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Barr, Damian. "Crying on the Inside." The Times 1 May 2004. 6 Apr. 2008 .
In this Times article, Damian Barr describes a phenomenon he refers to as the quarterlife crisis. The quarterlife crisis is similar to the midlife crisis in that people feel like they don't know what they are doing with their lives. The article describes twentysomethings living in London and realizing that the 20s are not what they're supposed to be. Most people in their 20s are stuck with a future-free job, debt from college, alleged friends, and a non-existent love partner. The excitement of graduation from college has faded and a life of work and no play lies ahead. Getting and keeping your life together has never been harder. Fighting for jobs and keeping strong relationships can be very stressful. Approximately one-third of all people in their 20s are depressed, and there aren't any psychiatrists who are experts on the quarterlife crisis, unlike those who have studied the midlife crisis. Additionally, there are people who say that the quarterlife crisis doesn't exist, just how people said that the midlife crisis and menopause didn't exist. Most 20 year olds are convinced that others are having better sex and taking better drugs than they are. The truth is that the 20s are bigger, scarier, and harder than people thought, and hardly anyone is talking about it.
In The Graduate, Benjamin Braddock has graduated from college and comes home to sunny California without a job or any idea of what he wants to do in the future. From the beginning of the movie the viewer is aware that Benjamin is worried and distraught about this transition period in his life. In his first lines in the movie, he asks his father "to be alone for a while" although there are numerous guests downstairs waiting to congratulate him on his graduation and awards. Rather than be productive and look for a job, he chooses to drive around aimlessly and sit beside the pool all day. He doesn't have any friends at home and is worried about his future. He is definitely suffering from a quarterlife crisis.
Cars out as London mayor clears way for Paris-style plage and cycle boulevards
Visitors to London may not find the streets paved with gold but they could certainly find that a lot more streets have been paved, under proposals for the tourist heart of the capital.
Cars will be banned from some of London's busiest streets as part of a bold plan to create continental-style boulevards devoted to pedestrians and cyclists.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, plans to replicate Paris Plage, the beach created on a highway alongside the Seine each August, on the four-lane Victoria Embankment beside the Thames.
He is also considering a ban on through traffic on a series of roads connecting London's parks and main shopping areas, including Portland Place, which runs between Regent's Park and Oxford Street.
Speaking at Mayor's Question Time at the London Assembly yesterday, Mr Livingstone said that he wanted to create attractive, tree-lined walkways in the style of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Traffic would be diverted on to alternative routes, but shops and restaurants would still be able to receive deliveries outside peak hours.
The first scheme will be the £18 million part-pedestrianisation of Parliament Square, which will involve removing traffic from the south side closest to Westminster Abbey from 2009. Mr Livingstone believes that the success of the Trafalgar Square scheme, where the road beside the National Gallery has been pedestrianised, will help to overcome objections by motoring groups and retailers.
The RAC Foundation said that Mr Livingstone's plan would force traffic on to less suitable routes and add to congestion, which is already almost back to the level before congestion charging began in 2003.
UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis is a (CASA) is an initiative within University College London to develop emerging computer technologies in several disciplines which deal with geography, space, location, and the built environment. As an interdisciplinary research centre expertise is drawn from archaeology, architecture, cartography, computer science, environmental science, geography, planning, remote sensing, geomatic engineering, and transport studies. This generates a unique blend of personnel who operate from CASA and associated departments within UCL. We recently moved from the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences into the Faculty of the Built Environment.
Strike Shuts Most of London's Subway
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Sept. 3 - London's subway network virtually shut down at the height of the rush hour on Monday evening when 2,300 maintenance workers walked off the job in what they said would be a three-day strike over pensions and security.
Transportation officials then closed nine subway lines, the bulk of the system. They said it was too dangerous to keep the network going without the workers, who are responsible for maintaining and repairing tracks, signals, trains and the like. Just three lines - the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, which are maintained by workers who belong to another union - were operating Monday night.
Commuters across London left work early in a rush to make it home before 6 p.m., when the strike began. Commuters arriving later found that their stations were locked or - in those stations still operating - that signs had been put up explaining that most of the lines had stopped operating.
Transport for London, the local agency that runs the subway system, predicted that the strike would cause "massive disruptions for millions of Londoners" and urged passengers to seek "alternative routes" - a difficult proposition in a city as large, sprawling and choked with road traffic as London.
The maintenance workers say that if their demands are not met, they will remain off work for three days, and strike again for another three-day stretch next week.
Adding to the general feeling of annoyance, the mayor, Ken Livingstone, said motorists driving into central London during business hours would still have to pay the congestion charge of 8 pounds a day, or more than $16, during the strike.
Taxi drivers and other critics said that it would never work, but three weeks after Paris was sprinkled with 10,000 self-service bicycles, the scheme is proving a triumph and a new pedalling army appears to be taming the city’s famously fierce traffic.
Bertrand Delano�, the city’s mayor, and his green-minded administration are jubilant at the gusto with which Parisians and visitors have taken to the heavy grey cycles that have been available at 750 ranks since July 15.
Nowhere is the project being watched with greater interest than in London as the city prepares for London Freewheel day next month, when miles of roads will be car-free for the day. After witnessing first-hand the ease with which Parisians have taken to pedalling, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor, has asked Transport for London to develop a similar plan for London and bring together several smaller schemes across the city.
In Paris there have been few teething troubles with the high-tech system that supplies the bikes for up to €1 per half-hour — but one is a result of residents using them to glide downhill to work and then taking public transport home, resulting in gluts of bikes at some low-level stands and shortages at higher altitude stations, such as Montmartre.
Exploring each city through five thematic lenses - speed, size, density, diversity and form - the exhibition draws on data originally assembled for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale. This unique show presents existing films, videos and photographs by more than 20 artists and architects to offer subjective and intimate interpretations of urban conditions in all ten cities.
As Global Cities takes place in one of the focus cities, the exhibition uses London as a touchstone for comparison. New commissions by a group of six artists and architects - Nigel Coates; Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher; Fritz Haeg; OMA*AMO/Rem Koolhaas; Nils Norman; and Richard Wentworth - explore the local context through issues such as sustainability, public space and social inclusion.
Sir Rod Eddington was jointly commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Transport to examine the long-term links between transport and the UK's economic productivity, growth and stability, within the context of the Government's broader commitment to sustainable development. The Study was announced in Budget 2005 and reported on 1 December 2006 to accompany the 2006 Pre-Budget Report.
Thank you for taking the time to register your views about road pricing on the Downing Street website. This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network.
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One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad. It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. It affects people's quality of life. And it is bad for the environment. That is why tackling congestion is a key priority for any Government.
Congestion is predicted to increase by 25% by 2015. This is being driven by economic prosperity. There are 6 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997, and predictions are that this trend will continue. Part of the solution is to improve public transport, and to make the most of the existing road network. We have more than doubled investment since 1997, spending £2.5 billion this year on buses and over £4 billion on trains- helping to explain why more people are using them than for decades. And we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015. We're also putting a great deal of effort into improving traffic flows - for example, over 1000 Highways Agency Traffic Officers now help to keep motorway traffic moving.
But all the evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse. So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. For example, road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and in Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes. Towns and cities across the world are looking at road pricing as a means of addressing congestion.
One option would be to allow congestion to grow unchecked. Given the forecast growth in traffic, doing nothing would mean that journeys within and between cities would take longer, and be less reliable. I think that would be bad for businesses , individuals and the environment. And the costs on us all will be real - congestion could cost an extra £22 billion in wasted time in England by 2025, of which £10-12 billion would be the direct cost on businesses.
A second option would be to try to build our way out of congestion. We could, of course, add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside. Certainly in some places new capacity will be part of the story. That is why we are widening the M25, M1 and M62. But I think people agree that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity.
Tackling congestion in this way would also be extremely costly, requiring substantial sums to be diverted from other services such as education and health, or increases in taxes. If I tell you that one mile of new motorway costs as much as £30m, you'll have an idea of the sums this approach would entail.
Pressure mounts over road tolls
Doulgas Alexander
Transport minister Douglas Alexander
Pressure is continuing to mount on the government over controversial plans to introduce road pricing.
As environmental groups urge ministers to stand firm, the Downing Street website e-petition demanding the policy be scrapped has been signed by more than 1.2 million people.
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United Kingdom | Transportation
19 December 2006 - 1:00pm
John Landis, Chair of the City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, provides a fascinating first-hand review of London's congestion charging program, and offers his perspective on transportation and land use in the city.