Liam K McGrath
@liammcgrath.bsky.social
Forecasting & modelling for sustainable cities Transport for London🚇 Director at Leathermarket CBS affordable housing 🏢 Director se1.solar Community Energy ☀️ Urban history podcast yeoldeguide.com
Personal opinions
liamkmcgrath.com
Personal opinions
liamkmcgrath.com
Grateful to our friends in California for this structured breakdown of Radiohead's most miserable songs in six categories.
November 24, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Grateful to our friends in California for this structured breakdown of Radiohead's most miserable songs in six categories.
40 new social rent homes sensitively added to Maltby Street, Bermondsey. Replacing old car parks. Very good.
November 23, 2025 at 1:08 PM
40 new social rent homes sensitively added to Maltby Street, Bermondsey. Replacing old car parks. Very good.
Improving bus speeds one of the most underrated actions in transport planning. Increases mode share & revenue while lowering cost. Step free. It's about prioritising the road space for productive use. This corridor is ideal- a big gap in the rail network, dense, busy, but slow speeds lowering demand
November 21, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Improving bus speeds one of the most underrated actions in transport planning. Increases mode share & revenue while lowering cost. Step free. It's about prioritising the road space for productive use. This corridor is ideal- a big gap in the rail network, dense, busy, but slow speeds lowering demand
How much of UK GDP is spent cleaning up after muppets? A poor deployment of productive capacity. Sorry we can't build homes or provide care because x% of our workers are cleaning up lazy people's crap.
November 15, 2025 at 7:04 PM
How much of UK GDP is spent cleaning up after muppets? A poor deployment of productive capacity. Sorry we can't build homes or provide care because x% of our workers are cleaning up lazy people's crap.
3 trains (including mine) racing into London Bridge. All of them have all seats taken. Plenty of demand for sustainable travel into London at 2pm on a Saturday.
November 15, 2025 at 2:05 PM
3 trains (including mine) racing into London Bridge. All of them have all seats taken. Plenty of demand for sustainable travel into London at 2pm on a Saturday.
Great trees this autumn
November 12, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Great trees this autumn
I regularly travel around East Anglia. The railway is the best in the country. High punctuality, level access, clean trains. It pays a premium back to the government. The six year old trains still feel new. A success.
November 10, 2025 at 11:39 PM
I regularly travel around East Anglia. The railway is the best in the country. High punctuality, level access, clean trains. It pays a premium back to the government. The six year old trains still feel new. A success.
Cities around the world are calming their streets, making them safer and cleaner. This road in East Dulwich used to be a congested rat run. Great example of improving London for its residents and due for planting next month 🌳🌿⚘️
October 4, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Cities around the world are calming their streets, making them safer and cleaner. This road in East Dulwich used to be a congested rat run. Great example of improving London for its residents and due for planting next month 🌳🌿⚘️
Ilderton road is the stop that gains the most from Bakerloop. Loads of homes going up, the Tustin estate having more added, a new cycleway and Bakerloop. An exciting area. Its high council rent area so benefits won't all be lost to rents going up.b
September 29, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Ilderton road is the stop that gains the most from Bakerloop. Loads of homes going up, the Tustin estate having more added, a new cycleway and Bakerloop. An exciting area. Its high council rent area so benefits won't all be lost to rents going up.b
www.gov.uk/government/p... New Towns Taskforce report makes a compelling case and identifies some genuine new towns, and some urban extensions. Ease of land assembly & transport drive choices. The Crews Hill town could make a lot of money for the state if the land value uplift is taxed.
September 28, 2025 at 9:19 PM
www.gov.uk/government/p... New Towns Taskforce report makes a compelling case and identifies some genuine new towns, and some urban extensions. Ease of land assembly & transport drive choices. The Crews Hill town could make a lot of money for the state if the land value uplift is taxed.
Good to see the new Bakerloop bus with a decent number on board. I think it will need more bus priority, and bus stops set into the pavement to really zoom past stopping buses. But it has got quite far ahead of the 53 stopping bus I'm on. Time will tell. Loads of new flats at Ilderton Rd so needed.
September 28, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Good to see the new Bakerloop bus with a decent number on board. I think it will need more bus priority, and bus stops set into the pavement to really zoom past stopping buses. But it has got quite far ahead of the 53 stopping bus I'm on. Time will tell. Loads of new flats at Ilderton Rd so needed.
Stockport interchange is fantastic. Massive bus station, elevated park, cycle route. In the background is the Stockport Viaduct which opened in 1840 and carries the mainline to Manchester on 11 million bricks. Best view of the interchange is from a train on the viaduct.
September 7, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Stockport interchange is fantastic. Massive bus station, elevated park, cycle route. In the background is the Stockport Viaduct which opened in 1840 and carries the mainline to Manchester on 11 million bricks. Best view of the interchange is from a train on the viaduct.
My colleague and I have been published! This is our method to use machine learning on massive multimodal data to automatically identify the most effective pubic transport routes and produce thousands of value for money business cases automatically 🚇🚌🚊 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
August 19, 2025 at 1:02 PM
My colleague and I have been published! This is our method to use machine learning on massive multimodal data to automatically identify the most effective pubic transport routes and produce thousands of value for money business cases automatically 🚇🚌🚊 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Wow Heathrow runway £49bn. You'd get several hub airports for that in other countries. Just noticed the Lower Thames Crossing is £9bn - 40x more expensive inflation adjusted than the first Dartford tunnel. Appreciate its much bigger, better and safer, includes access motorways but still.
August 1, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Wow Heathrow runway £49bn. You'd get several hub airports for that in other countries. Just noticed the Lower Thames Crossing is £9bn - 40x more expensive inflation adjusted than the first Dartford tunnel. Appreciate its much bigger, better and safer, includes access motorways but still.
As a birthday treat my podcast cohost (who usually does most of the talking) has let me talk about metros in the UK! Available on 🍎, Spotify etc. yeoldeguide.com/britain-inve...
July 1, 2025 at 9:51 AM
As a birthday treat my podcast cohost (who usually does most of the talking) has let me talk about metros in the UK! Available on 🍎, Spotify etc. yeoldeguide.com/britain-inve...
Handel's Semele at the Royal Opera House is outstanding. And a bit different from usual - but easy listening tunes. Crazy it was first played at Covent Garden, albeit a different building, in 1744!
June 30, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Handel's Semele at the Royal Opera House is outstanding. And a bit different from usual - but easy listening tunes. Crazy it was first played at Covent Garden, albeit a different building, in 1744!
First Light Festival one of the best events around. Beach party, music, stuff for kids, amazing food. Goes on all night. Unbelievably it's free. Lowestoft beach one of the best around ⛱️
June 22, 2025 at 9:48 AM
First Light Festival one of the best events around. Beach party, music, stuff for kids, amazing food. Goes on all night. Unbelievably it's free. Lowestoft beach one of the best around ⛱️
The UK Infrastructure: a 10 year Strategy notes how poor access to city centres limits core city productivity by making these cities function as smaller cities than they are. Great work from Centre for Cities a couple of years ago underpinning this. Its a key difference vs Germany, France, etc.
June 19, 2025 at 8:00 PM
The UK Infrastructure: a 10 year Strategy notes how poor access to city centres limits core city productivity by making these cities function as smaller cities than they are. Great work from Centre for Cities a couple of years ago underpinning this. Its a key difference vs Germany, France, etc.
Was late to the party but agree with everyone else: The V&A storehouse is great. Cool to see work restoring items. Parts of Robin Hood Gardens just hanging there.
June 16, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Was late to the party but agree with everyone else: The V&A storehouse is great. Cool to see work restoring items. Parts of Robin Hood Gardens just hanging there.
Sad that they run down the service like that. Lack of foresight. Its left poor journey times to key cities. A few years ago I compared journey times by train and car in North and Midland and Nottingham's rail services did badly. Fast to London / Leicester via MML but elsewhere driving is faster.
June 7, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Sad that they run down the service like that. Lack of foresight. Its left poor journey times to key cities. A few years ago I compared journey times by train and car in North and Midland and Nottingham's rail services did badly. Fast to London / Leicester via MML but elsewhere driving is faster.
Rethinking stakeholder engagement:
Forget the old “interest vs influence” matrix.
I worked with ChatGPT while on the bus home to make a version that asks:
How important are you to them?
It’s a more realistic lens for modern, human-centred leadership (More aligned to my experience) *image not perfect
Forget the old “interest vs influence” matrix.
I worked with ChatGPT while on the bus home to make a version that asks:
How important are you to them?
It’s a more realistic lens for modern, human-centred leadership (More aligned to my experience) *image not perfect
May 31, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Rethinking stakeholder engagement:
Forget the old “interest vs influence” matrix.
I worked with ChatGPT while on the bus home to make a version that asks:
How important are you to them?
It’s a more realistic lens for modern, human-centred leadership (More aligned to my experience) *image not perfect
Forget the old “interest vs influence” matrix.
I worked with ChatGPT while on the bus home to make a version that asks:
How important are you to them?
It’s a more realistic lens for modern, human-centred leadership (More aligned to my experience) *image not perfect
My TfL branded dice are available now. Only a tenner each. Limited supply, cash only. Etc. (Sad that this was all I could come up with at a baby shower today)
May 31, 2025 at 5:47 PM
My TfL branded dice are available now. Only a tenner each. Limited supply, cash only. Etc. (Sad that this was all I could come up with at a baby shower today)
The deliciousness, interest and value of food around Elephant & Castle is amazing. Such as this Chaulafan. Traditional Ecuadorian kitchens at Elephant serve this Chinese-inspired rice to newly arrived Chinese Londoners. Chop sticks included. A whole migration story in a single dish.
May 31, 2025 at 11:34 AM
The deliciousness, interest and value of food around Elephant & Castle is amazing. Such as this Chaulafan. Traditional Ecuadorian kitchens at Elephant serve this Chinese-inspired rice to newly arrived Chinese Londoners. Chop sticks included. A whole migration story in a single dish.
The trams are great but not enough capacity long term for the densities now seen in Manchester. Needs a metro line or two. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...
May 29, 2025 at 11:12 AM
The trams are great but not enough capacity long term for the densities now seen in Manchester. Needs a metro line or two. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...
