Author name: Steven Edwards

Local Transport Today is the authoritative, independent journal for transport decision makers. Analysis, Comment & News on Transport Policy, Planning, Finance and Delivery since 1989.
Living Streets’ Walk to School Outreach programme has received £2.1m from the DfT. The initiative, which has been running with DfT support since 2017, promotes the health and environmental benefits of walking to school for children and their families. The DfT said the programme has a key role to play in the Government’s ambition to ensure more than half of children aged 5 to 10 are walking to school by 2025. The funding builds on the £1m that the DfT gave Living Streets.

 Two-thirds of respondents to a YouGov poll said they support car-free zones outside schools, according to a survey for the charity Living Streets. The survey found that 64% support car-free zones outside schools, while 61% support safer crossings, 57% support a ban on pavement parking and 46% are in favour of lower speed limits. …

Transport is the largest driver of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK

Daisy Dunne – Climate Correspondent

Ministers must ban the sale of the most polluting vehicles such as SUVs immediately and bring in a charge on drivers for each mile they travel if Britain is to meet its climate goals, experts have warned.

Transport is the UK’s most polluting sector, accounting for around a third of the country’s CO2 emissions before the start of the pandemic.
Ministers hope to slash these emissions by encouraging a switch to electric vehicles, with a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 part of Boris Johnson’s 10-point climate plan.
But experts have warned that it is “delusional” to believe that emissions can be tackled through a switch to electric cars alone – and pointed to more drastic action and “hard choices” to end transport’s contribution to the climate crisis by 2050.

Peter Walker 2/6/21
Schemes to promote cycling and walking condemned by some critics as controversial and unpopular actually appear to be welcomed by many voters, according to analysis of last month’s election results in London.
Examination of the London mayoral election on 6 May on a ward-level basis showed that votes for parties that support such projects tended to rise in areas where they had been introduced, while parties that opposed them were more likely to shed votes.

Drivers who overtake cyclists too closely could be pulled over and cautioned for dangerous driving under a new policing operation this summer Operation Close Pass will have Police Scotland deploying plain-clothes officers on bikes to catch reckless drivers who put cyclists at risk.

Motorists will be pulled over and “if someone is unreceptive to education they will be cautioned for careless or dangerous driving and receive a court summons”, according to a statement from Cycling Scotland.
It comes as the national cycling organisation launches a campaign to improve road safety, with figures showing that at least three cyclists a week suffer serious injuries.

Yelp data shows greater consumer interest at restaurants on pedestrian-friendly “slow streets” that limited vehicle traffic during the pandemic.
Laura Bliss May 11, 2021
At first, the empty city streets of the pandemic were an eerie sign of a world in disorder. But when dozens of cities converted some of them to pedestrian-friendly corridors with restricted vehicle access, they became something else: an example of how readily urban space can be repurposed for mobility and play, and how quickly human activity can surge back when cars are removed.