Author name: Steven Edwards

Carlton Reid Feb 14, 2022
I have been writing about transport for 30 years.
Protesters riding London bike share bikes with BLM placards.
Thirty-nine bike-share schemes across the U.K. are reducing car mileage, finds the latest annual report from Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK), which promotes the benefits of shared transport, including shared cars and bicycles e-scooters. 
Bike share is a “catalyst” to getting people back on bicycles, said CoMoUK’s CEO Richard Dilks. 
“Bike share supports health and wellbeing, triggers sustainable travel behaviors, cuts car miles, and works alongside bike ownership,” added Dilks. 

Campaigners are calling for Scotland’s busiest motorway to be scrapped and replaced with people-friendly spaces.
The activists want to remove the M8 from Glasgow city centre and instead transform it into an urban boulevard to help promote public transport, walking and cycling.
Scott Galloway, Replace the M8 campaigner, described the stretch of motorway as a “concrete desert”.
He told STV News: “There’s nothing accessible about this space, it just feels like a completely sterile environment.
“I’d love to see a green corridor that exists all the way from the river, all the way up to the north of the city.
“That would include boulevardisation, lots of street trees, making it a very accessible and friendly environment for people to use.”

The Brussels Times
Friday, 18 February 2022
By  Lauren Walker
Brussels during Car Free Sunday. Credit: Orlando Whitehead
The City of Brussels located within the small ring road will become a low traffic zone from 16 August in favour of pedestrians, cyclists and public transport with the ambition of creating a more livable environment in the heart of the region.
The Brussels College of Councillors approved the new circulation plan for the “Vijfhoek (Pentagon) and aims to use one-way streets and traffic filters to keep out unnecessary transit traffic (which accounts for 42% of today’s vehicles), without isolating the various neighbourhoods, including Sablon, the Royal quarter and the Marolles, among others.
“The circulation plan will have a positive impact on both traffic safety and the accessibility of the Vijfhoek,” Bart Dhondt, city councillor for mobility, who proposed the plan, said.

Roads
14 February 2022
Phil Goodwin: All road schemes need to be re-appraised
Many weak, incorrect or outdated assumptions in the appraisals that were carried out of currently programmed road schemes in England mean that  the Government should pause the controversial and expensive programme, says Professor  Phil Goodwin. This would provide the chance to reappraise the schemes properly, testing what contribution they make to carbon targets, their robustness to future climate conditions, and their correspondence with reasonable expectations on travel choices and needs, Goodwin argues in his latest LTT column. 
Goodwin criticises the Government’s paper on ‘Planning Ahead for the Strategic Road Network’ issued at the beginning of December, which suggested “any enhancement schemes that had funding approved in an earlier RIS [Road Investment Strategy], whose development has shown that they remain deliverable and value for money, and where construction has not concluded by 31 March 2025 will continue to be funded in RIS3 without additional assessment in the RIS-setting process”.

The proposals will see the introduction of a city-wide workplace parking levy, traffic filters and a wider zero emission zone, together with improved public transport and cycle routes

Carlton Reid
Pedal Me cofounder Ben Knowles on one of his firm’s electric cargo bikes.
r staff experience injuries off the bike, not on the bike,” states Pedal Me cofounder Ben Knowles, who has been fielding comments on Twitter after he confirmed the London-based pedal-powered taxi service has long banned its riders from wearing bicycle helmets. 
“People that are taking risks that are sufficient that they feel they need to wear helmets are not welcome to work for us,” Knowles tweeted on 4 February. 

Sustrans wants to link most towns with safe routes accessible for walking as well as bikes and wheelchairs

newcivilengineer.com
15 Feb, 2022 By Rob Horgan
Transport secretary Grant Shapps has been urged to “re-open the Second Road Investment Strategy (RIS2)” in light of enforced changes to the pipeline of work during the last year.
Transport Action Network director Chris Todd has written to Shapps, urging the transport secretary to take action now as “it is overwhelmingly clear […] the current RIS2 cannot continue”.
It comes following planning delays to flagship projects, as well as enforced changes due to safety concerns with National Highways’ smart motorways programme.

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.