Dave Arquati wrote:

Jeremy Parker wrote:
I think that there was a suggestion, round about 1870, that
Farringdon be such a thing. Didn't the Circle Line have broad gauge
tracks, as well as standard, at one time?

The only thing I remember about the Abercrombie plan of 1943 was that
it proposed to abolish Waterloo.

I liked its plan to have aeroplane landing strips on the roof of all
the main line terminals, for the taxi planes bringing people into
town from the long-haul airports.

This was standard thinking for some time - the French government
considered not building the first TGV line to Lyon because there would
be dozens of STOL runways on roofs across Paris allowing people to get
to and from Lyon much more quickly.


I'm fascinated by these postwar notions of STOLports everywhere!
Reading about the development of London City Airport it would seem that
in the 80's people were pretty certain that STOLports were going to be
big as well - but whilst LCY is doing well STOLports haven't cropped up
everywhere else as was predicted. I'm not an expert on LCY, but as it's
had a runway extension to enable it to take larger aircraft perhaps it
doesn't really qualify as a STOLport anymore. Or maybe the term just
never really caught on!

Given the environmental damage that flying does perhaps it's just as
well these ideas didn't materialise. That said the aviation industry
has managed to expand massively anyway without STOLports so perhaps it
doesn't really make much of a difference anyway.

Indeed there is a slightly contradictory view that's comes across on
this newsgroup - on the one hand public transport is approved of given
it's environmental credentials, yet people are very keen to ensure
there are good public transport links to airports so people can fly
more. An argument can be made saying that the better the public
transport links are the more people will be encouraged to fly (and fly
more often) - an argument which could particularly be made in the case
of LCY - but I've don't think I've ever read any such notions expressed
on utl.

I'm not rabidly anti-flying, but the truth is this method of transport
has significant negative effects on the environment. The problem is
people are now hooked on air travel so such arguments often cut a
little too close to the bone for some.