There is an important truth to transport that many people igno
Transport is all about urban planning. In fact, urban planning is more
crucial for a well-functioning transport system than the choice of
transport modes themselves. If you get urban planning right,
everything
else will fall into place.

The British transport system is a mess. Nothing seems to work
properly. The roads are congested, the trains are unreliable, the
buses are slow, the airports are crumbling and the cycle paths are
inadequate. Can it be fixed?

I've noticed that on this forum most solutions focus on transport
modes (build more roads, build less roads, encourage cycling, make
longer trains, bus lanes, no bus lanes, etc.) but very little
attention is paid to urban planning.

I think that politicians have been making the same mistake.
Politicians treat roads and railways as isolated systems,
and all they do is expand them locally in response to shortages.
But a transport mode is only a component of a greater
system of interdependencies.

Unlike the US and most of Europe the UK does not have a coherent urban
planning strategy. We have a mishmash of contradicting philosophies.
Beeching axes the railways. New Labour wants them back. One guy
introduces Green Belts. The next guy promotes high-rises. But then
along comes Maggie and suddenly wants a "great car economy" but only
pulls the project half way through. New Tories want everyone to cycle
again...

The result is a patchwork of incompatible urban designs: We have
American-style suburban single-family housing subdivisions. We have
American-style supermalls. But we don't have the American 12-lane
motorways to link them. We have out-of-town business parks, but people
live in terraced housing and have nowhere to park their car when they
get home. We have European-style passenger railways, but lack the
high-density, mixed use European cities to make them viable. We have
cycle
lanes but culs-de-sacs and roundabouts that render them useless.

There is a theory that automobiles are economic at low population
densities and public transport is economic at high densities. But at
medium densities neither is economic. Cars require large amounts of
space. Trains work well when there are large amounts of people to fill
them. I think that the crux of the matter is that most British cities
(including London) have been allowed to slip into this medium density
limbo.

Before talking about fixing transport through congestion charging etc,
shouldn't Britain first decide whether it wants to become Atlanta or
Hong Kong? And stick to the chosen path?