£90billion road revamp planned despite drive for green travel | The Times
Tuesday May 26 2020
An official document shows that Highways England, the government-owned company, has proposed significant improvements to the country’s busiest roads over the next 15 years.
This month the government announced a £2 billion package to promote cycling and walking. Last weekend it unveiled a further £283 million to increase bus and tram services.
In the March budget, the chancellor announced a £27 billion investent in motorways and main A-roads in England over the next five years.
At the same time, the Office of Rail and Road, the official watchdog, published its own “efficiency review” into Highways England’s longer-term plans.
There is no business as usual when modelling climate change – Phil Goodwin – transportxtra
Embedded in decades of transport modelling is the assumption that the future will be sufficiently like the past that any relationships observed (or thought to be observed), were stable enough to use as a guide to the future, and reliable enough to support decisions, with a few modest caveats. This philosophical starting point underpinned the rationale for the key transport models used to forecast future movement and support major projects. Brexit, Covid19, and climate change all challenge the credibility of that view.
What Is A Dutch Style Roundabout? – The Ranty Highwayman
Look, I don’t want to be that guy, but when I see a UK cycling scheme trumpeting a “Dutch-style” roundabout, it’s going to get my attention and I’m going to give it a closer look. > North Tyneside Council is currently consulting on a raft of cycling schemes which are being delivered over the next couple of years using funding from the UK Government’s Active Travel Fund (ATF) and the Transforming Cities Fund (TCF). The former is essentially part of the response to Covid where 2020/21’s fund was more about pop-up and interim active travel works with 2021/22 being about making things permanent or extending them. The latter closed to applications in 2018 and is about investing in public and sustainable transport in city regions. Both funds are for England only.
“Richmond Park is just horribly dangerous”: Drivers stream past child cycling in the park | road.cc
4/6/21
cqexbesd gave it a lot of thought…
Provide a decent bus service, bike hire scheme, train service (that carries bikes). Ban cars entering without permits. Permits available for short periods and long periods. Permits require you scoring enough points (because we all like a good points system). Points for disability and infirmity. Infirmity can be both temporary or permamnet (i.e. through old age, very young age, pregnancy etc). Points for genuinely having to carry a lot of stuff (e.g. tradespeople working in the area). Maybe limited short term permits for full vehicles (i.e. you can drive as long as there are at least 4 people in your car). Points for people who actually live in the area…
Thoughts?
The media is still mostly failing to convey the urgency of the climate crisis | Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope | The Guardian
Thu 3 Jun 2021
We asked the world’s press to commit to treating climate change as the emergency that scientists say it is. Their response was dispiriting
The TV newsman Bill Moyers likes to tell the story of how Edward R Murrow, the pre-eminent US broadcast journalist of his time, insisted on covering what became Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Murrow’s bosses at CBS News had other priorities; they ordered Murrow’s reporters to cover dance competitions in Hamburg, Paris and London, explaining that Americans needed some happy news. Murrow wouldn’t do it. “It’ll probably get us fired,” he told his colleagues, but he sent his correspondents to the German-Polish border; they arrived just in time to witness Hitler’s tanks and troops roar into Poland. Suddenly, Europe was at war. And Americans heard about it because journalists at one of the nation’s most influential news outlets defied convention and did their jobs.
The evidence is in: low-traffic neighbourhoods are popular | Julian Bell | The Guardian
Wed 2 Jun 2021
Are measures to make streets safe for walking and cycling unpopular? Are they vote-losers? Have we failed to take communities with us – and will we, as local politicians, pay the price?
As a former Labour leader of Ealing council in west London, I was at the heart of this debate. The low-traffic neighbourhood schemes we installed in my borough, using cameras to stop rat-running in more than a hundred streets, caused a row noisy even by the standards of cycling scheme rows. Demonstrators marched to the council offices with “Julian Bell – end this hell” placards. The “Bell” and the “end” were placed together to make a further well-loved phrase.
The infrastructure was vandalised. I was accused of not consulting or listening to people’s views – though the schemes, as trials, were themselves consultations. The schemes were often labelled “unpopular” and “controversial” in the local press.
April) ‘This is it. If we don’t amp up, we’re goners’: the last chance to confront the climate crisis? | The Guardian
When it comes to addressing the climate emergency, there have been hopeful moments before that ultimately led to nothing. Now, hope rises again
Jeff Goodall Fri 16 Apr 2021
The Earth’s climate has always been a work in progress. In the 4.5bn years the planet has been spinning around the sun, ice ages have come and gone, interrupted by epochs of intense heat. The highest mountain range in Texas was once an underwater reef. Camels wandered in evergreen forests in the Arctic. Then a few million years later, 400 feet of ice formed over what is now New York City. But amid this geologic mayhem, humans have gotten lucky. For the past 10,000 years, virtually the entire stretch of human civilization, people have lived in what scientists call “a Goldilocks climate” – not too hot, not too cold, just right.
Master Plan to promote cycling in Europe – transportxtra
02 June 2021
A pan-European Master Plan for Cycling Promotion has been drawn up by the PEP, a joint programme of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The Master Plan aims to help national and local stakeholders streamline efforts to promote cycling. Its objectives include:
Contributing to sustainable economic development and stimulating job creation.
‘Infinity loop’ coming to Kilmarnock – transportxtra
03 June 2021
A 28km circular cycling and walking route called the ‘Infinity Loop’ is due to be built in Kilmarnock, Scotland, next year. The £20m route would form a figure of eight providing connections between different communities on the outskirts of the town. The route would link to schools, the town centre, parks and community buildings. Most of the route will be off-road, either shared access pavements or routes, with a few sections on roads within 20mph and 30mph zones..
Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists | The Guardian
Analysis shows significant risk of cascading events even at 2C of heating, with severe long-term effects
Damian Carrington Thu 3 Jun 2021
Ice sheets and ocean currents at risk of climate tipping points can destabilise each other as the world heats up, leading to a domino effect with severe consequences for humanity, according to a risk analysis.
Tipping points occur when global heating pushes temperatures beyond a critical threshold, leading to accelerated and irreversible impacts. Some large ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to already have passed their tipping points, meaning large sea-level rises in coming centuries.