Toby Porter
Climate crisis campaigners disrupted a government minister’s speech as he launched a Tory election campaign amid cars costing up to £1.98million.
Wandsworth Conservatives held their Gala Campaign Launch at a luxury car showroom, Joe Macari Performance Cars in Merton, where a McLaren P1 GTR could set you back the price of 20 black cabs or 200,000 boxes of washing powder.
It does on average about 20 miles to the gallon.
Education secretary Nadhim Sahawi was shocked to have the start of his speech there yesterday disrupted by “suprise guests” Extinction Rebellion Wandsworth, who dropped a banner bearing the words “No Planet B” from a balcony.
The two peaceful protesters were removed with what XR dubbed “totally unnecessary and unwarranted violence”.
Greenwich becomes fourth London council to oppose Silvertown tunnel theguardian.com
Damien Gayle
A fourth London council has voted to oppose a new £2bn road tunnel under the Thames in east London, putting the capital’s mayor at loggerheads with local authorities over his biggest infrastructure project.
Sadiq Khan accused councils of “want[ing] to put off tough decisions”, after Greenwich councillors voted overwhelmingly to call for all work on the Silvertown tunnel to be paused immediately.
The vote means that both of the boroughs that would be primarily served by the tunnel now oppose it. Silvertown would link Greenwich peninsula with Royal Dock in Newham, where councillors two weeks ago voted for the tunnel to be cancelled. Lewisham and Hackney councils voted to oppose the tunnel in 2015.
2019) Anti-Car Groups Call for an SUV Ban, Protest at Frankfurt Auto Show – caranddriver.com
Sep 14, 2019 Sebastian Blanco
• Environmental protest groups have been actively opposing the auto industry in Germany this summer, blocking a train carrying new Volkswagen vehicles earlier this month with their bodies.
• Several groups combining forces for a protest at the public opening date for the Frankfurt auto show, as seen in the photo above.
• They are demanding more efficient electric vehicles, an end to internal combustion, slower speed limits, and climate neutrality, among other things.
UPDATE 9/14/19: Anti-SUV protestors entered the Frankfurt auto show when it opened to the public on Thursday, according to the Associated Press and as seen in the photo above. These protestors climbed on top of certain SUV models at the show and showed posters labeled “Klimakiller,” or “Climate Killer.”
UPDATE 9/9/19: Greenpeace and a German climate-change activist group, Deutsche Umwelthilfe, issued a statement demanding a ban on sport-utility vehicles. The Greenpeace International website declared: “What we are witnessing is a ‘SUVization’ of the model ranges being offered” and called today’s auto industry “truly grotesque.” Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess will meet with the activists on Monday night for a debate about these issues, the New York Times reported today.
I’d change one thing about the new Highway Code – and put SUV drivers in their place | Zoe Williams | The Guardian
Zoe Williams
There has been a new Highway Code since the end of January, as anyone who listens to a lot of phone-ins will know. Unfortunately, if you get your information from phone-ins, the only detail you will pick up is that drivers are very annoyed about it. In fact, it’s not so much a technical rewrite as a whole new code of ethics.
There are, of course, new rules, including something called the Dutch Reach, which sounds like a cross between a rugby tackle and a contraceptive. But the main thing is the hierarchy of road-users, which goes, in descending order: pedestrians, cyclists, horses, motorbikes, cars and cabs, vans and mini-buses, HGVs. The principle, which you have probably worked out for yourself, is that those most likely to be injured in a collision take priority.
2019) San Francisco microplastics study shows car tires biggest likely source – Los Angeles Times
Rosanna Xia Oct. 2, 2019
Driving is not just an air pollution and climate change problem — turns out, it just might be the largest contributor of microplastics in California coastal waters.
That is one of many new findings, released Wednesday, from the most comprehensive study to date on microplastics in California. Rainfall washes more than 7 trillion pieces of microplastics, much of it tire particles left behind on streets, into San Francisco Bay each year — an amount 300 times greater than what comes from microfibers washing off polyester clothes, microbeads from beauty products and the many other plastics washing down our sinks and sewers.
Transport analysis is ‘programmed’ to deliver roads, says Create Streets
Transport prediction models are not sophisticated enough to “balance all the ways in which we travel around nor agile enough to adapt to changing technology and human behaviour”, argues a report by urban design group Create Streets.
In a review of how projects are evaluated, the group claims that embedded values lead to road-based outcomes.
The report’s author David Milner, deputy director of Create Streets, believes that transport prediction models must change “so we can design the infrastructure we really need”.
According to Milner, transport modelling often starts with the question, “Are you modelling for vehicles or pedestrians?” rather than “considering all types of transport holistically”. He writes: “Despite the rhetoric around sustainable transport we still think about walking, cycling and car transport as separate silos. Many planners will never touch a pedestrian transport model.”
“It’s a sensible discussion to have”: Is Jeremy Vine’s idea to ban drivers from overtaking cyclists in cities a good idea? | road.cc
Dan Alexander Mar 14, 2022
Jeremy Vine shared a video of a taxi driver overtaking him five times, only to drop back behind at the next set of traffic lights.
“If you watch this clip from my commute, you’ll see there is no point whatsoever in any of this driver’s five overtakes — even with the roads clear,” Vine tweeted.
“No complaints about the cab driver: he never passed too close. But why can’t he see: even without traffic, it’s pointless to overtake a bicycle in a city? The argument is that a bicycle is faster, so every single overtake he does will have to be repeated. And as you see from the film, even though he is quite a good driver, all overtaking involves a slight increase in risk.
“I think my point is that any overtake bears risk, and they should be avoided if possible, and the clip clearly establishes that motor vehicles are slower than bicycles, so it’s best for him not to overtake me at all.”
What future for free public transport in US after COVID-19? – Thomson Reuters Foundation
Many cities went to fareless systems to protect public health or boost flagging ridership, but are now focused on equity
By Carey L. Biron March 16
When the transit system in Richmond, Virginia, decided at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to stop collecting fares on its buses, the initial motivation was to have the public board through the rear doors to keep bus drivers safe.
it quickly became clear the effects were far broader, with ridership on local routes rising higher than it had been before the health emergency, officials said, even as public transport use was plummeting all over the country.
“People were still catching the bus, even though the majority of the city was working from home. We realized the only reason they’d get on the bus and risk transmission is they had to be essential workers,” said Faith Walker, executive director of the Richmond advocacy group RVA Rapid Transit.
it quickly became clear the effects were far broader, with ridership on local routes rising higher than it had been before the health emergency, officials said, even as public transport use was plummeting all over the country.
“People were still catching the bus, even though the majority of the city was working from home. We realized the only reason they’d get on the bus and risk transmission is they had to be essential workers,” said Faith Walker, executive director of the Richmond advocacy group RVA Rapid Transit.
Dictator Inspires UN To Adopt Resolution Promoting Cycling To Combat Climate Change – forbes.com
Carlton Reid Mar 20, 2022,12:22pm
The 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on 15 March stating that the bicycle was a tool for combatting climate change.
The resolution, proposed by Turkmenistan, was passed unanimously. The non-binding resolution calls on member states to “integrate the bicycle into public transportation, in urban and rural settings in developing and developed countries.”
It would have been better if the word adopted was “cycle” because bicycle refers only to two-wheeled cycles and therefore excludes tricycles and quadricycles and even unicycles.
The 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on 15 March stating that the bicycle was a tool for combatting climate change.
The resolution, proposed by Turkmenistan, was passed unanimously. The non-binding resolution calls on member states to “integrate the bicycle into public transportation, in urban and rural settings in developing and developed countries.”
It would have been better if the word adopted was “cycle” because bicycle refers only to two-wheeled cycles and therefore excludes tricycles and quadricycles and even unicycles.
Study: Megacar Drivers Up to 4x More Likely to Hit Walkers While Turning – usa.streetsblog
By Kea Wilson Mar 17, 2022
SUVs and pick-up truck drivers are three to four times more likely to hit a pedestrian when they make a turn than the drivers of smaller cars, a new study finds — and researchers think it’s because federal regulators aren’t scrutinizing the common design features that make it impossible for megacar drivers to see walkers passing right in front of them.
In a new study of federal crash data by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, researchers found that crashes in which a driver kills a walker are three times more likely to involve a left turn if that motorist was piloting an SUV at the time of impact, compared to fatal walking crashes involving the drivers of smaller cars.
Fatal crashes involving pick-up truck drivers, meanwhile, are four times more likely to involve a driver making a left — and when it comes to right-turn crashes, they’re still 89 percent more likely. Right-turning SUV drivers are 63 percent more likely to strike a person than the drivers of smaller vehicles.
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