Cardiff Council sees a road user payment scheme as a way of addressing poor levels of air quality, combatting climate change, improving people’s health and reducing traffic congestion. The scheme could generate funds to deliver an greener transport network across the city with £1 bus fares, expanded bus services,;new trams and more train services.
Hackney Council is introducing a raft of measures designed to reduce traffic and pollution and improve road safety.
Consultations are to start next month on creating Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) in five areas, which would add to the 19 LTNs already in operation, most of which use ANPR cameras rather than physical filters to manage traffic. LTNs currently cover about half of the borough, and the new schemes would increase this to 3/4 of streets, the council estimates.
The council says the chief aims of LTNs in the borough is:
• Improved bus journey times with reduced traffic volumes on a local bus route• Low traffic walking and cycling routes created to nearby green spaces• Low traffic walking and cycling routes for secondary school students to travel independently along• New public spaces created for the community to use, for instance, pocket parks or parklets• Pedestrians are able to cross the road in a town centre or residential area safely and with ease
• Streets for People: Have your say on the St Ann’s LTN trial
Tell us what you think about the measures the council has introduced to help make the St Ann’s neighbourhood safer, cleaner and quieter.
https://bit.ly/3Yziw3S link to original article
Rhodri Clark 8 February 2023
Workplace Parking Levies and road user charging will be considered by the North Wales Transport Commission before it produces its final report. Recent experience in Snowdonia is a possible precursor.
“Financial constraints will always limit the progress that can be made in improving transport and making it more sustainable. This is a national issue that impacts locally,” says the commission in its progress statement.
It says the UK Government is considering road user charging…
:excerptstartCarlton ReidThe U.K. government looks set to scrap many of the large road schemes being planned from 2025. The DfTs top civil servant told MPs yesterday that, for financial reasons, the “headroom for new projects will be very limited.”Dame Bernadette Kelly, Permanent Secretary at the DfT, was grilled by members of the U.K. parliament’s transport committee.There are 32 schemes included
An interactive ‘car-free vision’ presented at Soho Road shows a way to reduce pollution and improve quality of life
“A car-free city is free of the dangers of pollution and emissions caused by mass private car ownership,” she said. “It’s not a city with no cars at all.
“There are many people – including some disabled people – who can’t get around without a car, but reducing the number of cars in cities will make their lives easier.”
Nick Fletcher, the first Tory MP to represent Don Valley in Doncaster, said that the concept stems from socialist ideology and is an infringement on individual freedom.
Speaking on Thursday, he demanded a debate on the “international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities”, and said that the schemes could “take away our personal freedom”.
“Sheffield is already on this journey and I do not want Doncaster, which is also a Labour-run socialist council, to do the same,” he added. Fletcher’s demand for the debate is yet to be realised and he was greeted with laughs and jeers in the House of Commons.
The group was commenting on changes to the Welsh Transport Appraisal Guidance (WelTAG) which may prove to be a pathfinder for changes to appraisal guidance elsewhere. The Welsh Government is overhauling WelTAG so that the guidance better reflects its commitments on climate change and in other policy areas.
When I’m cycling with my 15-year-old, I like him to go in front so I can see him, and he likes me to go in front, so he doesn’t have to make a judgment call about whether to overtake buses. We both like to spend the first five minutes of any journey arguing this point, to the extent that we lose any time advantage conferred by the bikes in the first place. On shorter journeys, it would definitely be quicker to walk. It’s not a bad parable for the maternal experience: you worry about them and think of it as altruism, but to them, it looks like you are ferociously prioritising yourself, fuming, “You go in front, you nitwit”, before eventually surrendering. This is why people can’t stand their mothers, then feel bad about it. This is what keeps psychoanalysts in business, and also Moonpig.
Met highlights big fall in anti-social behaviour in Tower Hamlets area where council wants to ditch Liveable Streets scheme
The appeal was made in their response to a consultation into removing the low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) scheme around Arnold Circus on the fringes of the popular night-time area of Shoreditch.
The Arnold Circus Liveable Streets initiative was put in place in 2021, along with similar initiatives elsewhere in the borough, with the council controlled by Labour at the time.
In last May’s local elections, however, the Aspire Party won 24 of the 45 seats and since then the borough’s pro-car Mayor Lutfur Rahman has been rolling back initiatives aimed at reducing motor vehicle traffic and promoting active travel.
