Andrew Marr: Overstuffed Tube is like a clogged-up artery

Keen cyclist: Andrew Marr praises Boris Bikes in his look at transport
12 April 2012

BBC presenter Andrew Marr has criticised London's transport network and likened Tube travel to an "urban heart attack".

Marr described the Underground as the "clogged-up arteries feeding the beating heart of London" and said getting on a train is akin to an adult squeezing into the trousers of a 12-year-old.

However, in his BBC1 series Megacities next week, he says Mayor Boris Johnson showed "proper leadership" by bringing in "Boris Bikes" for hire.

Marr warns that the Tube is now overflowing with three million passengers a day. It was "revolutionary" when it was created in 1863, he says, but adds: "The number of people that can squeeze on to these Tubes has now reached its peak... this wonderful piece of world-beating technology has become London's painful squeeze.

"That is the problem with these arteries of the megacities. They become clogged up and start to feel like an urban heart attack."

The former BBC political editor, who lives in East Sheen, reveals that he is a keen cyclist. London is "re-learning pedal power" from megacities such as Dhaka in Bangladesh, where 500,000 people a day travel by rickshaw,
he says. "When [Boris Bikes] got going a lot of people said, 'Well, that's not going to work' but within the first 10 weeks there were one million journeys made."

Megacities, BBC1, Thursday June 16 at 8pm

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