London ‘travel chaos’ as Tube strikes and storms disrupt journeys of millions of passengers

7th February 2014

London Undergound workers held a 48-hour strike this week with another due next week over the threatened closure of Tube ticket offices. Whilst The Mayor and Transport for London put in place plans to ‘keep the capital moving’ there has been widespread disruption for millions of London’s commuters, compounded by bad weather affecting rail networks.

The impacts of the strikes and bad weather highlight the importance of travel within the everyday functioning of a city, but they also hint at the powerful and long-term relationship between a city and its transport networks. Indeed, as Sir Peter Hall has described, a city and its transport system could be said to have a symbiotic relationship in which each shapes the other.

The ITC’s Why Travel? project brings together leading experts such as Sir Peter Hall to examine these important interactions between travel and our social and built environments, and to better understand our fundamental motivations for travel. To find out more, please see our website www.whytravel.org