Vehicles stack up in traffic on their way towards Washington, D.C., via I-395 N in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., November 24, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis
WASHINGTON, Feb 18 2022 – U.S. drivers are back on the road in force.
Travel on U.S. roads rose 11.2% in December 2021 compared with December 2020, the second straight month that driving surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels, the U.S. Department of Transportation said on Friday.
The figures reflect more Americans traveling for leisure, more returning to offices and rising deliveries on U.S. roads, experts said.
U.S. driving also rose 11.2% for all of 2021, to 3.23 trillion vehicle miles, up from 2020’s 2.9 trillion. That was the lowest yearly total since 2003 as COVID shutdowns drastically reduced road use.
For all of 2021, drivers drove 325 billion more miles than they did in 2020. Overall 2021 driving was just 1% lower than 2019’s 3.26 trillion miles.
The Transportation Department said drivers logged 268.4 billion vehicle miles in December 2021, up 26.9 billion vehicle miles from the same month in 2020.
Sloman’s Welsh roads panel review leaves more schemes in doubt transportxtra.com
Rhodri Clark
Rhodri Clark 14 February 2022
Lynn Sloman: Heading panel that is to review 55 road schemes in Wales
The Roads Review Panel set up by the Welsh Government has advised against proceeding with a second road scheme in North Wales, and revealed yesterday that it will review 55 other schemes. It will also consider a sample of new roads related to housing, health and schools projects, in order to provide general advice to the government on such roads.
A North Wales Transport Commission will be formed as a consequence of the panel’s advice that grade separation to replace two roundabouts on the…
Nottingham lays the Workplace Parking Levy tracks – transportxtra.com
Cities curious about the workplace parking levy should talk to Nottingham City Council, says Nigel Hallam
08 February 2022
Local authorities are currently facing the huge challenge of improving air quality and many have declared climate emergencies. The challenge is how do they raise the finance to do so? One solution is to create a workplace parking levy (WPL) scheme, which enables a local authority to raise funds that can be invested in better public transport and active travel schemes.
World spends $1.8tn a year on subsidies that harm environment, study finds | Environment | The Guardian
Patrick Greenfield
An electoral poster objecting to a proposed ban on subsidies for Swiss farms. A 2021 report found almost 90% of global farming subsidies are harmful. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty
The world is spending at least $1.8tn (£1.3tn) every year on subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, according to a new study, prompting warnings that humanity is financing its own extinction.
From tax breaks for beef production in the Amazon to financial support for unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Middle East, billions of pounds of government spending and other subsidies are harming the environment, says the first cross-sector assessment for more than a decade.
This government support, equivalent to 2% of global GDP, is directly working against the goals of the Paris agreement and draft targets on reversing biodiversity loss, the research on explicit subsidies found, effectively financing water pollution, land subsidence and deforestation with state money.
The authors, who are leading subsidies experts, say a significant portion of the $1.8tn could be repurposed to support policies that are beneficial for nature and a transition to net zero, amid growing political division about the cost of decarbonising the global economy.
Klaus Staeck, the provocative artist who challenged postwar Germany’s love of the car – theguardian.com
The green tree dominates the image’s centre, towering over a tangle of highways, which are themselves rendered in shades of dull, newsprint grey. Printed along the bottom in red is a poetic message: Und Neues Leben Blüht aus den Ruinen – “And new life blooms from the ruins.” Created in 1979, this is just one of many anti-car posters created by the German political activist and graphic designer Klaus Staeck.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/feb/14/klaus-staecks-posters-attacking-car-culture-in-pictures#img-10
Cycling behaviour in 17 countries across 6 continents: levels of cycling, who cycles, for what purpose, and how far? – tandfonline.com
James Woodcock
1. Introduction
There is international academic and policy interest in cycling. Reasons range from spatial and temporal efficiency to health, the local environment, and climate change, compared to other modes. However, cycling levels vary widely. In Western Europe, variation in cycling mode share (e.g. 2% in United Kingdom (UK) vs. 26% in the Netherlands: Buehler & Pucher, 2012b, & John Pucher (Eds.), 2012b. International overview: Cycling trends in Western Europe, North America, and Australia. City Cycling (MIT Press), 9–29. [Google Scholar]) indicates substantial scope for increasing levels of cycling. Such variation also exists within countries; for instance, many cities in the UK have cycle commuting rates of ∼1%, but in Cambridge this figure is 33% (Goodman & Aldred, 2018Goodman, Anna, & Rachel Aldred. 2018.
I’m fighting to save my Greenwich LTN. It’s how a city should be -standard.co.uk
Michael Perry
Greenwich is at the Eastern edge of the bowl that forms London. It’s one of our oldest towns, is home to the Maritime Museum, the Old Royal Naval College and the Royal Observatory and thriving markets. It is a beautiful place. However, much of London’s pollution flows our way on the wind – we are, as they say, at the “arse end of the whale”. On winter mornings you can see the smog lying below the hill and across to the City. That’s the reason the West Greenwich Low Traffic Neighbourhood has been such a breath of fresh air: we no longer have traffic adding to that smog.
Brilliant response and to reach our target of 7500 so quickly was such an amazing achievement. – Stop the Wensum Link Road
Smashed 7500 supporters
David Pett Ringland 6 Feb 2022
Stop the Wensum Link Road – www.stopthewensumlink.co.uk
So our next target is 10,000. With a public consultation around the corner it would be fantastic to be able to present the petition containing such as high number of supporters. So please continue to share.
In the meantime please time out to watch this awesome video produced by Greg’s Wildlife
WYCA commits £40m to meeting net zero targets – transportxtra.com
09 February 2022
WYCA’s ‘maximum ambition pathway’ estimates an 83% reduction in emissions could be achieved in West Yorkshire by 2038
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) has allocated £40m from the Mayoral devolution deal to tackle the climate change. The Climate Fund, which will come mostly from WYCA’s £1.8bn devolution deal with the Government, will be used to deliver the West Yorkshire Climate and Environment Plan. This maps out how the region will meet its net zero targets by 2038.
The plan considers a ‘maximum ambition pathway’, based on the emission reductions that could be achieved with a predominately electricity led approach to decarbonisation. This would include:
New London road tunnel ‘devastating’ for ‘UK’s most polluted borough’ independent.co.uk
A new road tunnel in London – due to start being built within months – will be “devastating” for a local borough that is “already the most polluted” in the UK, according to campaigners.
They urged the mayor to scrap plans for the Silvertown Tunnel, claiming it will be incompatible with targets to reduce traffic in the capital and worsen air quality.
The call came after a meeting with Seb Dance, the city’s deputy mayor for transport, on Tuesday – the anniversary of the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah from south London, for which air pollution was a contributing factor.