Transport

London is at the centre of road, rail, air and water transport in the United Kingdom. Transport is one of the four areas of policy administered by the Mayor of London, but the mayor’s financial control is limited. The executive agency which runs London’s transport system is Transport for London (TfL). The public transport network is one of the most extensive in the world, but faces serious congestion and reliability issues.

As of mid-2005, in preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games a total of £7 billion ($12 billion) will best be spent on refurbishment and expansion of city links, mainly on the London Underground. Although the main reason for this is because of the increased traffic flow that will be caused by the 2012 Olympics, the work would still have been completed had London not won the games.

Rail

London ’s Underground Railway is the oldest in the world, and possibly one of the busiest. It is thought that more than 3 million people use the Underground every day. The Underground has in recent decades suffered from a lack of sufficient investment since the sums of money needed to keep it fully modernised are very high. This has led to congestion and delays for passengers in some areas of the network, although there have also been improvements, for example the opening of the Jubilee Line Extension. Recently the London Rail and Tram network has received substantial funding.

London has the second largest urban rail system in the world after Tokyo. It includes:
Mainline services
London Underground
Tramlink
Docklands Light Rail
Heathrow / Stansted / Gatwick Express
Eurostar

Many of the UK’s rail lines radiate from London. London’s rail termini are: Blackfriars, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Euston, Fenchurch Street, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, London Bridge (which also has through platforms), Marylebone, Paddington, St. Pancras, Victoria and Waterloo. With the exception of Fenchurch Street, all of these stations also have associated London Underground stations.

The Heathrow Express is not strictly a part of the public rail system, but is owned by BAA plc. As of 2005, Transport for London runs the London Underground (the world’s first underground rail network or metro), commonly also known as “The Tube”. The national government’s recently introduced public-private partnerships to the Underground despite opposition from many parties, including the Mayor of London.

The largest project currently underway is the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, (CTRL) Phase 2, which will provide fast Eurostar rail services all the way from Stratford in East London to the CTRL Phase 1, which was completed in 2003, and on via the Channel Tunnel to Paris, Brussels and other destinations in continental Europe. Currently Eurostar operates out of Waterloo International Terminal at Waterloo, and Eurostar trains have to traverse a circuitous route over local railway tracks through Vauxhall, Clapham and Brixton before connecting to the CTRL Phase 1 at Ebbsfleet in Kent. The CTRL Phase 2 project involves a huge civil engineering project to construct a tunnel from Stratford to St Pancras Station (now completed), where a major renovation and redesign of the terminal will open for Eurostar train services in 2007. Eurostar will then run from London to Paris on high speed track for its entire journey. The CTRL project is significant in that it represents the first new major rail line to be built in the UK for over 100 years.

An ambitious project is Crossrail, which proposes a new east-west tunnel traversing central London. Financing for this has not yet been agreed. Smaller projects include extensions to the East London Line of the Underground, and to the Docklands Light Railway. The tram system is also being extended, particularly in Croydon, in South London.

There are far fewer Underground rail lines in South London than in North London. This is partly because the underlying geology of South London is much less favourable for tunnelling than it is north of the Thames. It also reflects the concentration of the network on Central London, which was focused to north of the Thames to a greater extent when most of the underground lines were built than is the case today. South London relies on over-ground commuter lines to a greater extent, but these tend to offer less frequent services.

The North London Line runs from Canning Town in East London all the way to Kew in the west, going through Hackney, Hampstead and Acton on the way.

Until 2003 there was also an underground railway for mail transport, the London Post Office Railway.

Roads

Most of the streets of central London were laid out before cars were invented and London’s road network is often congested. Attempts to tackle this go back at least to the 1740s, when the New Road was built through the fields north of the city; it is now just another congested central London thoroughfare. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new wide roads such as Victoria Embankment, Shaftesbury Avenue and Kingsway were created. Some drastic plans for motorways in the heart of the city were put forward in the decades immediately after World War II, but they came to little due to the costs involved and objections to the mass demolitions required. By the end of the 20th century policy swung towards a preference for public transport improvements.

The most significant road scheme in the London area in the late 20th century was probably the M25 orbital motorway, many sections of which are outside the boundaries of Greater London. There is also an inner circular route, comprised of the North Circular (the A406 from Gunnersbury to West Ham) and the South Circular (the A205). This route is narrow and inadequate in places, especially in South London.

Many of the UK’s motorways radiate from London. These are: M1 (to the north); M11 (north east); M2 and M20 (south east); M23 (south); M3 (south west); M4 (west); M40 (north west). Various other trunk roads start in London, for example the A1 (The Great North Road), the A10 (to Cambridge), the A2 (to Dover), the A20 (via Folkestone to Dover) and the A3 (to Portsmouth).

Buses and taxis

London’s famous red double decker buses are now run by private companies, although it is a requirement that the buses still be painted red. However the iconic red Routemaster bus has now almost disappeared; the last regular Routemaster service in London ran on 9 December 2005, although it is proposed that “heritage routes” will run after that.

There have been major improvements to the bus service in recent years, and passenger journeys are now more than 5 million a day, which is around 2 million more than on the Underground. Another icon, the famous London taxi black cab remains a common sight.

Cars

In February 2003, Transport for London (TfL) introduced a radical scheme to charge motorists £5 per day for driving vehicles within a designated area of central London during peak hours: the congestion charge. The politicians behind the scheme claim that it has significantly reduced traffic congestion and hence improved reliability of bus and taxi services, but this is strongly contested by the scheme’s critics, mainly found in various businesses. The charge was increased to £8 per day on 4 July 2005.

Air travel

The London region is served by six main airports. The largest and two smallest of these (Heathrow, City Airport and Biggin Hill Airport) are inside the boundary of Greater London, but the other three (Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton) are outside Greater London. There are also a few small airfields and private airports.

Heathrow handles nearly 70 million passengers per annum - by far the busiest airport in Europe and number three in the world after Atlanta and Chicago O’Hare . A fifth terminal will open in 2008. City and Biggin Hill are both smaller airports, the latter does not currently have scheduled flights.

Gatwick and Stansted airports are also international airports, with approximately 30 million and 20 million passengers a year respectively. They are both outside the boundaries of Greater London, as is the fourth largest airport which serves London, London Luton Airport. Dedicated direct rail services serve Gatwick and Stansted, Luton is served by Thameslink, and the Heathrow Express and London Underground Piccadilly Line both serve Heathrow. London’s fifth largest international airport, and the one closest to the city centre, is London City Airport in Docklands.

Other airfields in Greater London include Northolt, and others close to London include Manston in Kent and Southend in Essex.

Water transport

The River Thames is navigable to ocean going vessels as far as London Bridge, and to substantial craft well past Greater London. Historically, the river was one of London’s main transport arteries. This is no longer the case, but there are still small scale passenger services, and a large number of leisure cruises operating on the river. Additionally some bulk cargoes are carried on the river, and the Mayor of London wishes to increase this use.

London also has several canals, including the Regent’s Canal which links the Thames to the Grand Union Canal and thus to the waterway network across much of England. These canals are no longer used to transport goods, but they are popular with leisure cruisers.