Under Heathrow flight path: emissions, noise and stowaway

The two millions of Londoners living under the Heathrow flight paths are subject to noise, emissions and tragically bodies falling from planes in their final approach.

It happens every 2-4 years as it did this morning > Telegraph: Police discovered stowaway's legs 'sticking out' of roof


This illustration from the Telegraph is obviously wrong as the planes were landing on the South runway that morning, which is aligned with Richmond.

Update: another one on the 14/12/20. 


Related posts:

• Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners
• Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map
• Heathrow is just dangerous where it is
• Stating the obvious: Heathrow expansion will pollute more
• Heathrow is dangerous and should not be expanded, here's why

How often do plane stowaways fall from the sky?

The Beeb wakes up after under-reporting past cases with this article: BBC News - How often do plane stowaways fall from the sky? Interestingly enough, they don't answer the question.  I've done the maths though: it's one every four years. Just on Richmond borough.

List of reported stowaways reported on Heathrow-bound planes
Year	Provenance	Airline	Number	Condition	Impact/Retrival	Source
2010	Austria	Dubai royal family private jet	1	Alive	LHR	link
1996	India		2	Dead	Sainsbury's building site?	link
2012	South Africa	BA	1	Dead	LHR	link
2001	Bahrein	BA	1	Dead	Homebase car park, Richmond	link
2012			1	Dead	Portman avenue, East Sheen	link
2002	Ghana	Ghana Airways	2	Dead	LHR	link
2002	Ghana	BA		Dead		link
2000			1	Dead	Broadstone farm, Rudwick, Sussex?	link
2002	Uganda	DAS Air Cargo	1	Dead	LHR	link
2007					LHR

See my previous post on the subject:

• Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners

Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners

A stowaway fell on a Sheen road on Sunday:
UPDATE: 'I heard a monstrous bang', says woman after body found in street (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

In 2001, a man fell from a British Airways Boeing 777 which was heading towards Heathrow and landed in a Homebase car park in Richmond.

Heathrow is in the wrong place, it's only a question of time before someone (or worse, a plane) falls on a house:
http://richmondtransits.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/heathrow-is-not-safe-chilling-crash-map.html

How to milk a captive market? Tap commuters

Rail commuters probably wonder what made them look so much like the golden eggs goose when reading pieces such as this one:
Rail fare rises: UK commuter train tickets 10 times the price of European equivalents | This is Money

Aren't they "carbon friendly" and part of the essential workforce of the nation after all?
The truth is that subsidy levels are decreasing, which means a commuter in the UK will pay about 70% of the costs -at least that's a stated government goal.

The problem though, is that years of under-investment and also deregulations have made this essential service costly to run.

If only the service was ten times better than on the continent...

Lobbies and lazy journalism

Here's a great example of lobbies taking over column inches, in this case on a subject that's close to my heart:
David Cameron told: Act now to save Heathrow Airport - Transport - News - Evening Standard

Prime example of lazy "journalism", writing up a quick piece straight off the press pack from BAA. Any proper newspaper article would have tried to show both sides of the story, with counterpoints.

I hope Jonathan and Lucy enjoyed a really nice lunch paid for by Ferrovial (BAA's Spanish owner) and a few nice gifts too.

Just a reminder to set the record straight, London has FIVE international airport (actually, now SEVEN if you count Manston and Southend), totalling seven runways (not including the unused backup one at Gatwick), most being under-used. Heathrow is a WWII planning mistake, its flight path goes over 2m people. Those five airports handle over 130 millions passengers on their six runways, about 150% of the traffic in Paris (LHR + CDG).

It's about time we stop comparing LHR to other European cities and instead do what they've done: build a new airport with enough room for expansion. If it needs to be in the Thames estuary, so be it. 

Previous posts on the same subject:

• Some Heathrow news...
• Essential reading: 2M Group on Heathrow Expansion
• Monday -my letter to the MP's against Heathrow Expansion
• Glad I managed to land... (and Heathrow expansion lies)
• BA can spam you but you can't spam BA!
• BAA caught lying... again.
• Stanstead and City granted expansion: what does it mean for Heathrow?
• And yet another broken promise by DfT and BAA...
• Is Heathrow really out of capacity?
• More on Heathrow
• Is sustainability sacrificed on the Heathrow altar?
• Transported logic
• Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map
• Happy new year and more foul play from the DfT on Heathrow Expansion
• BAA wakes up to the sound of locomotives?
• Stating the obvious: Heathrow expansion will pollute more
• Heathrow is just dangerous where it is
• Hoon's farce as Heathrow expansion is announced
• Economic case for Heathrow expansion 'flawed'
• Finally, high speed train gets national coverage
• Just a reminder: London has FIVE airports, all competing against Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris
• More on Manor road and Heathrow
• Environmental perversity...
• Why is the governement pushing to increase number of night flights?
• Heathrow is dangerous and should not be expanded, here's why
• T5 opens, shows BAA-Government hypocrisy and collusion
• Lyon-Paris vs. Manchester-London (from Euroblog by Jon Worth)
• Airplanes noise common sense?
• Politics and GreenWash
• I dreamt about doing this!!!!

Cyclists living in fear

Seen on the BBC Helmet cameras capture bad driving: a cyclist is wearing a camera to record evidence of dangerous driving -in this case a quite graphic example of a van driver cutting off a cyclist and then abusing him.


IMHO, a consequence of lax policing (speed cameras don't do much for cyclists safety) and bad cycle lanes design.

See related posts:

• Sustainable transportation in Richmond?
• Cyclists to be given the right to ride the wrong way
• Waterloo: more Boris Bikes but still no sign of life for the Eurostar old platforms
• TfL still has little ideas about cycling lanes...
• Cycle superhighways: an expensive joke?
• When are we going to see this in London?
• Reversing the burden of the proof would encourage cyclingss
• Kingston worst for bike thefts
• Some hope for London cyclists?
• Cycling in London: it's about time to do something!

cycle, cyclelane, cycling, DfT, London, richmondtransits.blog, TfL, transportation, UK,

BBC - Mind The Gap: Why do south London trains suffer most in the snow?

BBC - Mind The Gap: Why do south London trains suffer most in the snow?

Another proof that our transport system is antiquated and no longuer fit for purpose:

In south London the companies like Southern Railway, Southeastern and South West Trains have to operate using the "third rail system".That is, the electricity is transmitted to the train using an electrified third rail that the train picks up through a bit of metal called a shoe. So, while Network Rail have been running "ghost trains" (empty trains) and de-icing trains through the night there comes a point when it doesn't help.
When the snow and ice hits, if the conductor third rail is cold as soon as snow hits it, it freezes.

uk, trains, transportation, rail, railways, london, southwesttrains, southernrailways, southeastern, richmondtransits.blog

Giving up infrastructure is rarely a good deal for users and tax payers

Read this am: BBC News - High-speed rail link London to Folkestone is sold

Since it cost GBP 5bn and was sold for 2.1b, I'm failing to see where's the "great news for tax payers and rail users". For the latter, the failure of British Rail privatisation and of the tube PPP maintenance contracts clearly shows that selling out transportation infrastructure is a dodgy bet for the least.
When it works, it usually means giving private companies a nice little monopoly and a steady cash flow -take the French privatisation of motorways for instance, where more is going to share holders and less to building of new roads (which was incidentally the excuse in the first place for instoring tolls on those autoroutes).
But usually it doesn't work, and either companies end up bust with taxpayer having to mop up the collateral damage. Think the great

Plus relinquishing a tool to boost a nation's economy and litterally shape a nation fabric is neither a good news for users. Prove me wrong...

richmondtransits.blog, rail, railways, transportation, HS1, HS2, UK

Waterloo: more Boris Bikes but still no sign of life for the Eurostar old platforms

Two good posts this week on Londonist.

• The first one is on the continuing mystery of the old Eurostar platforms and why they cost £4.1 to keep in mothball state -quite a good example for a pathetic failure on behalf of people in charge of the nation's rail infrastructure. It's especially enraging when you're waiting on the approach to the station in a commuter train for a platform...  I've blogged before about this, see links below.
  
• And it looks like TfL has heard about my winging on Boris Bike stations being located far away from stations: Huge New Cycle Hire Station For Waterloo.  Shame common sense did not prevail in the first place, I still wonder why they looked at Montreal rather than Paris for municipal cycle hire best practices...
  

See my previous posts on those subjects:

• Waterloo plans mean no end of misery for commuters
• Londonist: What Next For Waterloo?
• The Boris bike vs. the French vélib -unfair comparison?s

borisbike, cycle, DfT, London, richmondtransits.blog, transportation, travel, UK, velib, London, rail, railways, richmondtransits.blog, TfL, transportation, tube, waterloocity, trains, rail

TfL still has little ideas about cycling lanes...

A sobering read in today's Evening Standard on the Elephant & Castle roundabout redesign. It is described as a cycling blackspot where a a fitness instructor died on her bike last year.

Yet, the proposal design still doesn't show segregated cycle lanes.

Will they ever learn from best practices? All it takes is a trip to Rotterdam!

The Boris bike vs. the French vélib -unfair comparison?

I've meant to post on this for quite a while, being a bit of a pedal addict and a huge propoenent of common-sense-commuting, i.e. not taking the car when possible (unfortunately, I'm most often defeated by our antiquated transport system).

Anyway, having tried the parisian Vélib' (and in passing got lost in Paris and almost missed my Eurostar), I thought I'd give a go to the Boris Bike. Nada, the scheme is closed and you need a key. Yep, a physical key that's sent to your house. By Royal Mail that is. Antiquated meets modern I suppose: who on earth at Tfail thought about this?

So I've registered and will tell you in a while which is a better ride. On the looks, some have already claimed Boris Bikes to be prettier (a nice chick riding one helps I suppose?). Others have pointed out that Boris Bikes lack a basket and a lock...

Looks aside, from my humble point of view, the key points are pricing, availability and useability.

• On useability of the scheme, the Parisian Vélib' is dead easy: you can subscribe with their equivalent of the Oyster card (the "pass Navigo") or just plonk your credit card in there. As for the London version, see above -you need a key! Paris 1-London 0.
• Availability: I hears complaints in Paris and they surely had teething problems at the start but they seem to have the situation under control now, despite heavy vandalism (in two years, they've had to fix 3/4 of the bikes in circulation and over 15% have gone missing). And Paris being hillier than London, they've had to give some free credit to those dropping off bikes on top of the Montmartre hill. I'm not sure about London, the scheme being closed for now, but one thing is irking: they've put the bike stations at least 300 m away from any rail station. And they've also under-estimated the necessary shuffling to replenish deserted locations: BBC - Mind The Gap: 'White Van Man' haunts re-distribution of Boris bikes. Overall though, Boris Bikes are no match for the Velib': there are 750 stations in Paris (1750 with the suburbs), stocked with 20,000 cycles versus 315 and 5,000. Paris 2-London 0.
• On pricing, it would not be massively different with each getting the first 30 mn free and then the first hour is EUR1 and GBP1, the first two hours are EUR7 and GBP6. What's different though is that you need to pay an access charge of £1 per 24 hours in London. That just makes it less intuitive, so I'm afraid London has to loose the last set as well. While we're on the subject of money, Paris did not invest taxpayer's money while Londoners forked £140... Who's more Socialist, Boris or Bertrand? Paris 3-London 0.

What about you, what do you think?


NB: check also the comparison on Pink Sauce, there's a nice table on that post.

Cycle superhighways: an expensive joke?

Read this today:
BBC News - Testing a London 'Cycle Superhighway'

This sems to me a bit like a joke: there's still the same space sharing with cars issues as a normal cycle path, why did they bother?
And I bet they also stop where they're most needed, i.e. narrow roads, junctions and bus stops.

Anything short than a segregated bicycle route can hardly be considered as a improvement on the patchy terracota "cycle lanes" that typically stop where one needs them most: at junctions, bus stops, etc....

The current state of cycling infrastructures is simply pathetic when compares to most European countries and an those blue lanes are nothing short of expensive joke.

The government taxes very heavily motorists, mostly because they can and justifying itself on environmental values. Apart from the fact it's both wrong (CO2 is not a pollutant) and unfair (housing and industry are biggest polluters), the most frustrating is that little of this hoard goes back towards improving the infrastrucure and public transport.

Still waiting at the level crossing...

At the North Sheen station / Manor road this morning.

I'm not sure I understand the ambulance crew logic: if it's urgent, why go through a level crossing? If it's not, why the flashing lights?

Anyhow, just another life level crossings cost lives (and a reminder we're waiting for that footbridge promised by Susan Kramer MP)

See my previous posts on the level crossings.

I could not say it better

Saw the quote below in INTERVIEW: The Man in Seat 61... - Londonist:

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you do to improve London’s current transport problems?
We urgently need Crossrail, and Thameslink 2000 (or is it 3000 by now?). Like the RER in Paris, this will bring suburban trains right through the centre of the city and out the other side, relieving the Underground and for many passengers, avoiding the need to switch from train to Tube at all. But whereas other countries seem to plan ahead, we Brits prefer things to reach crisis point before we do anything.

UK, trains, rail, railways, transporttion, richmondtransits.blog

I know where my vote will go...

It's a proposed cut I like: Tories 'would scrap third Heathrow runway' - UK Politics, UK - The Independent
The Right is greening, somewhat weird but nice.

We now have to make them promise this is more than just a pledge...

LHR, heathrowexpansion, BA, BAA, UK, rail, transportation, HS2, richmondtransits.blog

Cyclists to be given the right to ride the wrong way

Read in the Times of this morning:
Cyclists will be given green light to ignore one-way signs - Times Online

At long last, it seems that common sense is prevailing and that the DfT is recognising that road rules made for cars are not appropriate for the poor souls plodding the street with no armour and taking little space.

The main advantage is to allow cycles to use quieter roads, moving them off busy and dangerous main roads in many cases. It is also a good traffic calming measure for one way streets, where cars tend to go too fast.

It's a small step in the right direction towards better ways to share the space between users of the roads. We just have to get proper cycle lanes now (post series on the subjet coming soon on this blog!)

cycle, cycling, bikelane, cyclelane, transportation, UK, London, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map

Just found the web site of the Friends of the Earth on LHR T5 -a must read, there's also a chilling map by Hacan of possible crashes on Heathrow flight paths.

Stricken jumbo flew over West London (also there)

Campaigners against the expansion of Heathrow have long predicted that a disaster will eventually happen because more than 500 flights a day pass over Central London as they approach the airport.


The Government has proposed building a third runway at the airport, which would add 1,000 more flights a week over the capital. Most other big cities have positioned their airports in places that do not require planes to approach over the centre."


FOE comment. Heathrow is by far the most dangerous airport in the country for those on the ground. This is because there are far more planes flying over far more people than anywhere else. This fact is largely ignored by the government, which takes into account only 'individual risk' as opposed to 'societal risk'.

The AIB report is here (direct link to PDF).

See map of potential crash sites.

Update: Seems  Friends of the Earth moved to a proper website but did not migrate all files, this link doesn't work anymore. Fortunately,
Waybackmachine had an archived copy... Here's another link to the document, just in case.

Check also this post:Heathrow is just dangerous where it is

24/5/12 update: removed/changed dead hyperlinks.

Bring on High Speed Two, not more runways

Regular readers will know I think high-speed rail is a necessity. Today, on BBC.com there was an interesting statistic in this news article: Cities urge high-speed rail lin

Over 60 years, it is estimated that the line could save 30 million tonnes (29.5m tons) of CO2 worth £3.2bn by diverting passengers from air travel to rail.

Although 60 years can seem a very long time, rail infrastructure is ammortised over long periods. The real saving could be that a proper high-speed rail (HSR) network could avoid building more runways around London. I'm sure BAA thinks differently, but it worked just like that in France where TGV has displaced air travel on routes such as Paris to Nantes, Lyons, and even Marseilles.

Will this happen in the UK? I'm sceptical it will happen quickly, mostly because of the lack of proper planning, decentralised decision making and short-term focus.

UK, transportation, rail, railways, airlines, pollution, environment, train, richmondtransits.blog, HSR

Traffic pandemonium: just a sign of things to come?

Thanks to Thames Water who shut the Northbound Clifford avenue section to replace aging water mains the A205 South Circular in Richmond (This Is Local London), combined with Transport For London who revamped Richmond Circus to add more car lanes but still no cycle lanes (I'll post again on this) plus some more water mains replacement in White Hart Lane, Richmond was totally grid locked this summer.

Great planning guys....

One of the fundamental issues is that our borough has the plight of being sectionned by a train line with only a few crossings: a bridge on the Quadrant, another one in Church lane, a level crossing in Manor Road, a bridge on Clifford avenue and then some more level crossings in Sheen Road by Mortlake train station, White Hart Lane in East Sheen/Mortlake, Vine Road in Barnes. There are then only three bridges before Putney, including on Dryburgh road -which is closed during rush hours...

I've been lobbying long to get a footbridge in North Sheen and believe level crossings are a problem in general, I'm not the only one it seems according to this BBC article:

More people die on level crossings than in derailments or train crashes, killing on average one person a month.

Network Rail says that every year 2,000 people are reported to misuse level crossings with motorists ignoring warning lights or weaving round barriers.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers Union (RMT) says that even crossings with barriers and warning systems are unsafe and should be replaced with bridges or underpasses over a period of ten years.

The bad news is that it's only going to get worse for local residents, with longer wait at crossings if BAA gets their way.

Yes, BAA, the London Heathrow airport operator who's wanting to put more planes overhead. Because they just figured out that Heathrow is poorly deserved by trains. No, not really, the truth is that they are trying to curb on car mouvements around the aiport in order to land more planes without breaching too much the European directive on air quality (thank god for the EU). Insane? Yes, but these are the facts.

So, if Airtrack goes ahead the trains frequency will double -from 8 to 16- with no or little benefits for local residents as it's far from certain the extra trains will stop in North Sheen for instance, while Manor Road will be continuously clogged with a traffic jam caused by the level crossing barriers being shut for 45 minutes in one hour!

This is obviously not acceptable, and this train line should be buried under street level from Putney to Richmond. Period.

Our MP Susan Kramer is running a petition: http://www.susankramer.org.uk/pages/airtrack.html. The consultation closes on 18 September.

Tags: air, BAA, Heathrow, Heathrowexpansion, LHR, rail, railways, North Sheen, level crossing, richmondtransits.blog

A commuter's week...

This week, I'm wondering why we have to make do with third world infrastructures? Of course, we should have adequate sewage systems. Of course, we should not have level crossings in densely populated areas.

Monday: storm causes sewer discharge in Thames -900 thousand tonnes it seems.

Tuesday: the BCC pushes a reoport saying Heathrow must be expanded to add £30b to the economy. For me, I'm very sceptical of those hair raising figures pushed by the aviation lobby: "John Stewart, chairman of campaign group Hacan, argued that the report contradicted previous findings, saying the Government’s own figures suggested the benefits to the economy would be £5bn over 70 years."

Nothing about the indirect costs of course, no mention of alternatives such as shutting down 2, 3 or 4 airports around London to move them in the Estuary or developping high speed trains.

See my other posts on LHR Expansion.

Wednesday: train delayed because of incident at the White Hart Lane level crossing. Just like the one reported here:
Sheen Lane crossing most misused in Britain (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

While I'm on about the level crossing, we may eventually get a level crossing in North Sheen -I've been campaigning for years and lobbying MP Susan Kramer. Not before 2010 it seems though....

In the meantime, schoolchildren will probably continue to jump it.

Still on about level crossings, our MP's met with Network rail, but with little results it seems.

See my previous posts on the level crossings.

UK, London, transportation, rail, railways, level, crossing, north, sheen, richmond, heathrow, heathrowexpansion, LHR, richmondtransits.blog