News from Elsewhere

From cars to bikes and buses
A key challenge councils must answer is just how much and how quickly should they get people out of their cars and onto bikes and buses? Especially since electric cars will soon become the norm and will be making significant contributions to cutting carbon emissions and some types of air pollution1. Undoubtedly some transport planners will be hoping that this means they won’t have to tackle car use. Unfortunately for them even conservative estimates of what is needed point to the need for some modal shift – a switch towards a more sustainable and less polluting form of transport.

The prime minister has vowed to “crack on” with road schemes designed to reduce the dominance of cars, despite a critical High Court ruling.

Last night Boris Johnson said that the government would push ahead with the expansion of “low-traffic neighbourhoods” while Greater Manchester’s “cycling tsar” said opposition to the schemes was driven by a “negative minority” and many concerns were either “unfounded or proven to be surmountable”.

Dozens of permanent schemes are now in development after the award of £175 million from the government in November. This includes wider pavements, new segregated cycle lanes and the closure of residential streets to through traffic. It followed £250 million in May for temporary changes to roads during the pandemic.

The New Road Rage is a podcast asking what’s got people so worked up about street changes benefiting pedestrians and cyclists.</p> <p>Each week, host Sarah Berry will be interviewing a different expert or individual with a stake in the game — from journalists to historians, and cyclists to black cab drivers — to try and find out where the new road rage comes from.</p> <p>Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow along on Twitter by following @NewRoadRage and @SarahJ_Berry Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sarah-berry3/message

Decathlon has announced plans for a “Second Life Marketplace,” in its stores where refurbished second-hand bikes will be available for purchase. “Nothing will go to waste,” said the firm’s appropriately-named UK cycling leader, Pete Lazarus, when outlining the plans.

Matthew Taylor
Wed 27 Jan 2021
City mayors representing more than 17 million people across the UK are urging Boris Johnson to commit to tougher air pollution targets after the inquest into the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah.
The cross-party group, including the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Conservative mayor of the West of England combined authority, Tim Bowles, have signed a joint letter along with city leaders from Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and the North of Tyne to urge Boris Johnson to enshrine in law a commitment to achieve World Health Organization air pollution guidelines by 2030.

Jan 29, 2021
With the help of the nonprofit BikeMaps.org, we analyzed the data we collected on bicyclists killed by drivers in 2020 and found some surprising takeaways

Life as highway engineer who cycles can be tough. In a guest appearance, Twitter’s @RantyHighwayman explains to those opposing cycling infrastructure “The street is not too narrow, your imagination is too narrow…

What is it about the simple act of using a cycle to travel from A to B that sends some people into a frothing rage? Why is it so hard to redesign our roads and streets to make them more people-focused? Why do politicians do everything in their power to maintain the car-centric status quo, despite the continual evidence that walking and cycling provide so many positive economic, health and social impacts in communities where people have genuine choices over how they travel? Why does all this happen when we know that redesigning our streets is actually a very popular thing to do? Well, I am not sure I have the answers, but I’ll happily give opinions to anyone who will listen.

Our highway law has developed in a way which indirectly favours driving and any change to that must be modified either at a national or local level.