How the Car Broke London

The first 500 people to use my link https://skl.sh/faultline10231 will get access to one of Skillshare’s best offers: 30 days free AND 40% off your first year of Skillshare membership!

In a city that is famous for its public transportation, how did London become overrun with cars, and why are they making it impossible to use them? In this episode Andy travels across London, chatted with taxi drivers, urban planning experts and the public to try and understand How the Car broke London.

Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don’t miss any videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/Faultlinevideos/subscribed

Join our Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/faultline

Subscribe to @TomtheTaxiDriver

Short form content //
https://www.instagram.com/faultlinevideos/

@faultlinetv

Business enquiries // contact@faultlinevideos.com

Faultline is produced by:

Executive Producer/Story Editor/Host: Andy Burgess
Story/Research: Mack Mooney
Production Manager: Anjali Sharma
Editors: Andy Burgess
Motion Graphics: Jatin Nahata
Consultant: Professor Robin Hickman
Special thanks to @TomtheTaxiDriver

Additional Footage from Storyblocks & Archive.org
Archive Maps from David Rumsey
Music from Musicbed // https://fm.pxf.io/c/2423499/1347628/16252

Sources 🔗
Mapping London, Making Sense of the City by Simon Foxell
https://www.statista.com/statistics/314980/licensed-cars-in-london-england-united-kingdom/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-10/these-are-the-world-s-most-congested-cities
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64219939
https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does

INRIX 2022 Global Traffic Scorecard: London Tops List as Most Congested City, U.S. Cities Inch Closer

http://projectbritain.com/london/history/romans.html

London – Roman London

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wherry
https://www.walks.com/blog/slums-of-victorian-london/
https://www.agecrofthall.org/single-post/london-as-a-market-town
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/04/story-cities-14-london-great-stink-river-thames-joseph-bazalgette-sewage-system
https://s-platis.medium.com/american-cities-actually-werent-built-for-the-car-f4699d76454c#:~:text=The%20popular%20story%20that%20American,were%20largely%20demolished%20for%20cars
https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/parking-lots-eat-american-cities/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20about%20one%2Dfifth,centers%20is%20dedicated%20to%20parking
https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/stories/transport/very-short-history-underground
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/elizabeth-line/#:~:text=The%20Elizabeth%20line%20stretches%20more,200%20million%20people%20each%20year

London’s Congestion Charge celebrates 20 years of success

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/car-free-cities-opposition
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/05/the-truth-about-londons-air-pollution

Mapping London Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes and where we’re at

https://map2.hackney.gov.uk/maps/ltn-plan/index.html
https://bolt.eu/en/blog/car-free-city/#:~:text=A%20car-free%20city%20is,or%20limitations%20in%20specific%20areas.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/consultants/sites/consultants/files/maas_car_study_january_2018.pdf
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/mission-zero-independent-review-of-net-zero/#:~:text=The%20’net%20zero%20target’%20refers,the%20UK%20from%20the%20environment

Time Stamps:
0:00 – It’s becoming impossible to drive in London.
1:47 – Sponsored segment.
2:57 – Why would I buy a Car here?
3:35 – Londinium (Roman London).
4:18 – Hunting for the original Roman London Bridge.
5:00 – London’s street layout explained.
6:18 – Population overload.
7:26 – Adapting London’s streets for the Car.
8:00 – London’s Highway Obsession (1960s-1980s).
9:15 – Why London sucks for driving vs driving in the USA.
10:04 – Interviewing a London Taxi Driver.
11:38 – Why parking sucks in London.
11:58 – How London stops you driving.
16:23 – The Congestion charge.
16:57 – ULEZ explained.
18:44 – Why drivers hate these plant boxes.
20:37 – Talking to Londoners about driving here?
21:59 – Could London become free of Cars?
23:20 – Decision time.
24:18 – The future of transportation in London

#london #driving #urbandesign

London is one of the most congested cities in the world with 2.6 million cars packed into the streets and London drivers spend an insane 156 hours per year stuck in traffic and you can get fined here for almost anything I’m Fred of beer for every turnone I made LS

Probably north of 400 bro that is brutal it’s insane just over £1,000 and I work here I need my cof in a city that is famous for its public transportation how did London become overrun with cars and why are they making it impossible to use them so all these people here are paying

Everyone right now is in the congestion charging Zone you’re paying £5 here regardless in some areas roadblocks have been put in place to make neighborhoods safer which sparked a ton of backlash and kind of did the exact opposite think it’s a disaster now I have to travel 20

Minutes around it’s pathetic really and what this has done has created another invisible barrier all it does do is uh creates more pollution don’t care oh you don’t care oh I’m want you I wish I was like you man turns like you can also get fined if

You’re a cyclist so with such ridiculous findes heavy congestion long waiting hours in traffic in so many roadblocks who in their right mind would think about buying a car um that would be me but now I’m really not sure so I did what any rational person would do when

They’re looking to buy a car I spent weeks studying old Maps taking the tube chatting to taxi driver speaking with urban planning experts in the public to try and understand how the car broke London so before I explain this weird position I’m in I want to tell you about

The sponsor of this video skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes and members there is something for everyone with a wide variety of topics ranging from photography to graphic design and productivity I started making videos 7 years ago and I’m completely self-caught I didn’t have

Any formal education or institutions guiding me on how to make films and learning each individual part of the process has taken a long time and in 2019 I began using skillshare to build up a variety of skills faster to make me a better Storyteller like this one

Called film making for all by Dan mace and because I run my own business and I’m also a nerd for productivity hacks Building Systems and better workflows this one from Ali Abdul was great and right now I’m trying to understand 3D graphics better and I think I’m going to

Jump into one of the blender classes skillshare has to offer on this topic and if you want to unlock your creativity and learn something new the first 500 people to use our Link in the description will get access to one of skillshare’s best offers 30 days free

And 40% off your first year of skillshare membership thank you skillshare for supporting this video and now let’s dive back into how I discovered why it’s impossible to drive in London this story for me starts 6 years ago when I moved to London the first

Thing I did was sell my car because I was like I don’t need it cuz it just felt like there was no reason to have a car and in the past 6 years of living here I’ve somehow become a responsible adult and now have a child who needs a

Lot of stuff and unless we want to be stuck in London permanently for the next 18 years we kind of need some affordable transportation that is Baby Friendly and means we can easily get out of the city to visit friends and family hence the Dil

Of buying a car in a place that was never designed for them and to understand this story we have to go back like really really far back it was founded about 2,000 years ago in ad. 43 following the Roman invasion of Britain now straight away these new settlers had

A problem there is this huge river that flows through the land the Romans know that they need to build a Crossing so they go out and find a point near two Hills where the river is it its narrowest eventually the first version of London Bridge is built and the port

And trading city of London begins to expand around it so a very common misconception when people come to London is De that is London Bridge that is not London Bridge that is Tower Bridge this is London Bridge in fact this version of London Bridge was opened in 1973 but we are

Actually going to find one of the original pieces from the original Bridge from like the Roman CL where at least that’s where Mac is taking me to the depths of the temps do you know where we’re going not really Okay this plank of wood is the only remains of the original London Bridge this plank of wood is 2,000 years old why can’t I just touch it maybe I I’m not meant to I I don’t know we’re also on like a building site which is why it’s really loud and then

There’s a bunch of Builders looking around like what are these guys doing what are they looking at we’re looking at the original London Bridge right now the Romans were known for building these big straight roads meant for chariots and pedestrians in fact much of Britain’s modern highway system is based

On the roads that the Romans built all those years ago anyway eventually the Roman Empire collapses and a ton of these roads fall into disrepair and some are forgotten about throughout the Middle Ages London is subject to numerous invasions in different rulers and London’s Street layout continues to grow organically accommodating different

Types of transport and you can see what I mean today these cities network is a mixture of historic streets that date back centuries and modern thoroughfares many of these roads in the city center are narrow and winding adapted for horse drawn carriages in pedestrians rather than fancy cars like this but during the

Medieval period London’s design was already starting to run into limitations at this point in time people lived on London Bridge it’s a bustling Street in home to hundreds in fact for centuries London Bridge is the only Crossing across the river temps it means that it’s absurdly congested and most people

Just Cross by boat so a kind of boat taxi service is operated by the Waterman traveling by boat is a much more efficient way of not only crossing the temps but also maneuvering around the busy City but let’s jump forward to the 18th century where things start to get really

Hetic London is now entering the Industrial Revolution and its population starts to grow rapidly by 1851 London was the most populous city in the world with 2.3 million people crammed into this city mostly living in Slums okay so Victoria and London is mad busy and they need to come up with better accessibility and transportation so they decide to build these wider roads this is Ching Cross Road that was constructed in 1887 another major project was the construction of the Victoria embankment along the river temps it involved

Building out onto the river with a primary aim of providing London with an adequate sewage system and avoiding another great stink like the one that happened in 1858 but also to build a road that would relieve congestion in other parts of the city however most of

The traffic at the time was carts and not cars you can see in this clip how packed the city streets had Become by the mid 20th century cars are a ubiquitous feature of the London streets the streets have been developed slightly things like roundabouts and traffic signals have now been implemented but there still isn’t enough space for them and the urban designers have to come up with a new solution As

You move to the edge of London you can see that outter suburbs were extended and they were very car-based so that were reflectively urban planning and transport planning views of the time which were to copy the states and give big Highway capacity in the in the 1960s and70s the

Westway is constructed this major dual carriageway runs through West London and creates a new quick and easy route into the city its elevated design means that it does not disrupt the existing urban area while increasing its capacity for motor traffic what’s it been like living here well it has frankly been hell

Because at the moment the lights from the motorway mean that nobody in these bedrooms get any sleep the vibrations from the traffic mean that you’ll have a continuous Rumble and what we fear most of all is that you’ll get displacement look at this British row ad from 1979 trying to sway public opinion

To vote for more rail Transportation rather than something that you would see in America sorry America it’s a pretty good ad but regardless London’s Highway frenzy continues into the80s look at this this is a plan for the M25 an orbital Motorway circling the city in 1986 he

Found final section of the M25 is open the new Ring Road allows cars to circumvent the busy Center thus alleviating traffic from the city and reducing congestion however the road’s construction brings about concerns into its implications on the environment the city planners did the best they could in

Making London suitable for cars but they had their work set out from the start let me explain cities around the world have different amounts of space to work with when they’re building their streets plus there is a multitude of social and economic factors that are at play in City plan London differs significantly

From most American cities cities in the US are designed in a much more cast Centric way most of them having more room to work with leading to larger Urban sprws with wider roads big cars and a ton of parking lots whereas London’s narrow streets have led to more

Compact cars and a focus on public transportation lots of its major roads have to weave between historical buildings and famous landmarks and to look at it simply it still doesn’t have all this space to accommodate millions of Cars so nobody knows the Streets of London better than a black C driver so I figured the best thing to do would be just to H one down and see what they see what they say yo hey man St can I get in and ask you some questions go for it yeah okay

So what is it like being a black cap Drive in like modern day London I’m forever fearful every turn I make the fin is just going to land in my basically how much quicker can you get across London than can somebody driving London has so many variables yeah they

Could just be a bin lry blocking one part of the route really hard to account for all of these you know when we look at uh GPS’s and things but because of this road closures I’m having to think more and more creatively about how I can get round and what’s most frustrating is

That years ago I would have multitude of options if I’m thinking right I need to get a king’s cross from here or Houston my brain just alive with all these different options right that’s blocked I can go that way if that one’s blocked then I can go that way now I only have

Like one or two okay and when they get stuck I am screwed like that’s the issue if you want to see an extended conversation with Tom as we drive across London you can find it at what you like from monthly access into the workings of how we make our videos

And you’ll also be supporting us to make more ambitious work but back to this story there’s also a considerable lack of parking which means in a city resident areas have cars parked along both sides of the road instead of actually more space for people to drive down the Road all these factors combined cause two main problems congestion and pollution So what has the city done to tackle this issue one persuading drivers to get out of their cars this is done by encouraging more green travel like making public transport more attractive and faster and the second option is well punishing anybody that owns a car if I’m

Buying a car I need to know this but let’s start with the first option for most londoners it’s way more efficient to just get public transport London has one of the best public transport systems in the world everybody knows about the chbe it was the world’s first underground Railway to

Open to the public in 1863 and has been transporting passengers around the capital ever since the underground now handles 5 million Journeys a day and in 2022 the Elizabeth Line open which connected the East to the west of London London has one of the most extensive public transport systems even becomes

Iconic with sort of the mapping and the coloring of the roots here’s a hot take I think I’m going to have a few in this video I I’ll take the chebe but I hate it it’s hot it’s sweaty it’s crowded all the time because it’s been around for a long

Time it’s very old and that’s why people don’t like sitting on on some of the routs um that have old carriages and are very tightly designed and they might be noisy themselves London also has a pretty decent bus Network which I’m down with I use it a lot but again depending on the

Time of day it can also be held no retreat Retreat oh my God that was also not a good bus J that was a really bads and the third option for encouraging Greener travel is bike Lanes London has seen a massive uptake in cycling in the

Past decade with a 66% rise in the number of cyclists on the road between 2011 and 2021 and the city has adapted to this there is currently 210 Mi of bike Lanes across London’s Road network but that number is always increasing the target is to have a third of londoners

Living less than 400 m away from a high quality cycle route by 2020 5 and My Chosen way to get around the city is on an electric skateboard and as I’m filming this I’m very conscious of the fact that I look like Casey Maat but yeah electric skateboard for me best way to get around London and this is my commute to the office it is 90% cycle Lane which is fantastic and it goes right next to this main road where cars get stuck all day long and it’s

Just like a really nice way to commute I wouldn’t want to switch this for a car even if I got a car I wouldn’t drive to the office like that would be obscene slash another reason for not having a car like I’m not going to use it that often in cycling infrastructure doesn’t

Stop at bike Lanes there is also a pleer of bike boxes traffic lights and bike parking stations around the city in 2023 there are tens of thousands of bikes for hire on the streets these bike lanes are great but they are not consistent around the city

In some areas they are everywhere but in others they’re non-existent my cycle route into the city center is still awful we need to think dramatically differently for cycling you know it needs a big effort to give a lot of investment to better cycle facilities bettering public transport systems and

Adding things like bike Lanes is an example of persuading drivers to get out of their cars and onto other modes of transport and I also appreciate that not everybody can be as flexible as me and zip around the city on an electric skateboard or have the option to decide

If I want to rent a bike or jump on the bus or the tube there is still a lot of accessibility issues at tube stations a lot of stops are not wheelchair or push chair friendly and a lot of people actually require a vehicle for their job

In the city and if you fall into any of those categories you have to pay the price okay so let’s look at the ways that they punish motorists Britain’s most ambitious congestion charging scheme got underway in London today in 2003 the mayor of London introduces the congestion charge

This means that if you drive into this designated area between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. you have to pay a fee of £5 this charge has increased over time and today it’s £15 but the concept worked vehicle traffic has been reduced by 30% as a result pollution plummets however

Air conditions in the city are still poor in 2016 roughly a qu quart of London’s population still live in areas with illegal levels of air pollution studies are being published that children’s lung development is being restricted and premature deaths is still high this article suggests that London’s

Air is still the course of 9,000 deaths a year so to tackle this toxic air in the city the mayor of London introduces in 2019 the ultra low emission Zone UL it works by charging the old and most polluting Vehicles 12250 a day that drive in this part of the city while

It’s a crucial step towards a Greener future and a less polluted London it Sparks a ton of debate so do you feel that it is too expensive it’s too expensive buy a vehicle unless you got a motorbike or a bike overall I’m in favor of it I do understand the arguments

About air quality I think kind of pedestrianized streets are really great having said that whenever I was hit with a uless fine from my van it was the most annoying thing and it would have me bang my head against the wall in terms of ultra L emission zones and congestion

Charge I mean just look to the right hand side of us to be here now we had to pay congestion charge and ules so that’s £ that’s a newer EUR 6 that’s probably £515 so all these people here are paying everyone right now is in the congestion

Charging zone so if you’re not a bus or a taxi you’re paying £5 here regardless if you then got an older diesel you’re paying another £5 critics highlight the negative implications for those workmen and women who rely on their vehicles to work and in 2023 an expansion of the

Ules scheme to include all London Burrows has further divided public opinion and it doesn’t end with UL these unassuming wooden boxes with Greenery in them might be the most controversial visual in this entire video they started to appear across London burrow in 2020 and the purpose is to reduce traffic throughout residential

Streets these are low trffic neighborhoods or ltns it meant that people could no longer cut through quieter back roads to avoid traffic on busier High streets the aim of the strategy is to make residential areas safer cleaner and overall nicer places to be so if you drive through here and

You’re not an authorized vehicle or a local resident you get slapped with a huge fine video about these roadblocks you don’t like them what do you think of them well I tell you something when I was driving initially I wanted to kill the people who made them cuz it was just

The most frustrating thing you can’t drive anywhere but since I’m not driving anymore it don’t bother me anymore C still walking oh oh you oh you don’t care oh I’m you I wish I was like you man bro have fun take care appreciate here yeah yeah see

You that guy just drove through was like yeah I just don’t care so is he getting fines maybe not paying them these things are so controversial on on vandalism or a form of Civil Disobedience that person just went through an ltn they’re going to get a big big big

Fine so you have to find alternative routes and they are not distributed equally across the 32 Burrows because they are operated on a council level for example just 4% of Beckley has ltns whereas 70% of Hackney is low traffic neighborhoods people think it’s going to be like this magic light switch where

It’s just going to turn traffic off but seemingly it just makes matters worse it’s almost like people are trying to you know outsmart the system it just compounds in another way what do you think about ltns when they were first introduced I found them very frustrating obviously because of my

Job it is frustrating getting from A to B when usually it used to take you a minute whereas now I have to travel 20 minutes around in theory they’re a good idea cutting down pollution however from my personal experience they creating more traffic jams outside the shop now it just makes things

Incredibly difficult I think it is good for not having traffic I can see whereby they may benefit some but I also feel that they cause problems in them themselves so it’s affecting shops and it’s affecting everywhere all it does do is creates more pollution with vehicles sitting in traffic cuz they obviously

Them fce onto the the main roads where there’s not enough roads for all the traffic to go as a stoky resident I actually find it quite nice I think having less cars on the road ultimately is is a good thing this road is a great example of

Why not to get a car in London it’s a main road but between 7 and 7 no cars are allowed down here just buses so it makes it a really lovely road it’s really quiet and in a car you have to go the long way around so before I make any

Purchase I want to know from Rob if he can Envision a Carree London anytime soon you know it’s a big step from where we are I would love to see that and see everyone walking and cycling would become very controversial and there are of course people who need to travel

Around in vehicles so that would need to be thought through very carefully how that was delivered there’s other groups people with disabilities aren’t necessarily cycle or walk so far so they they need to be catered For the cities around the world have tried the carfree method to much success take Amsterdam

Which introduced multi-car free zones in Oslo they decided to remove all parking spaces in the city center and in Barcelona they have introduced completely pedestrianized super blocks where people have the right of way over cars these zones not only make the streets safer but allow emergency

Vehicles to get by much faster these are examples of the increasing popularity of walkable cities and people taking back the streets and this feels like the start of something different imagine if Central London was fully pedestrianized what would that be like this is traga square which was partly pedestrianized in 2003

And it’s like so much better it’s so open people can walk around look at the Trafalga Tower person I forget his name don’t think he was a good guy you can just hang out National galleries there you can chill it’s nice you ain’t going

To get hit by a car like I did like 5 minutes ago on a road around the corner London is one of the so has any of this sold me on buying a car no not really because at every turn it’s obvious that London is trying

To move away from Cars so if I’m not going to use it in London it might also be more cost effective in the long run to rent one when I actually do need one rather than just paying for one that just sits on the street and whenever I

Do use it there’s a chance of me getting slapped with a big old fine but I do have a better understanding of the complexities and challenges that current car owners here face especially in outer London where the public transport and infrastructure isn’t as well connected but as somebody whose everyday life

Takes place here the opportunity of making making London a safer Greener place that puts active travel and public transport first is not a bad thing I was on a walk last night with my daughter and I was on a main road at rush hour and I was just hyper aware of the fumes

Coming from the Cars on this road and I was like do I really want her to be breathing all this in for the next 18 years of her life no I do not and that seems to be the general consensus this UCL study points out that 67% of non-car

Owners believe that there is no need to own a car in London it’s become impossible to drive here because London has entered a new chapter characterized by sustainability and a new version of urban living Britain has a Target to be Net Zero by 2050 and all this new infrastructure around bike Lanes

Expanding the underground electric charging ules in ltns are part of a plan for a better future of travel across London there is a lot more that can be done for sure but in this future there doesn’t look like there’s a lot of room for cars