Simon MacMichael Fri, Apr 30, 2021

Rob Horgan

Internal emails sent between senior Highways England officials and members of the organisation’s Freedom of Information (FOI) team show deliberate attempts to obfuscate the FOI process, according to MPs and campaign groups.
In the emails – released to MPs and seen by NCE – Highways England officials discuss ways of “closing down the FOI/EIR [environmental information request] route in the future”.
The emails relate to an FOI request submitted by MP for Sefton Central Bill Esterson and campaign group Rimrose Valley Friends (RVF) in relation to the controversial A5036 Port of Liverpool access scheme that would demolish the 3.5km Rimrose Valley Country Park in Merseyside.
Specifically, Esterson had requested meeting notes between Highways England and stakeholders involved in the Port of Liverpool scheme.

January 26, 2021
Taken together, streets are the largest public space in New York City, adding up to an acreage nearly twice the size of the Bronx. More than three-quarters of that streetscape is dedicated to moving and storing vehicles. But for all the space given over to cars, only a minority of New Yorkers own one, and less than one in three trips citywide involve a car. This inequity is stark. The status quo must end.
A new poll, commissioned by Transportation Alternatives and conducted by the Siena College Research Institute, details New York City voters’ wide support for addressing that inequity and converting street space for more safe, equitable, and vibrant neighborhood use. The survey reveals that a majority of voters from households that own cars broadly support many of these street improvements too. With the 2021 elections approach, it’s clear that candidates running with a strong vision to reimagine New York City’s streetscape will have public opinion on their side.

North Somerset Council has withdrawn a plan to ban through traffic on a network of rural roads after a backlash from local residents.

On 31 March the council published an order to prohibit through traffic from a network of 34 lanes between Clevedon, Yatton, Nailsea, Claverham and Backwell. 
The intention of the ‘quiet rural lanes’ plan was to create a recreation space for cyclists and walkers and continue to give access to residents and businesses.

In recent years, various reports and studies have provided quantified estimates of the distribution of road space among different transport modes in various cities worldwide. In doing so, and inspired by broader discussions on transport and urban justice, they have sought to point out the unfairness of existing patterns of road space distribution. Although intuitively tempting, this paper argues that appeals in favour of a ‘fair’ distribution of road space are inherently problematic. In order to illustrate this point, the distribution of road space in Amsterdam is measured using GIS cartography and discussed in relation to various transport-related indicators.