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IN THE NEWS

8th July 2004, Page 14
8th July 2004
Page 14
Page 14, 8th July 2004 — IN THE NEWS
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Keywords : Ptg, Boldre, Strike Action

Stuart Thomas gives us his regular round-up of the way the newspapers have covered the world of transport this week...

The only person feeling more embarrassed than the council workers who came over all Salvador Dali while painting white lines on the road is possibly Alan Erricker.

The chairman of a Hampshire parish council obviously gave a laudable performance of someone who knew what he was talking about when the Daily Mirror asked him to comment on why a road in East Boldre is now resplendent with road markings that more closely resemble the chalked outline of a dead hippo.

The theory, Erricker explained helpfully to our Fleet Street chums, was to slow traffic in the New Forest village. Motorists will assume the lane is narrower than it really is and will reduce speed to traverse this tricky stretch. Genius, eh?

Alas, no. GMTV, among others, exposed the line loonies the next day. This was no cunning example of employing optical illusions to curtail racing drivers, just a bunch of council workers using a map that was a bit screwed up and therefore not clear to read. Using initiative that would make a cartographer curse, they simply followed the shaky lines displayed on the scrappy map they were issued with.

The Passengers for Travel Group believes it has hit on an idea that will strike fear into the hearts of all London Transport managers and RMT union bosses. In response to the recent strike on the underground, which ultimately led to some Londoners being slightly peeved at getting into work a bit late, PTG is boycotting the tube completely. For one day.

It expects literally more than one hundred people will follow its lead.

PTG spokesman Phil Watkins told BBC London: "Passengers are not going to take this sort of thing lying down." Rousing words, indeed. In fact, if more follow Watkins' example there might be space for all tube passengers to take it sitting down, for once.

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