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•• Amsterdam update:
Following last month’s report on the planned closure of part of Amsterdam’s A10 ring road for its 750th birthday festival, Marco Te Brömmelstroet tweets that what many feared would cause gridlock turned into a joyful, car-free celebration with 250,000 attendees.
• No chaos.
• No traffic collapse.
• Just music, sun, and a reimagined city”
•• @jonburkeUK tweets:
“The cycling revolution is alive and well in Paris but, contrary to all those car-free Rue de Rivioli videos, there are still far too many motors. That’s because Ann Hidalgo has mainly focused on supply-side measures – bike lanes etc. The time has now come for car restrictions.”
•• The UK meanwhile, is making even more space for motor vehicles.
George Monbiot reports on how the Lower Thames Crossing – is to get £590m on top of its £9.2bn allocation for 14 miles of road. With a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) showing a net loss of 52 pence for every pound spent, you would think a better use for the more accurate £16bn figure (from Transport Action Network) might be found.
Campaign for Better Transport suggest: • 9 years of “reasonable level” bus services, or
• 11,400 miles (18,400km) of cycle lanes, or • 5,700 miles (9,200km) of bus lanes
•• Note that TAN and others won their 2 year court battle to prevent the (former) government’s planned active travel funding cuts).
•• “We spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you.” As if we needed reminding, a GM truck designer gives another reason why UK roads ‘feel’ so hostile, and why SUVs receive a justified portion perhaps, of contempt from those with an aversion to militaristic-style trucks on local streets? We're also interested in how Bikeability training can get kids and nervous cycle users to 'up their game' around these vehicles…
•• On speeds, it's @fietsprofessor in Amsterdam again! One year after Amsterdam reduced speed limits to 30 km/h on 500 streets:
• injury-related crashes dropped 11%
• single-vehicle accidents fell 18%
• support rose to more than 60%
•• That's Space, Size, Speed and…what about Noise? Noise pollution now harms over 110 million people across Europe. In the UK based research finds 40% of the UK population are exposed to harmful transport noise.
•• Which leads to.. Tarmac! More cars, bigger sizes and means more tarmac…which also means more heat. Here's another Twitter post from @fietsprofessor (Marco): 'It's hard to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.' A recent measurement in Amsterdam showed that tarmac for cars adds around 13°C compared to green spaces.
•• “It is 39°C in Lisbon today” writes @adamtranter writes, “The same in Madrid. In Paris next week it will also be 39°C. Given trees take decades to mature and many don’t survive, cities need to plant many more. And urgently.
@createstreets adds: “Nearly everything we’ve done to our towns & cities for the last century has heated them up… We’ve cut down street trees to let cars drive faster, & to make highway officials' lives easier. The result? We’ve lost shade and “evapotranspiration” effect (water transpires & evaporates from greenery and soil cools us down). Streets without street trees on a hot day can be anything from 5 to 15ºC warmer….”.
Enough said!
Apart from some good news north of the border..
•• Scottish councils could receive powers to charge drivers for using roads as part of a new strategy to cut car use.
•• and finishing off in London, Bolt are set to launch an e-bike service in the capital this summer. Contrasting with Lime's pay per minute model, Bolt's service will be pay per mile.. and watched with interest.
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