News from Elsewhere

Michael SavageSun 25 Oct 2020 08.15 GMT
Conservative figures in London say an extension of the congestion charge should ‘not be tolerated’. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP
Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure from Tory MPs in London to comprehensively rule out a massive extension of the congestion charge in the capital, amid emergency talks over a new bailout for its struggling transport system.
Conservative figures warned there would be “blood on the walls” if the government allowed the extension of the charge, which would hit a series of so-called “London doughnut” Tory seats on the outskirts of the city. They are also demanding there must be no threat to subsidised travel for the young or older people, also proposed as an option by the government as a condition of a further bailout.

Police are investigating a road collision involving Sir Keir Starmer, which saw a cyclist taken to hospital.
The Labour leader is understood to have been driving in the Kentish Town area of north London when the incident happened around miday on Sunday.
A spokesman for Sir Keir said he stayed at the scene until an ambulance arrived and reported the incident at a police station later that day.
The Met Police said the driver was not arrested nor interviewed under caution.
They added that the male cyclist suffered a minor injury to his arm and was taken to hospital by ambulance “as a precaution”.
Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions, is not believed to have been injured.
A spokesman for the Labour leader said: “Keir was involved in a minor road traffic accident on Sunday.

Sara Davis had a happy summer. The company director could race around the Home Counties from meeting to meeting in her Nissan Juke without so much as a hint of a traffic jam.
Now she has to allow an hour for a journey that in August took 30 minutes, fits in far fewer meetings and arrives home late and frustrated each evening. Just thinking about sitting behind the wheel makes her stressed.
She is in no doubt whose fault that is.

It has become the biggest transport controversy of the century. Not rail nationalisation, not the £27bn roads programme, not even the £100bn on HS2, but the humble ‘low traffic neighbourhood’. Or LTNs, as they are known in the jargon that was previously only used by highway engineers and cycle campaigners.
The fundamental idea is simple. By cutting off through traffic in minor residential roads, local residents will enjoy a quieter environment, less pollution, reduced danger from traffic and be more likely to walk or cycle. The road system will be filtered so that cyclists and pedestrians can get through the barriers but cars and vans cannot.
This has implications far beyond transport. Having less traffic going past your door makes life better in lots of ways, from improving sleep to making for a more friendly neighbourhood. Research in the 1970s in San Francisco revealed that there was a strong correlation between the busyness of a street and loneliness. People on quieter streets were far more likely to know their neighbours than those on busy ones.

You don’t have to spend too much time walking or cycling in Britain to realise the hierarchy on British roads is at the expense of vulnerable road users. Research due to be published later this year will show that cargo bike riders are afforded more room by drivers owing to the primary road position adopted by their riders.
The news will come as welcome news to a new breed of cargo trikes that fool drivers into thinking they are cars. With typical Italian design flair

Milan-based bicycle builders Agnelli style the front of their cargo trike to look like classic cars like the original Fiat 500 and Citroen 2CV.
The cargo box of the 2CV trike sits on old-fashioned leaf suspension and carries leather satchels and an umbrella on its side.

Ealing Council won a crucial vote at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday evening which could have resulted in suspension of the borough’s implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs).
The leader of the Labour-controlled council also survived a motion of no confidence brought by the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups, both of which are opposed to LTNs, reports MyLondon.
Despite such schemes, which are aimed at curbing rat-running drivers while maintaining access for people who live on the residential roads concerned, a national survey has also found that most people are in favour of such initiatives.
Opponents of LTNs in a number of boroughs have repeatedly targeted planters and bollards used to block off streets, moving and even vandalising them, with a number of attacks for example in Ealing’s Northfields LTN.