More Olympic idiocy

From today's Times and already well blogged but further evidence of the collective lunacy driving the 2012 games. It will be a disaster.

I am particularly taken by this gem:

Even drivers not travelling to the Olympics will be affected by the plan [to ban cars] because, for two months around the Games, one lane on several key routes in London will be reserved for 80,000 members of the “Olympic family” – athletes, officials and media. These routes, dubbed “Zil lanes” after the routes reserved for the Soviet Politburo cavalcades in Moscow, are likely to be policed by dozens of cameras and a team of enforcement officers.

So now we have it, it's official. London will emulate Soviet Moscow in allowing the chosen few to travel by car. The rest of us can just walk or pile into tubes that won't work. But don't worry. Think of the 'legacy'!

For a detailed and closely reasoned analysis of just how and why the Olympics destroy cities, have a look here. OK, it's mostly about Chicago, which is bidding for the 2016 games – suckers – but it makes the points devastatingly well.