City transport and and the Downs - Thompson Paradox

City Transport and the Downs - Thompson Paradox

Join us for an exciting event exploring the relationship between city transport and the Downs-Thompson Paradox. Discover how urban planning impacts our daily lives and the environment. The event will take place at Bristol Royal Infirmary Education Centre (opp main entrance) Upper Maudlin Street, Bristol, BS2 8AE. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn and engage with experts in the field.

The Speaker:

Professor Lewis Lesley has studied public transport for many years. He will explain why it is that despite numerous and wide-ranging interventions in city roads - yellow boxes, one-way schemes, no right turns, smart traffic lights, London's famous Red Routes, flyovers ( think the West Way in London, double yellow lines traffic has not speeded up, and in many cases becomes worse. We can see the reality of this in London where The avg. speed of London traffic today is 8mph. The avg. The speed of a London horse-drawn carriage in 1900 was also 8mph, which means that more people spent more time sitting in traffic. How can this be? The Downs-Thompson paradox explains it. It would seem our city planners do not understand it.

European cities feature prominently in the global rankings for both congestion and average speeds. Below is the complete ranking of the top 20 European cities for slow traffic and congestion, according to the TomTom Traffic Index 2025:

1. London, UK – Average speed: 18 km/h, globally 5th slowest.
2. Dublin, Ireland – 155 hours lost annually.
3. Barcelona, Spain
4. Bucharest, Romania
5. Bordeaux, France
6. Brussels, Belgium
7. Rome, Italy
8. Athens, Greece
9. Vienna, Austria
10. Wroclaw, Poland
11. Paris, France
12. Helsinki, Finland
13. Berlin, Germany
14. Turin, Italy
15. Florence, Italy
16. Edinburgh, UK
17. Plovdiv, Bulgaria
18. Marseille, France
19. Milan, Italy
20. Poznan, Poland

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bristol Royal Infirmary Education Centre (opp main entrance) Bristol Nutrition Biomedical Research centre Upper Maudlin Street, Bristol, BS2 8AE Tel: 0117 342 1754, United Kingdom