In recent years, various reports and studies have provided quantified estimates of the distribution of road space among different transport modes in various cities worldwide. In doing so, and inspired by broader discussions on transport and urban justice, they have sought to point out the unfairness of existing patterns of road space distribution. Although intuitively tempting, this paper argues that appeals in favour of a ‘fair’ distribution of road space are inherently problematic. In order to illustrate this point, the distribution of road space in Amsterdam is measured using GIS cartography and discussed in relation to various transport-related indicators.

Carlton Reid Apr 20, 2021
The U.K. will this week commit to steeper cuts in carbon emissions, reports the Financial Times. Prime minister Boris Johnson is set to adopt the recommendations made by the government’s independent advisory group, the Climate Change Committee.

The recommendations require, among many other things, a reduction in miles traveled by car and more travel on transit and a massive increase in walking and cycling.
Ahead of the UN’s COP26 climate summit to be held later this year in Glasgow, the U.K. government has accepted the Climate Change Committee’s goal to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels.
The new U.K. target—up from a previous pledge of a 68% reduction—will be announced during a climate summit on Thursday, when President Joe Biden is due to outline a new national goal for U.S. carbon reduction.
“Car travel dominates surface transport emissions,” said a Climate Change Committee report published last year.
“There are opportunities to reduce demand for car travel, through both societal and technological changes and by enabling journeys to be shifted onto lower-carbon modes of transport,” continued the report.

21/4/21
Climate scientists, transport planners and economists say pushing ahead with new road ‘foolhardy’

Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst 19/4/21

Radical new climate change commitments will set the UK on course to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035, the UK government has announced.
Hitting the targets would require more electric cars, low-carbon heating, renewable electricity and, for many, cutting down on meat and dairy.
For the first time, climate law will be extended to cover international aviation and shipping.
But Labour said the government had to match “rhetoric with reality”.
It urged Boris Johnson to treat “the climate emergency as the emergency it is” and show “greater ambition”.
The prime minister’s commitments, which are to become law, bring forward the current target for reducing carbon emissions by 15 years. This would be a world-leading position.
Homes will need to be much better insulated, and people will be encouraged to drive less and walk and cycle more. Aviation is likely to become more expensive for frequent fliers.

• Tax fliers and get rid of SUVs, government told

Peter Walker Fri 23 Apr 2021 07.00 BST

If you were to read certain newspapers for long enough, the message would seem clear: the main cause of traffic congestion is measures to boost walking and cycling – that is, separated cycle lanes, and so-called low-traffic neighbourhoods, or LTNs.
LTNs, schemes to dissuade through traffic on smaller residential streets by filters permeable to people travelling by foot or cycle, but not by private motor vehicle – whether camera-enforced or in the physical form of planters or bollards – are at the centre of a particularly fierce transport-based culture war.
The regular focus for this is access for emergency vehicles. Stories about ambulances or fire crews supposedly held up by badly implemented or not consulted-on planters are a near-daily staple of some news outlets.
This article is an attempt to get to the facts, and in turn to use the row about emergency access as a microcosm for the wider, and often depressingly toxic, debate on LTNs. The examples and studies cited will, I’m afraid, come from London, given the recent spread of LTNs in the capital, and the resultant fact that the research tends to be focused there.

Of those surveyed, just over three fifths (62%) don’t think adults are doing enough to tackle climate change, with 71% of the pupils admitting to feeling worried about climate change, and just over half (53%) believing that adults don’t listen to children’s concerns about the topic.
40% of pupils thought that encouraging more people to walk, cycle or scoot to school was the best way to bring down levels of air pollution near their school, and 38% thought that walking and cycling for local journeys was the most important thing that adults should be doing to tackle climate change overall.

Researchers with Imperial College London’s Department of Mathematics, among other academic institutions, have found that London’s Cycle Superhighway lanes do not negatively impact traffic speed.
In unwelcome news to a handful of mayoral candidates touting that myth that cycle lanes worsen traffic at present, the findings are based on data analysis stretching back further than the existence of even the blue painted schemes first laid down when Boris Johnson was London’s Mayor. The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has likewise previously suggested he may believe the myth of cycle lanes “causing congestion”, though has likewise shown some support for their improvement.