13th January 2021
A DRIVER who believes cyclists are a menace he should not share a road with is also dead against cycle lanes, he has confirmed.
Roy Hobbs, driver of a Mitsubishi Shogun, admits he does not like driving within 50 yards of a cyclist in case there is an accident and they damage his paintwork.
He said: “Roads are for cars. Simple as. Cycling on them risks their lives and my no-claims bonus.
How do the Muppets ride bicycles? – Twitter
What Is the True Cost of Car Ownership? – Tree Hugger
It’s way more than you think, and everyone is paying it whether they drive or not.
By Lloyd Alter Published January 15, 2021
After CNET’s Roadshow published an article titled “Average New Car Price Crosses $40,000 in 2020 and That’s Nuts,” Matthew Lewis of California YIMBY tweeted:
This is a lot of money. Used cars are expensive too, the average in 2020 being $27,689. But the cost of buying the car is just the start; there are so many other direct and indirect economic costs that one really has to question whether this whole system makes sense. And that’s not even considering the carbon costs. Let’s total them up; from CNET:
“On average, new car buyers left dealerships (or signed papers from home) having agreed to a car payment of $581 per month at a 4.6% APR over 70 months.” But that’s $6972 per year.
A Tiny Twist on Street Design: The One-Minute City – Bloomberg
While the “15-minute city” model promotes neighborhood-level urban planning, Sweden is pursuing a hyper-local twist: a scheme to redesign every street in the nation.
Feargus O’SullivanJanuary 5, 2021, 2:24
In 2020, as pandemic lockdowns forced billions of people around the world to become intimately familiar with their neighborhoods, one of the hottest ideas in urban planning was the “15-minute city.” A vision for a decentralized urban area that allows residents to meet their daily needs within a quarter-hour walk or bike from their homes, the concept has been pursued as a means of cutting greenhouse emissions and boosting livability in a host of global cities — especially Paris, where Mayor Anne Hidalgo has embraced the model as a blueprint for the French capital’s post-Covid recovery.
Now Sweden is pursuing a hyperlocal variation, on a national scale.
link to original article
Air pollution will lead to mass migration, say experts after landmark ruling The Guardian
Diane Taylor
Call for world leaders to act in wake of French extradition case that turned on environmental concerns
Fri 15 Jan 2021
Air pollution does not respect national boundaries and environmental degradation will lead to mass migration in the future, said a leading barrister in the wake of a landmark migration ruling, as experts warned that government action must be taken as a matter of urgency.
Sailesh Mehta, a barrister specialising in environmental cases, said: “The link between migration and environmental degradation is clear. As global warming makes parts of our planet uninhabitable, mass migration will become the norm. Air and water pollution do not respect national boundaries. We can stop a humanitarian and political crisis from becoming an existential one. But our leaders must act now.”
Cargocycles Can Tame Suburbia – The Ranty Highwayman
I have different ideas for blog posts listed – some I have even started. I’ve just done a tidy up and found a post I had started to write back in July 2017.
I had got as far as writing the following;
As I piloted our cargotrike around central London on the Ride London Freecycle a couple of weeks ago a chap drew next to be and asked about it.
It’s a Christiania and it caught the chap’s eye as he was Danish (Denmark being home of the Christiania trike) and he was surprised to see one in London. He asked if we had hired it for the day, but when I said it was ours, he further wondered if it was our second car which was very perceptive! He himself had recently got rid of his second car as his heavy lifting was done on his Bullitt, another Danish classic.
Motorists to be charged to enter Bristol clean air zone – road.cc
Bristol’s mayor Marvin Rees has announced a new charging scheme that will affect drivers entering a clean air zone (CAZ) in the centre of the city. The move comes after the government told Bristol City Council it needed to reduce air pollution levels to within legal limits. It has not yet been decided how much drivers will have to pay but the hope is that the scheme will encourage active travel and bring pollution levels within the limits in the quickest possible time.
Council has “no intention to enforce” parking restrictions in segregated cycle lane where cars are parked bumper to bumper | road.cc
by Alex Bowden Fri, Jan 15, 2021
How Sydney’s bold cycleway plans are helping shed its anti-bike stigma – video | The Guardian
Lewis IsaacsFri 15 Jan 2021 01.33 GMT
For years Sydney had earned a reputation as an anti-cycling city. Long-running disagreements between the City of Sydney council and the NSW government slowed cycleway construction, and in 2015 the separated bike path along College Street in the city centre was ripped up. But now attitudes are changing and the pace of building has rapidly increased, hastened by the Covid lockdown in 2020.
Mobility as a Service converts people to active travel, finds DfT commissioned study – Cycle Industry News
Mark Sutton
A DfT commissioned study titled the Future of Transport has found that Mobility as a Service led businesses stand to gain big as the generations pass, all the while influencing significant transport modal shift changes.
The young, app savvy generations are overwhelmingly more in touch with Mobility as a Service products, including the likes of Uber’s transportation, Lime’s bike and electric scooter businesses and other such services that rely on usership rather than ownership.
According to the NatCen Social research, MaaS uptake among survey respondents in England has been found to be higher for men (43% vs women 29%), younger adults (57% aged 16 to 24 vs 9% aged 65+), people living in urban areas (33% vs 28% rural) and Uber users (60% vs 27% non-Uber users). Those living with a disability were found to be more likely to use demand responsive transport apps, in particular those with vehicles suited to their needs.
