Author name: Steven Edwards

Olympians Etienne Stott and Laura Baldwin among those who climbed on oil tanker, while others hung banner from Marble Arch

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett Retweeted
Aldrin Pelicano@aldrinpelicano
“… Dutch engineers consider the existence of a stop sign a design failure … raised intersections, continuous foothpaths, and lane narrowing, moving within these spaces increases vigilance and awareness, making a stop sign entirely redundant.” –
@modacitylife (Curbing Traffic)

The amount that road users pay through [fuel] taxes now accounts for less than half of what’s spent to maintain and expand the road system.
A report published earlier this year confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation that’s widely disbelieved: Drivers don’t come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use.
Eric Thayer / Reuters October 25, 2015
The Cumulative Difference Between Public Spending on Highways and How Much Drivers Pay to Use Them
The Frontier Group/U.S. PIRG
There are good reasons to believe that the methodology of “Who Pays for Roads?” if anything considerably understates the subsidies to private vehicle operation. It doesn’t examine the hidden subsidies associated with the free public provision of on-street parking, or the costs imposed by nearly universal off-street parking requirements, which drive up the price of commercial and residential development.

Deniz Huseyin 11 April 2022 20mph road markings act as a `clear reminder` to drivers Kensington & Chelsea council is to make 20mph the default speed limit across all its roads in the borough after positive public feedback to pilot schemes. An initial pilot in two wards in 2019 “generally received widescale support, with few objections and several requests for expanding the 20mph speed limit to other streets and areas”, said the council. The results of some early ‘after’ monitoring at ten sites in February 2020. :excerptend link to original article

Deniz Huseyin – 12 April 2022
West Sussex County Council prematurely removed the temporary cycle lane in Shoreham-by-Sea, says the DfT
Local authorities that fail to deliver good quality active travel schemes should expect funding to be withheld, the DfT has warned. This follows the announcement that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead would not now receive the indicative funding it had been allocated.
A DfT spokesman told LTT: “We have always made clear that local authorities’ performance and quality of bids would be taken into consideration for determining future funding.

Councillors have rejected plans for a major bypass linking the M60 and A6 on environmental grounds.
The scheme was slated for inclusion within the final version of the Stockport Economic Strategy, however was pulled after councillors voted against it.
The proposed £500M bypass would have created a ring road around Stockport and was aimed at alleviating congestion problems in the area.
Stockport Council’s previous attempts to get funding from the government for the bypass failed in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
The Labour-run council has now had a change of heart towards the scheme and has rejected it over concerns about its impact on wildlife.
Labour leader Elise Wilson said the road was an “old world solution”. Conservative councillor Oliver Johnstone said the decision was “very frustrating”, while Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Hunter described the decision as a “major surprise”.

Adrienne So
In a time of multiple global crises—like the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and the threat of nuclear war—it’s hard not to feel helpless. If you’re a grown-up who can’t quite think of what to do to make anything better, I have a simple suggestion: Hop on a bike. And whether they rented one from a bike share or bought their own, millions of Americans agree. 
For years, electric bicycles were bulky, inconvenient, expensive machines with limited battery life. Slowly, that has changed. Ebikes are now lighter, more attractive, and more powerful than ever. You don’t need to be physically fit to ride one. They get you outside, reduce traffic congestion, and shrink your carbon footprint. And they’re fun! 

George Monbiot
Like several of the world’s major cities, our capital is being remodelled in response. The London mayor – recognising that, while fewer passengers can use public transport, a switch to cars would cause gridlock and lethal pollution – has set aside road space for cycling and walking. Greater Manchester hopes to build 1,800 miles of protected pedestrian and bicycle routes.
Cycling to work is described by some doctors as “the miracle pill”, massively reducing the chances of early death: if you want to save the NHS, get on your bike. But support from central government is weak and contradictory, and involves a fraction of the money it is spending on new roads. The major impediment to a cycling revolution is the danger of being hit by a car.

“However a car is powered, can it ever be an efficient use of resources and space to spend up to 95% of that energy moving the weight of the vehicle itself, rather than its passengers and goods?”

Plea by shadow justice secretary Steve Reed for nationwide bans on activists’ tactics angers many on left of party