A backward city is one where the systems are inefficent and produce bad results and where the powers-that-be have primitive attitudes. TfL's sabotaging of London's roads has made London a backward city in several ways:

1) It is now more difficult and stressful to travel by road in London than in other European capitals. Try travelling by road in Berlin or Rome and you will see how backward London is.

2) The London Ambulance Service has declared that each year many lives are lost because the ambulances cannot make journeys quickly owing to road and traffic conditions. I expect that from some Third World shanty town, not from a European capital city.

3) Whereas London's air quality improved continually from the 1950's Clean Air Act until the late 1990s, since the creation of TfL air quality in London has steadily deteriorated to such an extent that both the Meteorological Office and the European Commission have in recent years denounced London's air quality as dangerous and unacceptable. During this same period, deaths in London caused by respiratory problems have increased commeasurately. A city that allows air quality to deteriorate to that extent is a backward city and a city whose ruling body is so pig-headed and uncaring that they continue to create the conditions which produce these avoidable deaths is also a backward city.

If you want an example of TfL changing the road layout so that congestion and air pollution increase massively, I suggest you travel from The Royal London Hospital to Fenchurch Street Station at about 10-o-clock any weekday. Many years ago a gyratory system incorporating Whitechapel High Street, Braham Street and Mansell Street was introduced at what was then called Gardner's Corner in the Aldgate area. This gyratory system worked extremely well with traffic flowing smoothly because there were no conflicting traffic movements. There were hardly any traffic lights. When the Department Of Transport took over responsibility for London's main roads, they made this system part of their Red Route complex. When TfL took over, they immediately installed unnecessary traffic lights. What they have now done - during Boris Johnson's time in office - is to shut down the gyratory system, reintroduce two-way traffic, impose numerous conflicting flows of traffic and install traffic lights every few yards. The result is a disaster. Don't take my word for it. Go and sample it for yourself.

Presume is the correct word but you presume incorrectly. Nothing I have posted in this thread or any other should lead you to imagine that I want to demolish buildings and/or build motorways in London. On the contrary, my complaint about TfL is that they do not leave things alone. I don't want TfL to do anything because anything they do will make matters worse. As a general proposition I do not believe it necessary to demolish buildings to improve London's road network. By far the quickest, cheapest and least destructive way of making the roads better is to undo everything TfL has done and put the roads back to how they were ten years ago.

You don't seem to know the Tottenham Gyratory System as well as you think. Quite apart from the main traffic lights by Tesco, there are two sets of pedestrian lights in Broad Lane so crossing the road safely is not a problem. Your suggestion that I want to condemn people in the area to death by air pollution indicates you haven't been paying attention. I have reiterated both in this thread and others that I want to reduce air pollution and that I am opposed to TfL's plans because they increase air pollution. Your allegation would be more appropiate if directed at TfL.

Why don't I believe the new system will work? Please see my earlier post. Incidentally you don't have to take my word for it. Right now, this week, because of the road works the Seven Sisters section of Tottenham High Road is effectively as it was 40 years ago: two lanes of traffic going north. So, go off peak, at 11-o clock on Tuesday morning, 2-o-clock Thursday afternoon, 3-o-clock Sunday afternoon and see for yourself. Go to South Tottenham Station and see the queue of traffic tailing back from the newly created bottleneck. Go up Seven Sisters Road to the junction with Saint Ann's Road and look at all the vehicles sitting there with their engines running. And then ask yourself what will it be like during the peak periods? What will it be like when TfL have reduced the running lanes from two to one to make way for a bus lane?

Your assumptions about my travelling patterns are mistaken. It's certainly true that Monday to Friday I drive a lot but it is also true that at weekends and in summer evenings I use public transport. In fact if you check my posts in other threads you find evidence of my use of public transport.