Principles for radically reimagining surface transport &the public realm in Oxford
Street Voice, Day 3: Jon Burke Jun 30, 2022
TfL settlement sees London shed over 80% of active travel funding – Cycle Industry News
The long-running standoff between Transport for London (TfL) and the Conservative Government this week settled on a £1.2bn funding offer, albeit one described as “far from ideal” in respect of a shortfall that will drive up public transport costs and see budgets slashed.
Cycling will not be immune from the funding pains that Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is tasked with explaining to Londoners looking to slash transport costs in the face of rising inflation. The shortfall, according to Khan, is around £600 million, but will be enough to avert the worst case proposal of a managed decline of many tube and bus services.
Spat at, abused and run off the road: why do some people hate cyclists so much? | Cycling | The Guardian
Helen Pidd
I felt like a bit of a legend when I started cycling in London 18 years ago. Everyone was always congratulating me on my bravery. “Oh, you wouldn’t catch me on a bike,” people would say if they spotted my helmet or the cycling shorts peeking out beneath my dress. “Far too dangerous.”
To be fair, it was quite hairy at times. Cycle superhighways were yet to be invented; bike lanes were marked out in paint, at best, rather than protected by any kind of physical barrier; and cab drivers still seemed surprised to see me. Young and dumb enough to believe myself invincible, I rather enjoyed the sense of peril, timing my turns to avoid getting wiped out by a bendy bus and feeling like a warrior princess at the end of every commute. I was sometimes on the receiving end of catcalls – “Lucky saddle!” or “Ride me instead!” – but no one seemed to actively hate me. Those were the days.
Number of people cycling in England falls a year after £2bn plan | Transport | The Guardian
Only 13.1% of adults cycled at least once a month in year to November 2021 – lowest rate since survey began
Michael Goodier
A cyclist on a cycle superhighway in Shadwell, London. Cycling UK has issued a plea for proper cycling infrastructure. Photograph: Nathaniel Noir/Alamy
Boris Johnson’s “cycling revolution” has so far failed to build on the gains made during the pandemic, as the proportion of people cycling at least once a week has fallen to its lowest recorded level in England.
James May – Motoring journalist…. “Cars are untidy… they’re….. clutter” – James May, motoring journalist and Top Gear presenter – Twitter
“I’m saying this as somebody who’s made his living talking
about cars for the best part of 30 years, when all the cars disappear,
it’s just nicer”
A new start after 60: ‘I became an adventure cyclist at 65 – and rode from Mongolia to Scotland’ | Life and style | The Guardian
Len Collingwood, a clinical nurse specialist in psychotherapy, retired on his 65th birthday. He had made a deal with his wife, Sally: she would train as a yoga teacher and he would “start out as an adventure cyclist”.
Four months later, he set off on a 13,000km cycle ride from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia to Edinburgh, much of it roughly shadowing Marco Polo’s Silk Road. No sooner had he started out than a snowstorm hit. He hid in his tent, wearing every item of clothing he had packed. At -18C it was too cold to venture outside to cook. He survived the next 48 hours by eating a “massive bag of Snickers and Crunchies” his colleagues had given him when he retired.
“I am still allowed to praise cycle lanes”: Jeremy Vine responds to BBC impartiality ruling | road.cc
The Radio 2 presenter was deemed to have breached the corporation’s guidelines after publicly voicing his support for LTNs, but says he is “grateful” that the investigation exposed the “one-way” abuse aimed at him by anti-cycling activists
Broadcaster and safe cycling advocate Jeremy Vine has revealed that he is “grateful” that an investigation by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) – which ruled that the presenter breached the corporation’s impartiality guidelines by publicly expressing his support for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods – has “exposed” what he describes as years of “one-way” abuse and “personal vilification” towards him and other local cyclists by groups committed to opposing active travel measures.
Jeremy Vine breached impartiality rules over LTNs, says BBC | BBC | The Guardian
Jim Waterson
The BBC has warned staff against expressing support for low-traffic neighbourhoods, after ruling that Jeremy Vine breached impartiality rules by backing safe cycling measures near his London home.
The Radio 2 presenter, a well-known cyclist, has posted repeatedly on Twitter about his support for LTNs – and publicly criticised individuals who objected to the introduction of the traffic-calming scheme near his house in Chiswick.
Traffic evaporation means we can reach B.C.’s new climate roadmap promise of 25% less traffic – straight.com
Eric Doherty 28/10/21
In most ways, the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 released by the provincial government on October 25th is a huge disappointment.
But the transportation section included a big surprise.
Instead of only the expected focus on electric cars, the Road to Transformation section calls for reducing “distances travelled in light-duty vehicles by 25% by 2030, compared to 2020”.
This is an apparent reversal of long-standing provincial policy of planning and building for ever-increasing automobile traffic volumes.
Golf Carts—Golf Carts!—Are the Transportation of the Future – David Zipper – slate.com
slate.com
The phrase “the future of transportation” tends to conjure up visions of hyperloops, self-driving cars, and flying taxis whizzing through and between cities. But what if the next chapter of urban mobility instead gives a starring role to … the golf cart?
It isn’t crazy in the slightest. In 2015, researchers at Harvard Business School investigated whether Tesla, the poster child of automotive innovation, offered a truly disruptive model for transportation. Their conclusion: A “souped-up golf cart”—not a Tesla—offered the most transformative potential. Indeed, these puttering vehicles, most often associated with leisure and affluence, just might provide a pathway toward safe, affordable, and entertaining rides for the masses.