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IN THE NEWS
Page 14
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Stuart Thomas gives us his regular round-up of the way the newspapers have covered the world of transport this week.
This is the road to hell, crooned gravel-voiced Chris Rea England's answer to Nostradamus back in 1989. And thanks to BBC News and the Yorkshire Post, we now know the apocalyptic warning was inspired by the M25.
They also revealed that researchers are busy compiling a "stress map" of the 117-mile orbital route in a bid to find the most frustrating stretches. No reason was given why money is being wasted on this, but clues as to the source of the motorway's congestion were thrown up; the researchers have hired a team of drivers to motor round the highway 150 times while their blood pressure and heart rates are monitored. These days, the road to hell is long, slow and bogged down in pointless research. Whereas of course the road to Hull is the M62.
The BBC has also been plugging CM, courtesy of Radio 2's Johnnie Walker and Sally 'Traffic' Boazman. Fresh from her recent interview in our hallowed pages, Miss Traffic was heard boasting about the appearance on Walker's Drivetime show. Perhaps momentarily forgetting his wilderness years at Radio West following a Radio 1 bust-up over the Bay City Rollers, the ageing DJ mocked her achievement, suggesting most people held loftier ambitions to appear in Taller. However, Traffic remained unabashed and continued to spread the good news for the next half-an-hour.
Back to the apocalypse. The Observer and London's Metro peppered reports on Transport for London's vision of the capital's transport system with words such as "unimaginable", "nightmare" and "unbearable". Most harrowing of all was that these adjectives were attributed to a situation 10 years from now and not the current crisis endured by thousands every day. Need some more inspiration, Mr Rea?