After seven years, plans to dual sections of the A47 are being heard by the Planning Inspectorate this week.
Highways England (HE) is looking to improve the A47 in six places between Peterborough and Great Yarmouth as part of a £300m project, including the sections between, North Tuddenham and Easton, and Blofield and North Burlingham.
What’s in the North Tuddenham to Easton plan?
Included in the plans are 9km of new dual carriageway between Hockering and Honingham
Empty running on the rise – Paragon Routing
Charles Nockold
Parents and residents back School Streets – TransportXtra
Oxfordshire pilots parking restrictions at nine primary schools
Residents and parents in Oxfordshire have given positive feedback to a School Streets pilot that has taken place across Oxfordshire since March 2021. The pilot scheme trialled restricting motor traffic at the school gates at drop-off and pick-up times to open the road to safe walking and cycling.
School Streets aim to improve road safety, help boost cycling and walking and improve air quality.
Oxfordshire County Council has been working with walking and cycling charity Sustrans.
Travel app data suggests public transport is bouncing back,
John Siraut’s analysis of travel app usage sheds lights on public transport habits as cities around the world came out of lockdown after the Covid-19 pandemic
Moovit is one of a number of global Mobility as a Service providers. It has around 900 million users worldwide and covers over 3,400 cities. During the Covid-19 pandemic it has been publishing weekly high-level data on the use of its app, with a comparison to usage in a typical week in 2019. We do not know the exact correlation between the number of times people use the app and their propensity to take public transport or total public transport usage.
Mobility in Cities is About Space – Proven Powerfully in Pictures! | Planetizen Blogs
As gas prices rise and the hype ramps up again about electric cars as the “solution” to green mobility in cities, I find myself busy once again pointing out that the biggest challenge in cities when it comes to how we get around, isn’t about what comes out of the tailpipe of your car.
The only real energy solutions are urban densities, use-mixes and patterns, and personal choices, that depend on much less energy. That means efforts like making walking, biking and public transit truly inviting options in our cities and communities.
A “slap in the face” – council promotes cycle commuting … while ripping out bike lane | road.cc
Southampton City Council promises “some simple things which can help you feel more confident and comfortable cycling on the road”
A council’s Facebook post promoting cycling and encouraging people to switch to active travel for their commutes has come as a “slap in the face” following the local authority’s decision earlier this month to remove a protected cycle lane, says one road.cc reader.
Southampton City Council began removing part of the cycle lane on The Avenue on Tuesday following a 15-month trial, reports the Daily Echo. The trial was put in place by the former Labour administration, with the Conservatives taking control after May’s elections.
Cargo bikes deliver faster and cleaner than vans, study finds | The Guardian
Home deliveries are soaring and cargo bikes cut congestion and pollution in cities, researchers say
Damian Carrington 5/8/21
Electric cargo bikes deliver about 60% faster than vans in city centres, according to a study. It found that bikes had a higher average speed and dropped off 10 parcels an hour, compared with six for vans.
The bikes also cut carbon emissions by 90% compared with diesel vans, and by a third compared with electric vans, the report said. Air pollution, which is still at illegal levels in many urban areas, was also significantly reduced.
Mobility in Cities is About Space – Proven Powerfully in Pictures! | Planetizen Blogs
As gas prices rise and the hype ramps up again about electric cars as the “solution” to green mobility in cities, I find myself busy once again pointing out that the biggest challenge in cities when it comes to how we get around, isn’t about what comes out of the tailpipe of your car.
Even if all vehicles became electric tomorrow (which they won’t), and even if your local electric energy sources are on the renewable side, like BC’s hydro-electric power (which they’re likely not – it’s just as likely they’re on the especially dirty side, like coal), the truth is there’s no totally “clean” energy source, no energy without impacts. The only real energy solutions are urban densities, use-mixes and patterns, and personal choices, that depend on much less energy. That means efforts like making walking, biking and public transit truly inviting options in our cities and communities.
It’s now or never: Scientists warn time of reckoning has come for the planet | The Observer
Robin McKie 15/8/21
At the end of the 60s sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, the camera pans across the Daily Express case room to a front page proof hanging on a wall. “Earth Saved”, screams the headline. The camera pans. “Earth Doomed”, announces the proof beside it.
The head printer looks baffled. Which page will he be told to select? We never find out, for the film concludes without revealing the fate of our planet whose rotation has been sent spiralling out of control by simultaneous Soviet and US atom bomb tests. All we know is that Earth’s fate hangs in the balance thanks to human stupidity.
Such a vision may be the stuff of popular entertainment but it comes uncomfortably close to our own uncertain future, as highlighted last week by an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which effectively announced “a code red” warning for our species. Unequivocal evidence showed greenhouse gas emissions were propelling us towards a calamitous fiery future triggered by extreme climate change, it announced. Only urgent reductions of fossil fuel emissions can hope to save us.
Summer in the city: Lauren Oyler on a bike accident in Berlin | The Guardian
Every summer when I come to Berlin, someone says, “Wouldn’t you rather be at the beach?” No. I want to drink beer from the Späti (corner shop) and marvel at the sudden appearance of disparate architectures. But increasingly, there are heatwaves.
If pressed, even these I can romanticise: everyone is carefree and dirty (even more so than usual) and doesn’t work (even more so than usual). I always end up crossing Alexanderplatz on a bike thinking, this is like a desert, but more than once I’ve run into someone I know in the bike lane, which renders the scene even more hallucinogenic. Still, I dread the heatwaves as if they are worse than they are. “They’re going to have to get air-conditioning,” I mutter with the rest of the Americans. The only real respite is, unfortunately, to go to the beach.