07 July 2022

Households can save more than £2,000-a-year by switching from a private vehicle to car club membership, according to new research by CoMoUK.
The charity has launched a new tool, which works on savings on both hourly trips and day trips. Analysis shows that the average annual cost of owning a new Ford Fiesta on a lease is £3,801, including fuel, insurance and tax while using the same vehicle through a car club cost £1,678.60 – an annual saving of £2,122.40.

June 16, 2022

The GMC Sierra 2500 HD pickup truck more closely resembles a battering ram or small tank than a commuter’s car. Weighing more than 6,000 pounds and standing more than six-and-a-half feet tall, the truck casts an imposing façade. It’s all part of its physical appeal, according to the truck’s designer.
“We spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you,”  Karan Moorjani, the designer, told Muscle Cars and Trucks magazine. “It’s got that pissed-off feel.”
Moorjani compared the truck with the barrel of a gun for its strong body and powerful fenders, which feels apt given the inordinate danger the hulking vehicle poses to anyone outside the driver seat.
As American cars have ballooned in size over the past three decades, the menace cars like the GMC truck pose to pedestrians and cyclists has increased in lockstep. Those hit by the heaviest vehicles—cars weighing more than 4,000 pounds—are two to three times more likely to die than people hit by smaller cars, a major issue in the context of increasing US pedestrian fatalities. Big trucks also pollute more and do more damage to roads.

Martina Juvara is an accomplished urban planner who believes that people-friendly streets have a key role to play in dealing with dramatic societal and environmental changes. She talks to Annie Marstrand about the importance of mixed communities, life after COP26 and why she remains optimistic despite lack of government action

Six months after attending COP26, Martina Juvara admits to disappointment that the conference seems to have made little impact on prevailing attitudes. She hoped the stark warnings made in Glasgow would have been a catalyst for policy and behaviour change, including how we set objectives, travel and even shop.

Cycling UK has followed Bikeability and Sustrans with a reaction to the second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS2), but cut a very different tone in the reaction to the contents.
Campaigns and Policy Director Roger Geffen MBE, never one sugarcoat a reaction, outlines his belief that there exists a “glaring mismatch between the increases in cycling and walking the Department for Transport (DfT) is aiming to achieve, and the funding available for doing so.”
In an analytical blog on the subject, Geffen dismantles what you may assume to be an increased funding pot (The figure of £3.784bn emerged in the CWIS2 document).

The Scorecard, published by a coalition of organisations, ranks London boroughs on how healthy their streets are according to nine indicators including LTNs, bus priority measures, School Streets, Controlled Parking Zones and 20mph limits.
There are no School Streets in Bexley, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Sutton compared with 49% of schools in Islington.
https://www.healthystreetsscorecard.london/results