BBC News 3 days ago
Drivers have been subjected to long delays on Tuesday and Wednesday after Thames Water carried out emergency work on the Southern Bypass.
Tim Bearder apologised but said motorists are “part of the problem” if they are not using public transport.
Thames Water said work should be complete by 13:00 BST on Wednesday.
The company said it had been repairing two leaks found in key mains on Monday but work has caused long delays along the Southern Bypass, A34 and Hinksey Hill.
Councillor Bearder, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for highway management, said the city needs “radical change”.
Opinion | Why cars and cities are a bad match. – The Washington Post
Cars don’t work well in cities, and the reason is simple: 1) A city is a place where people live close together, so there’s not much space per person. 2) Cars take up a lot of space per person. 3) Therefore, cities quickly run out of room for cars.
This problem is called congestion. When it happens, a city’s options are to:
(A) Stop growing — because congestion has become terrible and growth will make it worse.
(B) Widen streets. This requires huge amounts of land, and land in cities is very expensive. What’s more, if you tear down enough buildings to widen streets, you are effectively destroying your city in order to save it.
(C) Focus on helping people get around using less space than cars require — through walking, cycling and mass transit.
Given the options, it’s not surprising that urban leaders — regardless of political ideology — eventually decide that C is the only real answer.
“25,000 people demonstrated in Munich today for more mobility for everyone and fewer cars!” – Twitter
Georg Kurz @oekofuzzi
These are the images that the CSU wanted to prevent with all its might and a massive police presence: 25,000 people demonstrated in Munich today for more mobility for everyone and fewer cars!
Let’s annoy Markus Söder and spread these pictures! #aussteigen #IAADemo
Road pricing may be the best option as number of electric cars rises | The Guardian
It all seems so simple. By the end of this decade the government will ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles. Cars will be greener and cleaner, making it easier to achieve the goal of a net carbon zero future.
Boris Johnson will no doubt impress on fellow world leaders the rapidity of Britain’s transport revolution when he hosts the Cop26 meeting in early November. Rishi Sunak may even be persuaded to announce measures to speed up the transition in the budget in October, carefully timed for the week before the international gathering in Glasgow.
There are two ways the government’s plan could run into trouble. The first is if the transition happens more slowly than expected, because new battery electric vehicles are too expensive or if the infrastructure to keep them charged is not put in place again.
“Most road congestion isn’t caused by protests..” Twitter
Carlton Reid @carltonreid
Most road congestion isn’t caused by protests such as these but an excess of motor vehicles. 20 million in 1997, 40 million in 2022. You can’t double number of vehicles without causing jams.
Extinction Rebellion strike rush hour in Munich | Daily Mail Online
Extinction Rebellion today struck rush hour in Munich, bringing motorways to a standstill as they dangled from overpasses in protest against the International Motor Show (IAA). At least two autobahns were shut down as firefighters were called in to remove climate change protesters who were precariously hanging over the roads in harnesses.
Meanwhile, closer to the motorshow a group of Greenpeace activists waded into a pond and held up banners saying: ‘Stop driving climate change.’
Their protest comes as the world’s largest motor show got underway, with electric vehicles and the sustainable future of driving at the top of the agenda.
Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess, who was accosted by Greenpeace activists as he entered the venue on Sunday, is aiming to overtake Tesla as the world’s largest seller of electric vehicles by 2025.
School pledges that all children will be cycling by year six | road.cc
A head teacher has launched an initiative to encourage all her pupils to learn to ride a bike.
as part of Northumberland County Council’s Big Gear Change campaign which encourages residents to make small lifestyle changes to make a big impact on both health and the environment.
Mrs Palmer said: “A large proportion of our pupils live a considerable distance away from the school so we’ve introduced the concept of park and stride along with park and ride.
“Parents can drive their children to school but park far enough away to engage in exercise to kick start their mornings.
Cycling UK wins appeal to secure judicial review of removal of West Sussex bike lane | road.cc
Cycling UK has won an appeal against the decision of a High Court judge to refuse the charity permission to seek a judicial review of West Sussex County Council’s decision to remove a popular emergency cycle lane in Shoreham-by-Sea.
The pop-up infrastructure featured last year in a DfTvideo showcasing emergency active travel projects funded by the government and being implemented by councils across England in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Installed with the help of £781,000 in funding from the DfT’s Emergency Active Travel Fund, work on the segregated lanes on Upper Shoreham Road began in September last year and saw levels of cycling treble, with the facility particularly popular during the afternoon school run.
Rain fell on Greenland’s ice sheet for the first time ever known. Alarms should ring | Kim Heacox | The Guardian
Kim Heacox
Many people believed he couldn’t do it. Ski across the Greenland ice sheet, a vast, unmapped, high-elevation plateau of ice and snow? Madness.
But Fridtjof Nansen, a young Norwegian, proved them wrong. In 1888, he and his small party went light and fast, unlike two large expeditions a few years before. And unlike the others, Nansen traveled from east to west, giving himself no option of retreat to a safe base. It would be forward or die trying. He did it in seven weeks, man-hauling his supplies and ascending to 8,900ft (2,700 metres) elevation, where summertime temperatures dropped to -45˚C.
That was then. This is now:
Last month, for the first time in recorded history, rain fell on the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet. It hardly made the news. But rain in a place historically defined by bitter cold portends a future that will alter coastlines around the world, and drown entire cities.
Scottish Government commitment to 20mph limits supports Active Travel and aligns with global best practice – 20’s Plenty for Us
With the Welsh government already committed to a national default 20mph limit for urban and village roads, the Scottish Government has announced that it plans[1] for 20mph to become the norm in built-up areas. This aligns with global best practice[2] that 20mph or 30km/h is the maximum permissible speed on roads used by pedestrians and cyclists unless a higher limit is evidentially safe. It is a key component of Scotland’s response to the Climate Emergency and helps to support Active Travel.
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