blog: First impressions of a transport planner leaving London
Tuesday 12th September 2023
I moved to London at 18, having been brought up on a farm in Wales. It is fair to say I was woefully unprepared for the culture shock of that move, but I found my feet and then, somehow, 24 years passed. Over that time (amongst many other things) I became a transport planner and an evangelist for urbanism.
I’ve now moved to Nottingham, hoping it would be less of a culture shock than my teenage leap of faith, but appreciating that 2.5 decades in London will inevitably have turned me into a soft southerner. So, here are some of my first thoughts on the differences between the two cities.
People are friendlier up north(ish)
My main mode of transport for the last quarter of a century has been the bike. Cycling in London back in 1999 felt like an extreme sport. Part of that was the lack of infrastructure, but a bigger element was driver behaviour. As cycling became more normalised this has improved but the fuse is always quite short in London. In Nottingham it is noticeable that drivers do in general wait for gaps before passing and leave more space when they do. I often cycle out into the very nearby countryside before work and there are now people I say ‘good morning’ to as I cycle by. Unthinkable in London.
Off the bike I am still getting to grips with bus stop queuing etiquette. This is definitely not a thing in London, but people are fanatical about it here. An example. I was waiting in a bus stop in heavy rain. I sat at the end of the bus stop, leaving the rest empty. I thought it odd that people were getting wet in the rain. Turns out it was because people didn’t want to look like they were ‘pushing in’ (I only realised this when someone came over and said ‘I’m not pushing in, just want to get out of the rain’). Oops.
Nottingham: 2 London: 0
On the buses
The bus services in Nottingham are comparable to London in terms of their frequency and the quality of vehicles. The only difference being the drivers are friendlier here. After 24 years I have started saying thank you as I leave the bus and it gives me a warm feeling inside.
City Mapper can be relied upon in London to plan you an efficient route, based on real time service data. In Nottingham, as a function of different operators having different approaches to sharing data, the bus timings are not ‘live’ and what it says on the app is often not reflected in reality. I’ve started avoiding journeys with short interchanges as a result. Integrated ticketing is also not as straight forward here, and you have to pay attention to the operator if you want a capped fare using a standard contactless card. Franchising means these issues don’t exist in London.
Nottingham: 1 London: 2
Everything is so close!
It should have been pretty obvious when moving from a city of eight million to one of 330,000 that everything would be closer together. But wow, everything is really really close together. I love it! Going to an event after work might be a five-minute stroll, with a ten-minute cycle home at the end. From my garden I can hear the bell of Nottingham Council House (in the city centre), while enjoying plenty of open space. The life logistics of working, socialising and toddler juggling are so much easier.
The city centre also provides a good range of the services, facilities and fun stuff you might need or want in one focused location (in addition to thriving local centres). In London the centres tend to be specialised, meaning you are unlikely to be able to do all the things you want in one place. Moving around there takes a lot more time. On the flip side the higher density of London does mean that hyper local things like the corner shop or pub were a bit closer.
Nottingham: 2 London: 0.5
Mind the gap(s)
On a bike, as well the occasional e-scooter, it is noticeable how much poorer the road surfaces are in Nottingham. Wheel swallowingly poor in places. At a recent work social I mentioned I was riding out into the countryside around the city and someone mentioned in reverent tones ‘the smooth bit of tarmac’ that I had to try. This tells its own story (it’s just outside Epperstone in case of interest, and it is very smooth indeed).
Finally, one of the things I really miss from London is the blanket ban on footway parking. When pushing a pram here, particularly in the more suburban parts of the city, you cannot rely on clear footways for local journeys. The government consulted on options for changing the law on pavement parking in 2020 but has seemingly since filed it in the ‘too difficult’ category. Let’s hope progressive cities like Nottingham – the only city with a workplace parking levy – soon have the opportunity to tackle the problem.
Nottingham: 0.5 London: 2
…the results are in
I don’t own a car and specifically choose a city to live where I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to have one. Having lived in Nottingham now for a couple of months that hope is proving to be well founded (phew!), and car-free living is broadly as easy here as it was in London.
For those who are fans of numbers over words (and will obviously not have made it this far through my blog) here the results of my very scientific analysis of the transport systems of these two cities:
Nottingham: 5.5 London: 4.5
…and I didn’t even mention the trams!