Author name: Steven Edwards

I should at this point check our privilege because there are places in the world who have long suffered catastrophic flooding and consumption by rich countries has and will only make things worse; by comparison, the UK has been getting of lightly.
I need to separate out a couple of the flooding mechanisms. At the macro-level, there will be issues with how a water catchment operates. By catchment, I mean the area that captures rainfall (or melting snow) which ends up in watercourses.

Clive Carter on May 14, 2020

ON behalf of the minority of car-owners, Haringey Council—more clearly than ever—are now winning the war against those in the Borough arguing for measures to advance the interests of cyclists and “active travel”.
The Council Cabinet responsibilities for (a) Highways and (b) Strategic Transport are divided between two Councillors. However, between them, they are succeeding in throwing back the siren voices of human-powered travel. Not by loud words, but by quiet deeds.
BIKE LANE DELETED
Perhaps the best single example of a battle won, is the deletion last year of an established cycle path leading to a major transport hub. It was in Hale Road N17, close to the Tottenham Hale bus-, rail- and Underground interchange.
It could be viewed as provocative, but Highways officers are likely to be quietly satisfied that this smack-down to cyclists is big and unmistakeable. After performing her own thorough research, the Cabinet Member for Highways issued a statement (below) defending the deletion on the grounds of cyclists’ safety, that “has to take priority”

People living in the scenic forestlands of northern California were facing a weekend of fear as huge wildfires threatened to reduce thousands of homes to ashes.
The Dixie fire, which has been raging for three weeks and incinerated much of the gold rush-era town of Greenville this week was threatening more than 10,000 buildings in the northern Sierra Nevada. It had engulfed an area larger than the size of New York City.
It was the largest current wild-land blaze in the nation and the third-largest in recorded California history, according to the state department of fire and forestry protection.

As we feared, Hampshire County Council has chosen to remove existing, tranche 1, active travel schemes, and cancel the bulk of planned tranche 2 schemes. Cycle Winchester is asking HCC why. The evidence base for this decision seems flawed.
To summarise the key points of the decision:
• Hyde Street is reopened to through motor traffic and the lane closure in North Walls is removed.

• The closure of Great Minster Street is retained, to promote economic activity in this important hospitality area.

• The planned scheme to provide a two-way cycle lane on North Walls has been cancelled.

• The planned scheme to provide a segregated cycleway on Upper High Street has been cancelled.

• A short stretch of segregated cycleway on High Street will go ahead, but now detached from the Upper High Street we feel it will be much less useful.

• Cycling contraflow on Parchment Street and St Peter Street will go ahead.

• There is a vague promise of a ‘longer-term package of improvements’.

Transport for London will now be due payment of all legal costs on the case brought by the Licensed Taxi Driver’s Association and the United Trade Action Group. The cab body was unhappy that road space was handed to cyclists, yet now finds itself seemingly unable to appeal further, liable for all legal costs and lumped with an initial bill of £50,000, due within a fortnight.
“They were not universally popular, but we think it would be extraordinary and not right for a court to condemn them as extreme or ill-considered, especially during the pandemic.”
The Bishopsgate scheme in particular maintained taxi access to transport hub Liverpool Street, but gave buses and cyclists rights to use dedicated new spaces on weekdays, to which the taxi org drew ire. The Standard reports that around 6,000 cyclists use the stretch daily and around 700 per hour at peak times. The scheme’s intention was to encourage greater levels of active travel as Covid spread in order to limit contact on enclosed transport forms.

When Spain lifted its strict pandemic lockdown in the middle of last year, residents of Barcelona found some of their streets were not as they remembered them.

The rationale is that once people experience an e-bike for themselves, they are more likely to buy one. 
The Guardian newspaper recently reported that a business case was created about the plan for the Department of Transport, and the government will partner with a third party to purchase the bikes and run the events during the summer and autumn at yet to be determined locations.

Changes to the Highway Code will include placing pedestrians at the top of a new “road user hierarchy”, the Department for Transport has announced.

The revisions to road user hierarchy were announced by transport secretary Grant Shapps alongside a commitment to increase the cycling and walking budget announced at the Spending Review to £338m.
The infrastructure upgrades, changes to The Highway Code and new requirements to ensure that active travel schemes’ effects are properly assessed are among the raft of measures included as part of what the government is calling a Summer of Cycling and Walking.

Damian Carrington
Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.
The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.