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We need to talk about Wisley
National Highways are spending a third of a billion pounds rebuilding one of the most congested junctions on the M25. Is it money well spent?
Oxford's Ground Zero
Oxford's Zero Emission Zone is just a trial, but transport policy in Oxford has become the catalyst for pitched battles and drawn in protestors from across the UK. What's happening to this genteel university town?
2023 end of year message
It’s been a quiet year for Roads.org.uk, but we will be back to our usual schedule soon.
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Ringways
The story of an incredible plan to reshape London into a city of motorways, with the history from creation to cancellation and details on every unbuilt road.
My paternal grandparents house in Putney was gas lit until the mid-50s, the house dating from the 1850s. Cooking and heating was gas too, although they did have a coke fire down in the basement dining room.That too, was startd with a gas poker. Lighting the lamps was a particular event in the day. One could read under a gas lamp, and there was always a slight hiss from them. I distinctly remember my grandmother replacing the mantle. These were bought in a pack of about 6. The mantle was made of cotton, and one fixed it in place, lit the gas, and the cotton burned off leaving a fragile mantle of the metal oxides used to make the lamp glow from the flame. Modern mantles use cerium and thorium oxides.
Of course it was all "town gas" then, not natural gas