17 December 2021
The West Midlands now has a cycling and walking commissioner. Adam Tranter has taken up the new role to support the planning and delivery of the region’s Starley Network of
As commissioner he will work with Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), local council partners and the DfT.
Tranter’s new role includes:
Working with stakeholders to plan and develop the business cases for at least 10 major safe cycle routes on the Starley Network.
None Of Top Five Congested Roads In U.K. Feature Adjacent Cycleways – Forbes
Carlton Reid
The American company has released its 2021 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard. This matrix identifies and ranks congestion and mobility trends across more than 1,000 global cities. London is now ranked by Inrix as the world’s most congested city, partly because it was the first to bounce back economically after Covid lockdowns.
Drivers in the U.K. “lost” 148 hours this year in traffic, states a press release from Inrix. The Inrix scorecard report does not blame cycleways for traffic congestion. The report only mentions cycleways once, and German ones to boot.
How a myth about London bike lanes and congestion took off | Cycling | The Guardian
Analysis: delving into news stories linking congestion with cycle lanes shows how troubling myths can escape into the wild
Peter Walker
Fairly early on Monday morning last week I got a call from a radio station: could I come on to discuss a study showing London is the world’s most congested city, and this is because of cycle lanes. Hang on, I replied – say all that again?
As it turned out, I never appeared (someone else got the part). But, intrigued, I looked into the research which supposedly showed all this. And that was when things started to get strange.
Environment Secretary criticises Bushy Park traffic reduction scheme | teddington.nub.news
Ellie Brown
Environment Secretary George Eustice MP has criticised a traffic reduction trial in Teddington’s Bushy Park, stating that he would “prefer to see the park re-opened.”
The Conservative MP said closing the roads in the park to traffic has “increased congestion and associated problems around surrounding roads” and expressed his scepticism of the scheme.
But he agreed that the decision is in the hands of The Royal Parks, the charity which manages Bushy Park.
Mr Eustice, who lives not far from Bushy Park, made the comments in an email to a local resident.
The email was reported on by local news station Radio Jackie this morning.
A spokesperson for the Royal Parks defended the scheme.
“the planet isn’t “failing.” It is being actively destroyed, irreversibly, by the fossil fuel capitalists.” – Peter Kalmus – Twitter
The Stopped Clock’s Ghost Ⓥ Retweeted
Peter Kalmus @ClimateHuman
No, @nytimes the planet isn’t “failing.”
Owning car is outdated ’20th-century thinking’ transport minister says – Daily Mail (Note incorrect stats given for car ownership)
Junior transport minister Trudy Harrison, 45, told a sustainability conference owning a car was outdated ’20th-century thinking’ and the country should move to ‘shared mobility’ to cut carbon emissions.
Almost 80% of households in the UK own a car according to figures by Statista for 2020.
That accounts for 63.5 million households owning at least one car out of a total 80.7 million.Ms Harrison, who is also a former parliamentary private secretary to Boris Johnson, said the UK was ‘reaching a tipping point where shared mobility in the form of car clubs, scooters and bike shares will soon be a realistic option for many of us to get around.’
2016) A planet with two billion cars – ScienceDirect
Michael Gross is a science writer based at Oxford. 25 April 2016.25 April 2016
Projections indicate there will be two billion motor vehicles on the roads by 2030, most of them still powered by fossil fuels. Apart from the obvious implications for climate change, this trend also spells public health as well as environmental problems on an unprecedented scale. Michael Gross reports.
Main Text
From the sheer amount of bad news coming through the 24/7 news cycle, one may get the impression that the world is on the road to apocalypse. To counter this impression, the German news magazine Der Spiegel now publishes one trend every week that points in the right direction. Diseases have been eradicated, child labour reduced, flying is safer, etc. One of these silver linings concerns road traffic deaths in Germany. They peaked in 1970 at a horrific 58 people dying on the roads per day. Back then, the comparison often used to convince people afraid of flying was that the massacre on the roads corresponded to one fully booked jumbo jet crashing out of the skies over Western Germany every single week.
Why I risk prison to make our roads safer and save our planet – a campaigner tells his story | road.cc
From courier to courtroom – Caspar Hughes reveals how he got involved with Stop Killing Cyclists and Extinction Rebellion
One-time London bike courier Caspar Hughes, who went on to found and run the static track bike racing events company Rollapaluza, has diverted his energies in the past few years to campaigning for safer roads for cyclists and, more recently, trying to avert the looming climate catastrophe.
Here, he shares with road.cc readers his journey from courier to campaigner – as well as explaining why he is willing to risk jail to fight for what he believes in. Over to Caspar …
Earlier this week, I experienced my first visit to the Royal Courts of Justice. It’s an amazing building and very different to my only other experience of courts in the UK, St Albans Magistrates’ Court. I was there to challenge three injunctions from National Highways and Transport for London (TfL) against Insulate Britain
Historic decision in Austria not to expand the motorway network: “More roads mean even more traffic” – News Beezer
Austria will abandon several projects to expand its motorway network in the fight against global warming. “I don̵
t want a concrete future for future generations,” said the Austrian climate minister, Leonore Gewessler, who is also responsible for traffic in the country. The decision is, in their opinion, historic.
“More roads mean more cars and more traffic,” Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.
“I don’t want to give future generations a concrete future,” added the environmentalist, justifying the decision, which was heavily questioned by the country’s three major political parties.
The decision is “historic” as it is the first time that an Austrian government has given up infrastructure projects in order to meet its CO2 neutrality commitments by 2040.
No New Roads In Ris3 (2025-2030) – Transport Action Network
Respond To The National Highways Consultation By 31 December 2021National Highways is seeking views on future investment in the strategic roads network (motorways and the main A-roads) in the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) (2025-2030). This is the critical period before the ban on the sale of new fossil-fuelled cars begins in 2030. We need to tell National Highways loudly and clearly that they must stop building more nature and climate trashing new roads, and increasing traffic.
Consultation closes 31 December, 2021 (extended from 30 November). You can also email your thoughts to routestrategies@highwaysengland.co.uk if you find the online tool too restrictive (it allows you to give generic feedback but if you want to comment on more than one road or route, you may need to repeat the process).
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