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routemaster design
Where have we got to with the Mayor of London's extremely generous competition to design a new London bus? In December the 2 winning designs were announced, and the contract to build, test and commission a prototype was recently advertised. Unfortunately for the mayor, Arriva and Metroline have put a lot of double-decker Enviro-400 buses out in London. One striking features of the mayor's winning designs is their curviness. Well the Enviro-400 is pretty curvey too, and since most people won't care much beyond the visual impact of the new routemaster should it ever hit the road, the whole thing looks a little irrelevant.
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Nottingham tram
Nottingham's tram extension would be scrapped if the Conservatives won the County Council after next month's elections on the grounds that the potential benefits are mostly to the city rather than county. This is however less true for the new lines than the original one, primarily because one of the new lines stops at the enormous Queens Medical Centre, the primary hospital for the county, where in all likelihood most people in the county will need to go at some point in their lives. A quick link from the city to the hospital will benefit a lot of people outside the city boundary.

Despite all their hot air about high speed rail, judge Conservatives on what they do about transport, not what they say.
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