“The one saving grace,” says Glynn Barton while talking about the Coronavirus crisis, “is that it wasn’t the other way – we didn’t all of a sudden see a boom in traffic and movement on our very busy network”. Having overseen a huge change to traffic flows in London, been affected by the sudden drop in tube and bus passenger numbers and therefore revenue, and having managed his huge team’s switch to home working (not to mention becoming a father again), it’s been a challenging year for Transport for London’s Director of Network Management.

But Barton has taken it all in his stride, as he explains to Paul Hutton and Adrian Tatum in this week’s Highways Voices podcast. And he pays tribute to the teamwork that made things happen so quickly. “We installed a cycle lane on Park Lane, for instance, from design to installation in four days, which we’ve never done anything like that before,” he explains. “Working with a supply chain, we’re able to do things really quickly because it was in the public interest.” 

Barton discusses a range of transport challenges and solutions in the capital, from Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and active travel to funding and future projects. He highlights the need to deliver low-carbon transport and the solutions TfL are using to deliver that, as well as how he considers the latest ideas and solutions, and how he then can implement them in London, and how does he take a world-leading transport network and make it even better?

You’ll also hear Paul and Adrian round up the week’s top stories and also hear who gets recognised for excellence in the industry in “Adrian’s Accolade”.

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