Lizzie Dearden 14 hours ago
The Supreme Court has ruled that protests can be a “lawful excuse” to block roads, as the government pushes for new laws to limit peaceful demonstrations.
Britain’s most senior judges said it was right to acquit a group of protesters who blockaded the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in London in 2017.
A ruling given on Friday morning said that protesters can have a “lawful excuse” defence against the offence of obstructing a highway, even where they have used “deliberately physically obstructive conduct”.
“There should be a certain degree of tolerance to disruption to ordinary life, including disruption of traffic, caused by the exercise of the right to freedom of expression or freedom of peaceful assembly,” the majority ruling added.
“There must be an assessment of the facts in each individual case to determine whether the interference with article 10 or article 11 rights was ‘necessary in a democratic society’.”
The offence has been used against hundreds of protesters in recent years, and the trial of Extinction Rebellion activists who blockaded a Rupert Murdoch-owned printworks had been adjourned pending the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Have protest movements made any difference to transport? – transportxtra
Steve Melia 15 June 2021
Protests are a waste of time; they never change anything. I read comments like that online as protestors in tunnels obstructed the HS2 works earlier this year. I have heard similar views expressed many times in the past, usually from people who disagree with protestors. Does the evidence support those views?
Since the late 1980s transport has provided several test cases. Over three years, 52 interviews and thousands of documents, I set out to find some answers. The result was two research articles and a paperback book, Roads Runways and Resistance.
The short answer is that protest movements have influenced the course of events, although it is difficult to predict success or failure in advance. Researching the project led me in unexpected directions; I did not expect to be writing a crime or spy story, which is what it became in parts.
One way protest movements can influence events is by shifting the ‘Overton Window’, the range of ideas discussed in the mainstream media and considered legitimate by politicians and public
What makes policy change?
Wales transport: Freeze on all new road building projects – BBC News
BBC News 7 hours ago
It means plans for the Deeside “Red Route”, the Llandeilo bypass, and a third Anglesey crossing will be put on hold.
Ministers say it is a necessary part of Wales’ effort to reduce carbon emissions.
But the Conservatives warned the decision was a “significant blow” for the economic recovery.
Meanwhile Plaid Cymru said the review cannot mean communities “are left behind”.
Deputy Climate Change Minister Lee Waters announced the review in the Welsh Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.
Projects that already have diggers in the ground, such as the Heads of the Valleys Road, will continue.
Roads deaths up 40% last year despite fall in traffic | Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard
By Press Association 2021 6 hrs ago
Provisional figures released by the Department for Transport (DfT) show 140 cyclists were killed in crashes in 2020, compared with 100 in 2019.
The AA expressed concern at the increase, as it occurred despite a decline in vehicle traffic due to coronavirus restrictions.
Edmund King, AA president, said: “It is staggering that with car traffic down to as little as 22% of pre-lockdown levels and the big increase in protected pop-up routes, the level of cyclist casualties was so high.
“This points strongly to the need for better engineering, more education and more cops in cars to help eliminate road deaths.
“We will continue to push our Think Bikes! campaign so that drivers take more care around cyclists.
No Funding For Paint: U.K. Government Warns Local Authorities To Be ‘Ambitious’ When Bidding For Cycling Cash – Forbes
Carlton Reid Jun 16, 2021
The U.K. Department for Transport (DfT) has written to local authorities stressing that prospective cycling schemes will “need to include segregation” and that cycle lanes “”marked only with white paint will not be funded.”
The letter doubles down on the department’s ambitions set out last year aimed at those local authorities bidding for “Active Travel Fund” money. This funding is for cycling and walking schemes.
The latest bid invitation, sent out to local authorities this week, hammers home the importance of high design standards in securing funding. To have any chance of progressing bids must meet the new LTN 1/20 standard.
Chris Boardman outlines his vision as new GM transport commissioner: ‘a network that enables me to choose it over driving’ and signals a change in pace and structure to deliver it – Walk Ride GM
A:
I’m an advisor to the mayor with a much expanded brief; trams, trains and active travel – everything people need to not have to drive.
I’m going to be the person across the details on these modes, to give the mayor considered advice on how best to deliver the Bee Network – and he will take the decisions he chooses.
I {also} co-ordinate Active Travel on his behalf – everything from discussions with stakeholders, such as yourselves, from councillors to government.
We’ve now set up his weekly Bee Network delivery board – so he can stay across everything in real time. It’s been a frantic few weeks putting everything in place – a huge learning curve for me personally … and I’m choosing to tackle this very complex world in a simplistic way.
I start with the overriding question – ‘what would I need from this network for me to choose it over driving?’ because ultimately that is what this mission is, and if it doesn’t make me change, it doesn’t work; so super complex and super simple at same time.
As for top three priorities I’ll give you four –
Better Streets forced to continue legal steps to bring back safe infrastructure – Better Streets for Kensington and Chelsea
18th June, 2020
Dear Councillor Campbell, dear Elizabeth,
You will no doubt be aware that we have had no choice but to proceed with a Judicial Review of your decision not to re-instate the cycle lanes that you unlawfully removed just weeks into a trial scheduled to last up to 18 months.
Our claim papers were issued in the High Court and served this week.
We take no pleasure whatsoever in being forced into this course of action. Your continued inaction on this matter however leaves no option. The chronology of events is now well known – a safe cycle lane finally installed in the autumn of 2020 after at least a decade of consideration, removed at the beginning of December after just seven weeks. You refused to listen to our pleas to pause and reflect, but rather ripped it out using a “special urgency” procedure rushed through just hours before a full Council meeting.
Because your decision was manifestly unlawful, you responded early in January to our pre-action protocol letter saying that you would revisit this decision in March. We wrote to you on 16th March pointing out the obvious shortcomings of the report you had put together, and your clear intent to kick the issue into the longest grass you could find. As predicted this is what you tried to do at your meeting of 17th March, coming up with a ruse to look at transport patterns of some sort or other after COVID, and after international tourism had returned – which in turn might inform some sort of other study. Understandably this cover story has become the RBKC equivalent of the Barnard Castle eye test.
Traffic jams will puncture our electric car dreams The Times
The number of cars on UK roads will rise by more than a quarter in the next three decades as the shift to electric vehicles causes a congestion crisis in towns and cities, according to research.
A report published today says that 10 million more cars will hit the road between now and 2050, despite a government drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. This will lead to an 11 per cent rise in overall traffic.
Researchers said that green transport policies were largely focused on the shift to electric vehicles which emit no emissions from the exhaust. However, the study said there was “no such thing as a zero-emissions vehicle” because of the manufacturing process and the concrete laid for new roads
Oct 9, 2018) Cyclists Are Better Drivers Than Motorists, Finds Study – Forbes
Carlton Reid
Cyclists who drive are better behind the steering wheel than motorists, a new analysis has found. The link between cycling and safer motoring was revealed by a UK insurance firm which offers specialist motor insurance policies for cyclists. This analysis correlates with an earlier study which found that cyclist-drivers tend to have faster reaction times than non-cyclists.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cyclist-drivers were significantly faster at detecting the appearance of fellow cyclists.
Cyclists (and motorcyclists) have a wry acronym for the inattention of motorists. “Sorry, mate I didn’t see you” – or SMIDSY – is said to be a typical excuse from motorists who have crashed into two-wheelers. For the same phenomenon, UK government incident reporting uses the phrase “looked but failed to see.”
Beanland’s study concludes that “cycling experience is associated with more efficient attentional processing for road scenes” and she suggests that road safety would be improved for all if more motorists also cycled.
South Gloucestershire want you to believe that building roads is the solution to climate change – At War With The Motorist
South Gloucestershire are consulting on expanding road capacity, and to justify it they cite their Climate Emergency declaration and tell us that building roads will solve climate change.
As a local issue, I’ve written about it elsewhere. But it covers lots of themes that are really At War With The Motorist material: zombie road schemes, highways departments who have never yet seen a problem for which they won’t suggest building roads is the solution, no matter how absurd, and councils who sell you road building with the empty promise that it will be accompanied with investment in public transport, active travel or liveable neighbourhoods.