This week, we’re talking about how, in a very real, no-honest-this-is-true sense, a city is the product of its transport network.
We begin by discussing the relationship between boundaries, commuting patterns, perceptions and maps – and I get slightly over-excited when Barbara tells me something about London’s Tube that I didn’t previously know.
Journalist Emmanuel Akinwotu tells us what it’s like trying to get around Lagos, the Nigerian megacity where commuters rely on unofficial private minibus networks, and where heavy traffic and poor roads mean that a two hour journey can take you all night. You can find Emmanuel’s past articles for us here.
Then I talk to transport researcher Nicole Badstuber, about megaprojects: those multi-billion dollar transport schemes, which are meant to sort everything out, and which, almost always, go horribly, horribly wrong. Nicole’s stuff is here. (This one, on what other cities have to learn from Transport for London, is particularly good.)