News from Elsewhere

With the clocks going back this weekend, Cycling UK is urging motorists to slow down when they are driving towards the sun.
The national cycling charity says that “dazzling sun” was cited as a contributory factor in the deaths of 17 cyclists in 2020, compared to four the previous year.
Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns said: “A four-fold increase in deaths with a contributory factor of ‘dazzling sun’ is alarming and could be avoided by driving more carefully. 
“Cycling UK would encourage anyone dazzled by the sun to drop your speed, and where appropriate and safe to do so, stop until they have clear visibility of the road again.

Transport for West Midlands TfWM has been running the scheme as a pilot since March and said it is working with 147 of those applicants.

Each can claim credits worth up to £3,000, to spend on public transport, taxis, bike share or a car club.
TfWM has also crushed 70 of the cars given up so far.
It has made £1m of Mobility Credits available, after getting £22m from the government to work on a number of pollution-tackling schemes such as on-demand buses, cycle hire and driverless cars.
It started the car-surrender scheme in March 2021 and said 71 people had been accepted by October.
The trial is due to run for two years and TfWM said it is looking for 280 participants in total.
It said the aim of the trial was “to see if mobility credits are an effective way of changing travel behaviour”.

Tackling climate change will require world leaders to take action on a global level.

But as individuals we also contribute to damaging emissions. Here are some things you can do to reduce your personal impact.
3. Drive less, fly less
Transport is responsible for almost a quarter of carbon dioxide global emissions.
Living car-free might be “the most impactful thing we can do to reduce our transport emissions”, according to Dr Jennings.
However, ditching the car is not possible for everyone, particularly if you live in an area without good public transport, or work night shifts when it isn’t running.
Small steps still have an impact, like walking and cycling to the local shops or sharing car journeys with friends or neighbours.

Electric cars are becoming more widespread, but they are still expensive. And it is only truly green travel if the electricity used to power the car comes from green energy sources, such as wind or solar. Low-carbon sources made up 58% of the UK’s electricity in 2020, including nuclear.

Unfortunately for keen travellers, flying is one of the most carbon-intensive things we can do as individuals.

Domestic flights have the largest emissions per person per kilometre.

Train journeys can have less than a fifth of the impact of a domestic flight, although they might be more expensive. Booking in advance can help reduce the cost.

“For those who fly a lot, reducing the number of flights you take will make a considerable difference to your personal footprint,” says Dr Jennings.

On Thursday Facebook announced a groundbreaking and innovative new distraction from their PR disaster. As journalists continue to pore over thousands of leaked documents that show the company is fully aware that it is degrading democratic societies, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is changing its name to Meta, has a new logo that looks like a Na’vi bending over, and is going to pivot from spreading vaccine disinformation to creating a super-lame version of Second Life.

New guidance published by the European Commission under the Energy Efficiency First Principle has given warm words for cycling provision as part of adapted recommendations on buildings construction.

Though the guidelines are not compulsory, they are used as an up to date reference in construction, prompting builders to consider working towards maximum energy efficiency. The European Cyclists Federation, which spotted the Commission’s publication, says that the goal to shoot for next is to set the inclusion of cycling as a primary transport form for residents into stone by building active travel provision into the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

I was watching a video about RV Life (as we may end up doing that) and the “story” of that episode was about tyres. These folks had a Big Class A with what looked like 19.5 or 22.5 inch (industrial truck sized) rims and tyres. The basic point they were making was that “they got the last 6 tyres of that size in the nation”. The tyre company had to call all over the place to fine tires, one at a time, and have them shipped Fed-Ex to them to install a set.

Paris is to increase the number of protected cycleways in the city as well as boost bicycle parking spaces, reveals the 2021-2026 cycling plan published October 21 and billed as Plan Velo: Act 2.
(Plan Velo is the existing, $174 million cycling plan which has been getting bolder and bolder with each update.)
The desire is to make the French capital—not that long ago a city that was toxic for everyday cycling—into a “100% cyclable city.”
As well as the creation of extra facilities for cyclists the new $290 million plan also pledges to maintain them with promises of “cleaning and snow removal from cycle paths.”
Cycle parking in the city will be significantly increased at the same time as car parking spaces are removed.
Paris is already in the process of removing more than 70% of its on-street car parking spaces.

Oct 24, 2021
There are 1.2 billion cars on the planet. Should we try and replace them all with electric,

Peter Walker Sun 24 Oct 2021

Labour has criticised Rishi Sunak for “lots of announcements and not much delivery” on infrastructure projects, as the chancellor conceded that of £7bn in this week’s budget for expanding regional transport links, only £1.5bn is new money.
The chancellor said the metro mayors Andy Street and Andy Burnham had welcomed the announcements. “So what the money announced yesterday was about is about what we call intracity transportation, that’s about how do we get people who live in and around a city to be able to get into the middle of it and out again easily,” he said.
Challenged on how much of the £7bn for this was new, Sunak said he had already announced £4.2bn for the “overall envelope for improve how people get around our big cities … What we’ve actually done is top that up, as you said, by £1.5bn, but then crucially give out the allocations in that envelope – where all the bits are going to go.”