Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex – Transport East. Whichever way you look at it, the set up doesn’t really work for either. But it’s what the Tories in government came up with after Eric Pickles did away with the previous regional structures back in 2010 – other departments realising only too late that some sort of regional presence might have been useful. As such, regional consistency between the Whitehall silos went out of the window.
37MB of meeting papers means reports with pictures and diagrams in
You can browse through the CPCA Transport Committee Papers for 22 July 2024 here
One of them includes things on buses.
There is also a technical appendix with more data maps and tables.
Above – Table 3 of the Technical Appendix – you can see how one company dominates
So much for competition driving up standards and services that Thatcher’s Government promised in the 1980s. Only this is obviously not a competitive market.
Cycling to Oxford and back – and vice-versa
I’ve known of a couple of hardcore cyclists who have managed this journey over the years, but it would never be something I would contemplate. One of the things that East-West-Rail should provide an opportunity for is an increase in travel between the two university cities that might otherwise not take place. How many additional journeys improved cycleways between the two cities would lead to is hard to tell, but the connectivity within the network – connecting up villages and nearby towns along the way is an added bonus.
Above – Item 11 Appendix A of the Connecting Economies, C&P Report, p26
This links back to the study by EEH/Sustrans mentioned here
The transport policies of the new government – what are they?
We will find out over the next few weeks in terms of the detail, but the King’s Speech in the formal Opening of Parliament on Wednesday 17th July 2024 will list the proposed pieces of new legislation that ministers will table before Parliament in this session. That’s when we will find out whether there will be any new bills covering housing, planning, and transport – which given Labour’s manifesto is all but guaranteed. What people will want to know is what new powers, rights, and responsibilities ministers are seeking and for whom in the proposed legislation.
Food for thought?
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The Cambridge Town Owl 