Peter WalkerSat 31 Oct 2020 00.01 GMT

Many Britons will have to get used to driving less if the country is to avoid gridlock on the roads once coronavirus restrictions ease, and councils must provide better routes for cycling and walking, transport experts say.
Government statistics show motor traffic is almost back at pre-lockdown levels, and only 59% of employees have returned to their workplaces. One study predicts that with health concerns reducing the use of public transport, up to 2.7 million more people could end up using cars for commuting trips alone.

Michael SavageSun 25 Oct 2020 08.15 GMT
Conservative figures in London say an extension of the congestion charge should ‘not be tolerated’. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP
Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure from Tory MPs in London to comprehensively rule out a massive extension of the congestion charge in the capital, amid emergency talks over a new bailout for its struggling transport system.
Conservative figures warned there would be “blood on the walls” if the government allowed the extension of the charge, which would hit a series of so-called “London doughnut” Tory seats on the outskirts of the city. They are also demanding there must be no threat to subsidised travel for the young or older people, also proposed as an option by the government as a condition of a further bailout.

Police are investigating a road collision involving Sir Keir Starmer, which saw a cyclist taken to hospital.
The Labour leader is understood to have been driving in the Kentish Town area of north London when the incident happened around miday on Sunday.
A spokesman for Sir Keir said he stayed at the scene until an ambulance arrived and reported the incident at a police station later that day.
The Met Police said the driver was not arrested nor interviewed under caution.
They added that the male cyclist suffered a minor injury to his arm and was taken to hospital by ambulance “as a precaution”.
Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions, is not believed to have been injured.
A spokesman for the Labour leader said: “Keir was involved in a minor road traffic accident on Sunday.

Sara Davis had a happy summer. The company director could race around the Home Counties from meeting to meeting in her Nissan Juke without so much as a hint of a traffic jam.
Now she has to allow an hour for a journey that in August took 30 minutes, fits in far fewer meetings and arrives home late and frustrated each evening. Just thinking about sitting behind the wheel makes her stressed.
She is in no doubt whose fault that is.

It has become the biggest transport controversy of the century. Not rail nationalisation, not the £27bn roads programme, not even the £100bn on HS2, but the humble ‘low traffic neighbourhood’. Or LTNs, as they are known in the jargon that was previously only used by highway engineers and cycle campaigners.
The fundamental idea is simple. By cutting off through traffic in minor residential roads, local residents will enjoy a quieter environment, less pollution, reduced danger from traffic and be more likely to walk or cycle. The road system will be filtered so that cyclists and pedestrians can get through the barriers but cars and vans cannot.
This has implications far beyond transport. Having less traffic going past your door makes life better in lots of ways, from improving sleep to making for a more friendly neighbourhood. Research in the 1970s in San Francisco revealed that there was a strong correlation between the busyness of a street and loneliness. People on quieter streets were far more likely to know their neighbours than those on busy ones.