Nicholas Hellen, Transport Editor Saturday June 04 2022 Sunday Times
A young man in a mask crouches down by the back wheel of a Mercedes G-class, fiddles with the valve, inserts a single dried bean into the cap and pushes down. A few seconds later, as the air hisses out, he is walking nonchalantly away from the scene.
He is one of a new breed of activists, calling themselves the Tyre Extinguishers, who are taking on climate change one mung bean at a time.
The G-class, or G-Wagon, which is 6ft 5in high, weighs 2½ tons and does only 26 miles to the gallon of diesel, is the brashest of SUVs. Even here, at midnight in Hampstead, where the streets are thick with Range Rovers, Land Rover Discoverys, Audi Q8s and BMW X5s, it is a trophy for those bent on making it socially unacceptable to own these vehicles in urban areas.
The campaigners say SUVs are a “disaster” for our climate and the second-largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade. This broad category accounts for more than 40 per cent of Britain’s car sales, even though very few of the people who drive them do so off road.
Europe: Free public transport gains traction | Europe | News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 05.06.2022
In a bid to reduce global warming and offset rising fuel costs, an increasing number of European countries, cities and regions are making public transport free.
For years, experts and politicians have called for major changes in the transportation sector. While much of the motivation to foster public transport systems largely stemmed from a desire to curb climate change, the war in Ukraine has provided another reason: Using trains, trams and buses, rather than cars, Europeans would reduce their fuel consumption and thus the continent’s dependence on Russian energy imports.
Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, introduced a heavily discounted monthly transportation pass, letting people in Germany ride regional public transport for €9(about $9.65) per month in June, July and August. Lawmakers said they hope the pass will save people some money and encourage them to use public transport rather than drive cars.
The cheap, green, low-tech solution for the world’s megacities – ft.com
Simon Kuper – Poorer megacities tend to be designed for rich people who can afford cars. Bikes are the answer
In a stunning photograph from Shanghai in 1991, clusters of cycling commuters stream across a bridge. The only motorised vehicles to be seen are two buses. That was China in the 1990s: a “Bicycle Kingdom” where 670 million people owned pushbikes. Chinese rulers were then still following the lead of Deng Xiaoping, who defined prosperity as a “Flying Pigeon bicycle in every household”.
Today China is the kingdom of eight-lane highways. Most lower- and middle-income megacities around the world have ditched the bike. But they now need to reclaim it. Modern “megacities” (defined as places with at least 10 million inhabitants) are the biggest human settlements in history, and growing every day.
The world had ten megacities in 1990, 33 in 2018 and will have 43 by 2030, says the United Nations. Over a third of their population growth will be in India, China and Nigeria. More cars will mean more traffic jams and more damage to people, the planet and city life. Happily, it’s perfectly feasible for these places to become bicycle kingdoms again.
Why Do So Many Motorists Feel Persecuted When In Reality They Rule The World? – forbes.com
Carlton Reid
For some newspapers, the imposition of speeding fines is a “war on the motorist.” The latest front in this supposed war is led by a group not usually noted for radical anti-car tendencies.
According to the headline on a double-page spread in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph the “elite are determined to kill off the car.”
Folks from the elite tend to be Tesla and Lamborghini owners, so it’s a strange claim for the Telegraph to make. What is the newspaper basing its claim on and is the car really as endangered as the giant panda or the black Rhino?
The claim, it turns out, is based on “increasing insurance premiums, new city charging zones and pollution-busting road restrictions.”
What is a 20-minute neighbourhood? – sustrans.org.uk
Dr Cecilia Oram
There’s a lot of talk about 20-minute neighbourhoods in the UK right now. But what are they, and why are they so important for making safer, healthier places to live? Here’s everything you need to know.
Our goal for cities and towns is for them to be places that connect us to each other and what we need.
Places where everyone can thrive without having to use a car.
Centred around boosting quality of life for everyone.
We think that the best way to do this is to ensure that it is easy for people to meet most of their everyday needs by a short, convenient and pleasant 20-minute return walk.
10 minutes there, and 10 minutes back.
Centred around boosting quality of life for everyone.
We think that the best way to do this is to ensure that it is easy for people to meet most of their everyday needs by a short, convenient and pleasant 20-minute return walk.
10 minutes there, and 10 minutes back.
Tesla cars on autopilot have stopped on highways without cause, owners report | Tesla | The Guardian
US regulators investigating hundreds of reports that self-driving models 3 and Y have braked on highways
More than 750 Tesla owners have complained to US safety regulators that cars operating on the automaker’s partially automated driving systems have suddenly stopped on roadways for no apparent reason.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed the number in a detailed information request letter to Tesla that was posted on Friday on the agency’s website.
The 14-page letter dated 4 May asks the automaker for all consumer and field reports it has received about false braking, as well as reports of crashes, injuries, deaths and property damage claims. It also asks whether the company’s “full self driving” and automatic emergency braking systems were active at the time of any incident.
“Cycling in all its forms can be a tool of emancipation for women; offering freedom and autonomy..” – Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife
“Cycling in all its forms can be a tool of emancipation for women; offering freedom and autonomy to move through the city unencumbered, facilitating the varied types of journeys they make, and even providing a tool for taking back control of their lives.”
https://womenmobilize.org/freedom-to-mov
Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife
New LTNs in East Oxford vandalised – Transport Xtra
Bollard and planters at three new Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in East Oxford have been vandalised. The schemes were introduced on 20 May by Oxfordshire County under an experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO) . A consultation on the schemes will run for the next six months, during which time changes can be made, after which the schemes will run for a further six-month trial period.
The East Oxford schemes have sparked local protests, but anti-LTN candidates failed to make an impact at the local elections on 5 May. Candidate
Sadiea Mustafa-Awan defected from the ruling Labour party over its support for LTNs to stand as an independent in Oxford’s Littlemore ward but failed to win the seat.
RideLondon: it’s all change as cycling festival on closed roads returns | Cycling | The Guardian
There were notable differences from the last time the event was held in 2019. Here are five thoughts
Peter Walker
RideLondon is back. After a Covid-enforced hiatus, the closed-roads cycling festival held its first incarnation since 2019 on Sunday, with both the family-based Freecycle and the 30-, 60- and 100-mile rides held on the same day. There have been some changes – so what was it like? As has become traditional, here are five thoughts about the event.
Goodbye Surrey, hello Essex
The first seven editions of the RideLondon 100 (and its shorter cousins) took riders on the same route into the Surrey Hills and back. Now it is Essex, and the difference is notable. No especially steep inclines, like Surrey’s Leith Hill, and more in the way of wide roads – especially in London, where the route in and out, through Stratford and beyond, was something of a mini-tour of London’s urban motorways and underpasses.
Reform cycle to work scheme so it can be used by lower-paid, Sunak urged | Cycle hire schemes | The Guardian
Peter Walker
Business and cycling groups have urged the government to reform its cycle to work scheme so it can be used by lower-paid and self-employed workers, arguing they are often the people who need it the most.
Introduced more than 20 years ago and since used by more than a million people, the scheme allows users to pay for a bicycle and accessories in instalments taken from their salary on a tax-free basis, thus saving them between 25% and 40%.
But longstanding rules mean it is not available to people earning minimum wage, or close to it, or who do not pay tax on a pay-as-you-earn salaried basis.
In a letter being sent on Monday to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, groups including the Federation of Small Businesses, the Co-op and British Cycling, have called for this to be changed, arguing that amid rising prices those on lower incomes are most in need of the chance to save money on travel.
Membership
