Dan works in forestry. Clare is a school counsellor. Recently, they took their youngest son to a superhero film. Their middle son loves football. They miss their eldest, Rory, who left home a few months ago.
The Hoopers are much like any other family with three children, or they would be if Dan did not have an unusual superpower. He is the best DIY digger of tunnels in the country. And for a quarter of a century he has burrowed passageways into the paths of new roads, runways and railways that destroy the countryside and add to spiralling carbon emissions and global heating. In this strange underland, Dan has another name: Swampy.
The story of Swampy, “the human mole”, was a tabloid fable in the 1990s. Margaret Thatcher’s “Roads for Prosperity” – supposedly the biggest road-building scheme since the Romans – was attracting growing opposition. Protests culminated outside Newbury, Berkshire, in 1996 when thousands marched against a bypass.
Journalist admits anti-cycle lane angle on London being named world’s most congested city would “get more readers” – road.cc
Traffic data firm Inrix says this morning’s ‘Bike lanes make London world’s most congested city’ headlines were not “accurately representing what we have said”
Simon Macmichael Dec 07, 2021
Mainstream media headlines this morning blaming London being named the city with the world’s worst congestion on bike lanes are not “accurately representing what we have said,” according to the company that carried out the research, adding that one journalist had admitted that the anti-cycle lane angle “gets more readers.”
How will humanity endure the climate crisis? I asked an acclaimed sci-fi writer | Daniel Aldana Cohen | The Guardian
9 Dec 2021
To really grasp the present, we need to imagine the future – then look back from it to better see the now. The angry climate kids do this naturally. The rest of us need to read good science fiction. A great place to start is Kim Stanley Robinson.
Robinson is one of the most brilliant writers of the genre. During Covid quarantine, I read 11 of his books, culminating in his instant classic The Ministry for the Future, which imagines several decades of climate politics starting this decade.
The first lesson of his books is obvious: climate is the story.
Charley says that Britain’s new towns are great. – BFI (video)
Charley says (no, not that one) that Britain’s new towns are great. Meet Charley, your jovial cartoon guide to Britain’s changing towns and cities. Interestingly, the New Towns Act of 1946 is not explicitly mentioned in this film, with the recommendations presented as if they had been conjured up by a popular movement. Halas & Batchelor worked with the Central Office of Information on seven Charley films which communicated many of the landmark policies of the post-war Labour Government. Watch more on the BFI Player: http://player.bfi.org.uk/
A lost decade of Workplace Parking Levy: what were the costs for Bristol? | Centre for Cities
A Workplace Parking Levy would simultaneously help Bristol face some of major its challenges: reaching net zero, improving air quality and making public transport better
3 December 2021- Guilherme Rodrigues
In recent months, Bristol City Council has discussed the possibility of implementing a Workplace Parking Levy (WPL). This idea is not new, it was initially talked about in 2011 but unlike Nottingham – the only city with a WPL – it has not been introduced.
Centre for Cities has previously recommended and supported a WPL as a form of tackling car congestion. Postponing the introduction of these levies is very understandable, especially in a period of post-pandemic recovery. That said, there are real costs associated with delaying a WPL: more congestion and less fare revenue to fund public transport improvements.
Bristol faces serious problems associated with private-car congestion
The Rife Valley yesterday where @NationalHways @grantshapps want to put a massive new dual carriageway, the Arundel Bypass – Binsted Village – Twitter
@BinstedVillage
The Rife Valley yesterday, between Walberton and Binsted, where
@NationalHways @grantshapps
want to put a massive new dual carriageway, the Arundel Bypass.
Be ready to help us stop them, statutory consultation starts in January – we will need everyone to object!
#NoMoreRoads
Attorney General refuses to challenge sentence of delivery driver who killed cyclist while high on cocaine – road.cc
An appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme was rejected after the driver was sentenced to seven years in prison for killing father-of-two Stephen White
Ryan Mallon Dec 10, 2021
An appeal to increase the prison sentence of a Yodel delivery driver who killed a cyclist while driving under the influence of cocaine and cannabis has been rejected by the Attorney General’s Office.
In May 2020 Jonathon Ramsbottom, 37, collided head-on with 54 year old father-of-two Stephen White (pictured) in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. White, who was training for an Ironman event, suffered serious head injuries and died in hospital shortly after.
1964) Automania 2000 – Halas and Batchelor (Youtube)
Jul 22, 2016 Network Distributing
The British-based animation team Halas and Batchelor are best known for their adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but they made a string of brilliant short films too. Here is their consumerist satire Automania 2000, about a scientist whose inventions cause environmental havoc, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1964.
Study: More Bike Infrastructure Could Prevent 15,000 Deaths Annually | Planetizen News
In addition to reducing air pollution and congestion, improving bike infrastructure could save thousands of lives each year, according to new research.
A new study that models the “comprehensive global public health impacts of the mode shift to cycling” found that replacing car trips with bike trips can prevent over 15,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone, reports Kea Wilson for Streetsblog.
The study analyzed rates of premature deaths due to car crashes and pollution-related disease, as well as how many car trips could be replaced with robust investment in bike infrastructure and other incentives.
Even if just 8 percent of those new bike trips replaced journeys in a car — an extraordinarily conservative estimate, considering that in this hypothetical world, every urban area in the world would be outfitted with Amsterdam-levels of bike lanes — researchers say that 18,589 lives could be saved across the globe, 1,227 of which would be in the U.S. alone.
Two years in prison for drunk driver who left cyclist with horrific injuries – road.cc
Victim sustained life-changing injuries including multiple fractures to his skull in crash in April
A drunk driver who crashed into a cyclist in Surrey, leaving him with horrific injuries, has been jailed for two years after being convicted of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and driving while over the legal limit for alcohol.
Seth Wheeler, aged 50 and from Dorking, was also banned from driving for four years when he appeared at Guildford Crown Court last Friday, and will have to take an extended retest should he wish to regain his licence once the ban finishes.