The majority of the cases are being brought under the Energy Charter Treaty, and are being hosted within the International Centre for The Settlement of Investment Disputes, a branch of the World Bank.
Ryan Dabbs 5 days ago
Police in the north of England have joined a group ride to catch close-pass drivers, uploading their effort to Strava to raise awareness of the operation.
Parken Überall — The Very German Culture War No One Likes To Talk About
Bernie Duffy 1 day ago
After receiving threats of violence for reporting illegally parked cars, the author examines what drives German car culture to near-fanatical levels.
My neighbourhood in Hamburg has reached the absolute limit with parking. Sidewalks, street corners, and even the emergency fire exits around the local hospital and school are packed bumper to bumper, with barely space for pedestrians to squeeze through sideways to cross the street. About three years ago, on my street, the wooden bollards preventing cars from driving on the pavement were torn out by perpetrators unknown and a parade of SUVs and vans began using the full width of the foot-and-bike path in order to double-park on the inside of street-parked cars. After witnessing a couple of near-tragic incidents, I realized it was no longer safe to allow my 10-year-old daughter to use that way to school.… This was the last straw. Something had to be done.
BBC News 4 days ago
The average number of fatalities across the counties was usually about four people per month, but it was “in excess” of 20 in August, police said.
As part of the initiative, 170 dashcams are being given out.
Project heads said the level of deaths was “particularly high” and they hoped the cameras would make drivers think before they made “stupid” manoeuvres.
On Monday, a convoy of emergency services vehicles travelled along the A38 in Devon to launch the new initiative and highlight the resources required to attend a serious road traffic collision.
The road trip was organised by the charity Project Edward (Every Day Without A Road Death).
Lucy Colbeck posted this in Activism, Community, Street Space on 13/09/2021
Would you and your children like to see one of these on your street? We know we would!
Our friends at the climate charity Possible have launched a new campaign to grow parklets in our towns and cities.
What are parklets?
Carlton Reid 8/9/21
Let’s ban cars. Not just internal combustion-engined cars—that should happen within eight years anyway—but all of them. Sorry, Elon, even electric cars.
Too radical? OK, let’s keep some cars but instead dismantle all auto-centric roads installed since the 1920s. This isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. Plenty of places have demolished flyovers and have not seen any increase in congestion. The poster child of the “freeway removal” movement is the transformation of an elevated highway in the Cheonggyecheon district of Seoul, South Korea, successfully turned into a linear urban park in 2006.
There are many other examples, such as the removal in 2014 of the Belgrave Road flyover in Leicester and the dismantling of San Francisco’s double-decked Embarcadero Freeway following the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
Removing these roads didn’t result in any short- or long-term congestion. Predicted jams never materialized. Academics call this “traffic evaporation.” Just as building more roads leads to more use of those roads—induced demand has been well understood since 1866—removing them leads to a reduction in use.
Caspar Hughes – 09/09/2021
There is a rich history of direct action targeting transport in the UK. Transport Action Network (TAN) evolved from the activists that took direct action to help stop the road building programme in the 90s.
Recently, I was in the unenviable position of organising two ‘die-ins’ in two cities. Maria Perez-Gonzalez and Dr Marta Krawiec were both killed whilst cycling by drivers in Exeter and London respectively. People in Exeter hadn’t organised or seen a protest like this previously, Stop Killing Cyclists has been organising them in London since 2013. I got involved at the die-in for Ying Tao in 2016, when thousands of people lay down and filled Bank Junction in the heart of the financial centre of the world.
Campaigners say Sadiq Khan’s support for a four-lane road under the river is at odds with his environmental aims
Harriet Sherwood 11/9/21
Burrowing deep under the Thames, Silvertown tunnel is scheduled as the first new road link across the capital’s river for 30 years. But, the four-lane highway, due to be completed in 2025, is about to become the focus of environmental protests in the lead-up to the Cop26 global climate summit in Glasgow in November.
Preliminary construction work has begun and tunnelling is due to begin next spring, but campaigners insist it is not too late to halt the £1bn-plus engineering project and are planning protests at both ends of the tunnel later this month.
