Bugs Matter app will collect data on worrying population crash of creatures essential to life on Earth
Damian Carrington
A new app that tracks bug splats on car number plates will enable UK citizen scientists to help shed light on the worrying decline of insects.
Older drivers will remember scrubbing large numbers of splatted insects from windscreens after journeys in past decades. But a 2019 study that analysed car registration plates after trips in Kent found a 50% fall in splatted bugs compared with 2004.
Andy’s 200km run fundraising for RoadPeace – We exceeded £50,000 target for RoadPeace
“I am running 200km to help raise funds for RoadPeace because they provide vital support to bereaved families.
Yes! We exceeded £50,000 target for
@RoadPeace
via #AndyCox200km challenge (now £51,047). This enables vital support to bereaved families & seriously injured crash victims. It will make a difference. Thank you for every donation! You can still donate via:
The way forward is public transport -Paul Tuohy, Chief Executive, Campaign for Better Transport
• MPs and Peers from across the political spectrum came along to our campaign bus to talk about why the way forward is public transport
• We put up ads at Westminster tube station to ensure that parliamentarians notice our campaign messages• Hundreds of people have already emailed their MPs about the campaignAnd we’ve seen some success: at last, part-time commuters will be able to buy flexible rail season tickets. We’ll be watching closely as more details emerge – it’s vital that the tickets offer a decent discount.
Think tank calls for cargo bike parking and markets delivered by cycle – Cycle Industry News
Mark Sutton24 May, 2021
A sustainability and smart city specialist think tank has made a string of policy recommendations, including delivery of London markets by cargo bike, in a bid to enhance public interest in the practicalities of utility cycling versus defaulting to car use.
The 26-page Fare City assessment, authored by architect and former public policy shaper Charles Critchell draws on a body of pre and during Covid research, including the meticulous analysis of cargo bike delivery businesses like PedalMe, which famously employs its own data scientist to develop the firm’s inner city efficiency.
Steve Rotheram urges people to ditch cars for short journeys in new campaign – Liverpool Echo
Experts say it will be key for the region to meet air quality and climate targets
Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram is calling for a revolution in how people in our region get around as he launches a major campaign for people to ditch short car journeys.
He said putting walking and cycling on an equal footing with public transport, in the Liverpool City Region would be key to making improvements to the planet and people’s individual health.,
The campaign comes as part of a wider election pledge to deliver a fully-integrated “London-style Transport System” serving the Liverpool City Region.
To encourage motorists to leave their cars at home, the combined authority is investing £30m in a 600km Active Travel network of cycle paths and walkways.
On your bike! Ed Miliband on Britain’s much-needed cycling revolution | The Guardian
Ed Miliband Sat 22 May 2021 09.00
When it comes to tackling the really big challenges of our world, you might not immediately think of cycling and walking as solutions. But it’s time to recognise the potential of the humble bicycle and our own two feet.
First, though, I have a confession. You know how most children learn to ride a bike around five or six? Well, I learned late – about 11 or 12 – and have always been a very, very nervous rider. What’s more, having learned, I left it more than three decades before doing anything more than a few minutes of uncomfortable wobbling. We went through six prime ministers, drainpipe trousers, Duran Duran, the invention of the internet, email, Twitter, Facebook, the bacon sandwich incident – and still I resisted two wheels.
Ed Miliband: I was 50 when I finally mastered the art of riding a bike | Ed Miliband | The Guardian
Former Labour leader says he had been ‘very nervous’ before an electric bicycle made him a convert
Amelia Hill Sat 22 May 2021
Ed Miliband only mastered the art of riding a bicycle aged 50 – and was put off using an adult tricycle because he was worried about the paparazzi, he reveals in a new book serialised in the Guardian on Saturday.
Admitting he had always been a “very, very nervous [bicycle] rider” as a child, the now 51-year-old hired an electric bike while on holiday in France and “had an epiphany”. “This”, he said, “was the eureka moment”.
The Five Principles – The Ranty Highwayman
Earlier this week I gave a talk to Cyclox about what I thought made good cycle routes. The talk covered the five principles for cycling infrastructure with a round up on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
The five principles crop up in all sorts of UK cycling planning and design policy and guidance – even in the most dire of the genre! It is no surprise that they pop up in the new English design guidance, LTN1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design, and they are covered in some detail in Chapter 4. It’s also worth stating that in fact they equally apply to planning and designing for walking. The reason for this is that these principles major on the human experience of self-propelled travel.
We’re not yet ready for what’s already happened – The Snap Forward – Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen May 19 2021
The true measure of the seriousness of the planetary crisis is not destruction but discontinuity.
My most succinct working definition of a “discontinuity” is a watershed moment, one where past experience loses its value as a guide to decision-making about the future. It’s a critical concept, so I’m going to do my best in this week’s email to quickly explain what it means to me, and why it may be useful to you.
The planetary crisis is what I call the interlocking, complex, accelerating changes our actions are bringing on in the natural world. Climate change is the largest problem within this crisis, but it is interconnected with ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, topsoil loss and water shortages, threats to food systems, changes in ocean chemistry, the release of rivers of toxic chemicals into the biosphere, invasive species and so on. We can talk about them as separate challenges, but in reality they are all one crisis. And it is getting worse, fast.
Royal Parks accused of having “lost the plot” over banning electric scooters | road.cc
Cars are fine – but body insists “we do not permit – and we have no plans to permit – the use of e-scooters in the parks”The Royal Parks has been accused of having “lost the plot” after reacting to yesterday’s launch of trial electric scooter hire schemes by banning them from the green spaces it looks after – including Richmond Park, where campaigners have been urging for motor vehicles to be banned.