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Commuting in Lagos

How Lagos hopes a railway will end daily endurance test and change lives

Lagos is badly in need of mass public transport beyond its recently introduced bus rapid transit system. Nigeria's commercial capital, built on a swamp and a series of islands, will overtake Cairo as Africa's biggest city in the next five years with a population of 12.4 million, according to the UN.

Urban expansion is one of the biggest challenges facing Africa as people migrate from rural areas in search of a better life. With its cities set to triple in size over the next 40 years, overcrowded slums, choked roads and pollution are already big problems.

It is hoped that a rail renaissance can be part of the solution.

Bike in' the city

London Transport Museum's cycling illustration competition

The London Transport Museum, which hosts one of the world's most important collections of graphic art, asked illustrators to draw the links between cycling in the capital, environment issues, health and fun. Fifty of the 1,000-plus entries are now on display at the museum, in London's Covent Garden, until 22 August

Campaign to boost cycling in Beijing

BICYCLES are the solution in Beijing

After wrestling for years with Beijing's appalling traffic and pollution problems, city planners have come up with a distinctly old-fashioned solution: bicycles.

 

Improving public transport on the River Thames

At a Rate of Knots

The Thames is London’s historic highway yet it is invisible on the transport canvas of London. Transport for London has even taken it off the standard Tube map. The river promises an exciting new transport network for Londoners, at a fraction of the normal cost for infrastructure projects, but needs sustained political leadership to make it happen.

This Policy Exchange report argues that we can make much more of the river for very little cost, producing a new, integrated and expanded service which will offer a great new option for many of London’s commuters. The river is a core part of London’s identity yet it is cut off from its transport network.

Celebrating suburbia

London Transport Museum has announced its next major exhibition, SUBURBIA- which will open on 15 October 2009.

Suburbia will explore how public transport helped to create the myths and identity of suburbia and how it has featured in the cultural fabric of London and Britain over the last 100 years. The look of the suburbs will be explored through images of domestic and commercial architecture and gardens shown alongside pictures of the railway and Underground stations built to serve them. 

I’m proud to be a son of the suburbs  Richard Godwin in the Evening Standard

Lords decide cycle ride case

BREAKING NEWS

The Law Lords have decided that a group does not have  to give advance notice to police before cycling through London.

Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, said evidence showed officers were usually able to police the event.

Allowing the appeal he said anyone proposing similar processions with no predetermined route for the first time elsewhere in the country would be acting within the law.

Saying he was unable to give the law "this draconian effect" Lord Phillips said: "It is inconceivable that Parliament could have intended, by a sidewind, to outlaw events such as Critical Mass."

In 2006, the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court ruling and said organisers of the Critical Mass ride must notify police giving a date, time and route.

BACKGROUND   When is a demo not a demo?

For good neighbours, live in a quiet, car-free street

People in busy roads more likely to be ill, says study. Lack of traffic promotes sense of community.

New research, based on interviews with households on three Bristol streets, has found that people who live with high levels of motor traffic are far more likely to be socially disconnected and even ill than people who live in quiet, clean streets.

 

Helicopters and traffic in Brazil

High above Sao Paulo's choked streets, the rich cruise a new highway

 The helicopter craze currently sweeping Sao Paulo is also a tale of two radically different cities. Above, the space-age world where flying news teams trawl the skies for their next scoop and wealthy executives glide effortlessly between luxury condominiums, beach resorts and business meetings; below, the gridlocked mayhem where the vast majority of residents crush together in an orgy of congestion and motorcycle crashes.

Global port cities under threat

Guardian Unlimited Photo essay

New research aims to pinpoint which cities are most reliant on adequate flood defences, and investigates how climate change is likely to impact each port city’s exposure to coastal flooding by the 2070s, taking into account socio-economic factors such as population growth and urbanisation.