Isabella Kaminski
A legal challenge has been launched against a road scheme that opponents say clashes with climate goals.
Changes aimed at improving car journeys between Milton Keynes and Cambridge by upgrading junctions and building a 10-mile dual carriageway on the A428 between Black Cat and Caxton Gibbet were approved in the summer. The scheme, estimated to cost £810m-£950m, is listed in the government’s growth plan for accelerated delivery.
But Transport Action Network (TAN) filed for judicial review at the end of September, arguing the Department for Transport (DfT) was wrong to only assess emissions from the scheme against the national carbon budget.
Instead, the climate campaign group points to professional guidance from the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, which recommends using sectoral, regional and local carbon budgets to contextualise a project’s greenhouse gas emissions.
I can’t think of anything more symbolic of the current state of affairs on our roads – Harry Gray – Twitter
@HarryHamishGray
Third of Brits want to cycle more, many to cut their fuel spending | road.cc
Nearly four in 10 adults are planning to cycle more to cut their fuel expenditure, new survey suggestsPlenty of Brits are considering tackling their fuel spending by taking more journeys by bike, with as many as 30 per cent excited to rediscover two-wheeled journeys, according to a study by online cycling retailer Chain Reaction.
The research published in the Independent newspaper saw 2,000 adults surveyed, finding that nearly four in 10 are planning to cut their fuel spend by cycling more of their journeys.
Nearly half (48 per cent) wanted to cycle more than they currently do, with 30 per cent excited to rediscover the joy of cycling, and 44 per cent after more exercise and 40 per cent seeking more fresh air.
Motorists Switching To Bicycle Or Train For One Car Trip Make Big Reduction In Emissions, Say Studies – forbes.com
Carlton Reid
Switching just one leisure journey per week to train could result in a 28.4% reduction on total journey carbon emissions, reports a study focused on the U.K. produced for train operations company LNER, and across one year could result in a 16.6% reduction of annual leisure travel emissions.
A separate report from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that if one in five urban residents swapped just one car journey to cycling each day, it would cut emissions from all car travel in Europe by 8%.
LNER’s report, released October 13, was produced by experts from University College London (UCL) Energy Institute. On average, carbon emissions from cars are three times higher than that of a train, meaning the “collective power of one small change could be a monumental shift,” states LNER.
JUST IN Unlimited travel via public transport in all of Germany for 49€ per month becomes a reality – Daniel Moser – Twitter
JUST IN Unlimited travel via public transport in all of Germany for 49€ per month becomes a reality. An important milestone towards modernizing public transport and improving affordability
@_dmoser
From brown bears to grey wolves, Europe’s persecuted carnivores are bouncing back | Sophie Ledger | The Guardian
Sophie Ledger
In the latest of what can often seem like the “final nails in the coffin” of biodiversity across Europe, we heard in recent weeks that UK environmental protection is under threat. But while the global scale of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss remain alarming, vital new research, which I helped lead, shows there are also heartening examples of European wildlife bouncing back from the brink.
For the past two years, we at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, along with colleagues at BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council, have been investigating the fortunes of 50 European wildlife species over the past 50 years, from humpback whales to Iberian wild goats to white-tailed eagles. Each of these species are incredible comeback stories, and researching how they have recovered has been a refreshing and inspiring endeavour – the Eurasian beaver and European bison, for example, have both increased in average relative abundance by more than 16,000% since 1960.
“Don’t give it air time. Don’t answer stupid questions”: Chris Boardman shuts down cycling registration ‘debate’ | road.cc
Chris Boardman has shut down any residual attention on the idea that cyclists should need registration numbers and licences to use the roads, and stressed “regardless of the headlines” people want to see more cycling and walking.
Speaking to BikeBiz magazine, the National Active Travel Commissioner said the best way to approach talk of licences, registration and number plates is simply to avoid giving the debate any air time — “You don’t answer stupid questions,” he concluded.
> Is there anywhere cyclists are required to be licensed, and how has it gone in the past?
Boardman’s comments come a couple of months withdrawn from the height of the summer heat, kicked up by then-Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’ words in the Daily Mail (and subsequent backtracking) suggesting he would like to see stricter rules for cyclists.
Nonetheless, U-turn or not, Shapps’ damage was done and prompted a string of frontpage splashes, talk show specials and TV ‘debates’ digging up culture-warring divisions now centred on the UK’s roads and who should get to use them, and how.
Taxi driver who deliberately knocked cyclist off bike avoids jail | road.cc
A Dublin taxi driver who deliberately knocked a cyclist off their bike has avoided jail, instead receiving an 18-month suspended sentence.
Dermott Reynolds now works for a courier company despite having pleaded guilty to one count of endangerment at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in relation to the incident from September 2018, for which he was also ordered to pay his victim €2,000, Independent.ie reports.
> Motorist deliberately rams cyclist before driving off – as passenger films
The incident, video of which was shared on road.cc in 2018 and was used as evidence, unfolded at around 6am on September 20 when the cyclist – credited on the footage as José Jiménez – took issue with the driver’s tailgating.
link to original article
Rightwing thinktanks run this government. But first, they had to capture the BBC | George Monbiot | The Guardian
Some of it is easy to understand. Liz Truss, a hollow vessel filled with secondhand ideas by the dark-money thinktanks, believed their assurances that the magic of an unregulated market and tax cuts for the very rich would trigger an economic boom. The thinktanks must scarcely have believed their luck: that someone so malleable could become prime minister.
On the day of the mini-budget, they crowed about taking over the government. The Conservative Home founder, Tim Montgomerie, remarked that this was “a massive moment” for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), which had “incubated Truss and Kwarteng during their early years as MPs. Britain is now their laboratory.” The head of the institute, Mark Littlewood, then retweeted his comment with a sunglasses emoji.
Roads-focused policy fuels UK’s ‘car addiction’, campaigners say | Transport | The Guardian
Helen Pidd
The government must stop building roads to satisfy growing “car addiction”, clean air campaigners have said, after three-quarters of transport projects announced by Liz Truss’s administration were road related.
In Kwasi Kwarteng’s doomed mini-budget, 87 out of 117 (74%) transport infrastructure projects listed in his “growth plan 2022” related to road upgrades.
…At the Tory party conference this week, Ben Houchen, the influential Conservative mayor of the Tees Valley, called for an end to the “villainisation” of car drivers and suggested that within 20 years we may not need trains and buses because of driverless cars.
Speaking at a fringe event hosted by Transport for the North (TfN) – a body set up to advocate primarily for public transport investment in the north of England – Houchen launched an impassioned defence of cars.
..Anne-Marie Trevelyan, began her speech by raving about all the roads being upgraded in the growth plan.
“The big thing we want to do and get cracking before the next general election is to really rocket-boost those key arterial roads and some of the train projects that we can do at a greater pace,” she said, adding: “It is those key big changes to road infrastructure which change the dial for those regions and that’s what this prime minister’s vision is all about.”
…In her speech at party conference, Truss laid into the Labour leader of Wales, Mark Drakeford, for “cancelling road-building projects and refusing to build the M4 relief road”. Roads came first in her list of building priorities: “We will build roads, rail, energy and broadband quicker,” she said.