Articles

In response to the 'triple challenges’ of the climate emergency, congestion, and toxic air pollution (whereby poor air quality kills 9,400 in London each year), TfL have launched a consultation on plans to expand the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to cover a much larger extent of the capital from 29th August 2023. The new ULEZ will cover the extent of the existing Low Emission Zone (LEZ), encompassing most of Greater London.

Last week, the Markides Associates team had the privilege of visiting the brand-new facility of PEARL (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory), part of UCL at the invitation of Professor Nick Tyler CBE FREng.

With temperatures set to soar up to 40 degrees Celsius in some areas of the UK, many of us are thinking about the heat. It’s becoming a regular observation that our urban areas are increasingly hot and dry. Parks turn brown in the summer. Reservoirs are depleted. Even in my own little microcosm, I find the plants I can grow easily in the countryside are no match for the arid suntrap that is my London garden. Chili peppers survive but become nuclear in self-defence against the heat while soft-leaved plants simply wither up, burnt out by the sun.

Recently, I’ve been undertaking a number of healthy streets audits and now this heatwave has me thinking that a ‘healthy’ street should be one in which climate extremes don’t occur.

Car free neighbourhoods are not a new concept, many examples exist across Europe, particularly in countries like Denmark and Germany. Car free developments or Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) are also increasingly popular (although often controversial) in the UK and have been the common in London for a number of years.

It is widely recognised that the transport world is evolving at apace: whether that be in the switch to electric vehicles, increases in the levels of active travel observed, or the home delivery phenomenon accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

But what does all this mean for developers and transport planners? And how can development provide resilience in a future world filled with so much uncertainty?

The myth of Atlantis is well-known, and the story has been so captivating that some people have even gone in search of the lost city. However, very few people will have paid due attention to the word ‘’myth’’ which is very significant because that is exactly what Atlantis is - a myth!

This week, October 11 – 15, is National Work Life Week. National Work Life Week is an opportunity for both employers and employees to focus on well-being at work and work-life balance.

We were delighted for our client, and everyone involved in the wider Battersea Power Station and Northern Line Extension (NLE) projects to see the opening of Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms Stations this week.

You probably do not need to be a transport planner to be aware of Dr Beeching. Almost 60 years ago, he published a report that spelt the end for over 2,300 stations, 5,000 miles of track and ultimately closed numerous branch lines up and down the country.

Even without the upheaval of a global pandemic, most of us would say there are more cars in London now than there used to be, so it seems logical to assume more cars equals more car ownership. Except this is assuming that ‘car ownership’ is just a gross count of the number of cars in any given area, and as anyone who has dipped a toe in psychology or statistics will tell you, that’s just not how either numbers or people work.