The company – which offers the same fares as other rail sites – aims to match the government’s target of planting 90-120 million trees a year
Gemma Bowes
A new train ticketing platform launching today is promising to plant a tree for every booking, which it hopes will appeal to passengers who care about climate change. Trainhugger says it will use 50p out of each £1.50 booking fee to pay for a young tree, in partnership with the Royal Forestry Society and Royal Scottish Forestry Society.
The website will sell the same UK routes and fares as other rail websites, such as Trainline, which charges a web booking fee of 80p-£1.75 per ticket (and advance booking fees of 35p-£1.75, free on day of travel). Passengers who book directly with a rail provider such as Southern or Virgin don’t usually pay a booking fee, but Trainhugger’s founders believe they will be able to win enough business from its rivals to make a considerable contribution towards combating climate change. They hope to plant 10 million trees by 2025.
2017) Pollutionwatch: not much cheer from online Christmas shopping | Air pollution | The Guardian
Gary Fuller
Vans, up by 71% since 1996, are the fastest growing vehicle type in UK. They are nearly all diesel-powered and share the same nitrogen dioxide exhaust problems as diesel cars.
In 2015, 73% of UK adults did Christmas shopping online and 88% of these used home deliveries, causing concerns about traffic pollution.
However most of the increase in vans pre-dates internet shopping. Van growth since 2006 was 23%, much less than the decade before. In 2008 most vans were used to transport equipment, perhaps reflecting changes in self-employment.
Rediscovering Sketching – The Ranty Highwayman
As an engineer, I need to be able to communicate ideas and concepts to other people and one of the most powerful tools I have at my disposal is drawing.
There are obviously many mediums through which we can draw, but I tend to use CAD (computer aided design) or hand drawn sketches. For this blog, Microsoft Paint was originally my go to package for quick little diagrams, but once you had committed yourself, editing became tricky. I use the industry-standard AutoCAD for work, but it is incredibly expensive and certainly out of reach for the enthusiast and indeed small business. Luckily, I found NanoCAD a few years back which has a free version that I tend to use for most of my drawings for this blog as well as it being my tool of choice for freelance work I undertake as City Infinity.
How better air could save tens of thousands of lives a year in UK | Air pollution | The Guardian
Studies show implementing WHO air guidelines would have drastic impact on health outcomes
Gary Fuller
Improving the air that we breathe is an opportunity for our politicians to save lives and for each of us to have better health.
In September the World Health Organization (WHO) revised its guidelines for air quality. Following this announcement, two studies have estimated the health benefits from implementing these guidelines across Europe.
The first study came from the European Environment Agency. It found at least 177,300 early deaths in 2019 could have been avoided if EU countries met the new WHO guidelines. The UK would have saved 17,200 people in 2019, representing nearly half of the 35,700 pollution-related deaths that year.
COP26: recognition for cycling, but what next? | Cycling UK
Now that COP26 is over, Cycling UK is shifting campaigning focus from global to local. Join us and use our online tool to send a letter to your council’s transport lead (or MLA in Northern Ireland) and ask them what they’re doing to enable more people to cycle and reduce transport emissions.
Write to your council’s transport lead
Blah, blah, blah
On Saturday evening, Alok Sharma’s gavel came down to end COP26. Delegates and the media went home, and Glasgow started getting back to normal.
If we all choose the fastest mode of travel in a city, the whole city gets slower – and more congested I The Conversation
Rafael Prieto Curiel November 24, 2021
People in cities often choose how to travel based on how long it will take. In recent years, navigation apps such as Google Maps and CityMapper have enabled people to decide between various modes of transport by seeing which one most quickly gets them where they want to go.
Cities of course have long dedicated a disproportionate amount of space to cars. Although in some parts of the global north – and in certain demographics – car use is declining, elsewhere it has, unsurprisingly, increased.
In a recent study, we modelled what would happen to average travelling times in a city if people were given only one other option – using the car or using another mode of transport – and if they acted only in their own interest (getting to their destination as fast as possible).
We wanted to see what would happen if everyone acted selfishly. How would that compare, we wondered, with a theoretical case in which people chose their mode to minimise travel times for society as a whole and not only for themselves.
Integrated Rail announcement fails on multi-modal travel, say cycle campaigners – Cycle Industry News
Laura Laker 26 November, 2021
Campaigners are calling for the government to make good on its promises for better cycle provisions on trains, as the latest Integrated Rail announcement failed to outline how cycle-rail targets will be met. Meanwhile, parts of the rail industry are looking to provide for growing signs of a resurgence in the leisure rail market.
The Shapps-Williams review, launched in May, set out a vision for the future of rail in Britain, including a new Great British Railways body to reverse the trend of declining on-board cycle space, “increasing space on existing trains wherever practically possible, including on popular leisure routes.” It added: “All future train fleets will need to include more bike spaces relevant to the markets served.” However, there are scant details on how this will be achieved.
Rail ridership remains at 41.6% of pre-pandemic levels, while the industry is anticipating a long-term increase in leisure travel demand as people are encouraged to leave cars at home. Cycle-rail journeys are already part of a long-term trend, with journeys where a bicycle is parked at the station increasing by 75% in the decade pre-pandemic.
Row over Dorset cycle lane that drivers claim is “too wide” | road.cc
Council chairman responds by saying that if drivers continue to cause crashes, they will have more roadspace taken away to make them slow down
A row has broken out over cycle lanes in Poole, Dorset, with some motorists claiming incorrectly that people on bikes have more space than they do – although the local council’s chairman has said in response that if drivers keep causing crashes, roads will be narrowed further still to slow them down.
The cycle lanes on the A3049 Wallisdown Road have been built by the Conservative-controlled Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (BCP) Council as part of a £100 million plus initiative in partnership with Dorset Council to encourage more people to switch to active travel by giving them safe infrastructure.
But as happened earlier this year with a cycle lane in Wimborne dubbed “Britain’s biggest bike lane,” the width of the cycle lanes in Poole – nine and a half feet – has not gone down well with some drivers.
Legends – Jon Burke – Twitter
Legends
Perfect for the wilderness: a Cairngorms safari by e-bike | Scotland holidays | The Guardian
Braemar out of season is a strange place to be. Not quite lifeless, but definitely falling into an autumnal torpor. After an extraordinarily busy summer hosting the great flood of northbound domestic tourists, in late October just a few B&Bs and pubs are hanging on before some much-needed downtime.
At the edges of the village though, and in the wider, wilder countryside beyond, a lot more life is to be found. Red squirrels are emboldened by the reduced traffic, the red deer rut is just coming to an end. Dan Brown and Rachael Iveson-Brown, owners of Wild Discovery, are at a similar stage of life: busy preparing for winter and renewal next year.
I’m heading out with the couple to experience their new electric bike safari around a scenic part of Aberdeenshire. The autumn colours are aflame, the River Dee, appearing like polished steel, imperfectly mirrors the infernos above.
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