News from Elsewhere

Peter Walker

@RoadsXR
You can say that again “Any relapse or stasis in #emissions reduction policies could lead to a plausible worst case of 7°C of warming by the end of the century (10% chance)” http://chathamhouse.org

:excerptstartThe risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating. Research paper 14 September 2021 Summary •If policy ambition, low-carbon technology deployment and investment follow current trends, 2.7°C of warming by the end of this century is likely, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. A plausible worst case of 3.5°C is possible (10% chance). These projections assume Paris Agreement signatories meet their NDCs. If they fail

Phil Goodwin points to new data that exposes the ‘absurdities’ of treating the carbon impact of the road programme, and its individual schemes, as trivially insignificant
16 December 2021
It was a pleasure to visit the Smart Transport conference last week, to give a talk with the challenging title of ‘The cost of achieving net zero’. I was one of three speakers in the opening ‘plenary’ slot, sharing the platform with transport minister Trudy Harrison, who gave an enthusiastic speech mainly focused on cycling, and Lord Deben, conservative member of the House of Lords and Chair of CCC, the Climate Change Committee, who gave a speech marked by its simple, direct, comprehensible honesty about how humanity has created the conditions for a future which will proceed under higher global temperatures than have ever experienced during human history.

Erik Kirschbaum – Copenhagen
Soren Jensen sold his car six years ago and joined the rivers of rolling humanity who bicycle through Copenhagen every day. He quickly lost about 50 pounds on his hour-a-day bike commutes, while saving time and a small fortune.

07/01/21
One legacy of lock-down has been the boost it gave to cycling and walking; now we are almost back to normal what’s has been done to sustain the boom ? The UK’s biggest cycling and pedestrian lobby groups tell us what’s on their agenda for 2022.

7 January, 2022
Temporary Spaces for People schemes, introduced to Scotland during the 2020 Covid lockdown, delivered some impressive outcomes. Taking a broad overview of the measures:
Scale

The Spaces for People programme, funded by the Scottish Government, managed by Sustrans Scotland, oversaw installation of 178 interventions within the first two months of the programme, with 316 installed by the end of the first six months.
Walking and Cycling impact
Sustrans has revealed 94% of survey respondents in Aberdeen City agreed that the Spaces for People measures have made it easier to walk or cycle. Also reported, a 25% increase in pedestrian use where Spaces for People measures (such as pavement widening) were introduced, when compared with control sites.

Ryan Mallon 4/1/22
Complaints about a BBC report which blamed London’s position as the world’s most congested city on an increase in cycle lanes have led the broadcaster to amend the article to “better reflect the range of factors impacting congestion in London”.
In early December traffic firm Inrix named the UK capital as the city in which motorists lost the most time stuck in traffic jams last year in its Global Traffic Scorecard (link is external). “Incredibly simplistic” to blame cycle lanes for London being named world’s most congested city
While Inrix operations director Peter Lees attributed the rise in congestion to the city’s rapid economic recovery from the pandemic, many mainstream media outlets, including the BBC, preferred to focus on Lees’ claim that the reallocation of road space for pedestrians and cyclists in response to the Covid crisis had a “negative impact” on traffic in the capital.