Sandra Saville Wed 16 Dec 2020
Until now, the statistics on air pollution deaths have been presented in black and white – numbers on a page that estimate between 28,000 and 36,000 people will die as a result of toxic air pollution every year in the UK.
But the life and death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah is in full colour: from the pictures of her wearing her gymnastics leotard hung with medals, to the image of her mother and siblings holding aloft her photograph, when they no longer had her to hold on to, as they campaigned for the truth.
As Prof Sir Stephen Holgate told the coroner, behind the often-quoted statistics lie individuals whose lives have been cut short. “Every single number that goes into these studies is a single person dying,” he said.

Opening of key route along Chiswick High Road delayed while traffic lights put in place
A temporary (but eventually permanent) segregated cycleway on a major road in London will open on Friday. But the removal last week of a pop-up cycle lane on Kensington High Street by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea will deprive cyclists in the west of the capital of a safe route all the way into the city centre and beyond.
The route being opened in the coming days forms part of what, when it was announced more than a decade ago, was billed as Cycle Superhighway 9, and runs along Chiswick High Road.
Due to opposition from Conservative councillors in Chiswick, which lies in the south east corner of the London Borough of Hounslow, even before the coronavirus pandemic struck, it had been one of the most bitterly fought-over pieces of planned cycling infrastructure in the capital.

With a larger proportion of the workforce choosing to drive to work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, rising congestion could cost everyone in the UK more than £2,000 a year, according to Cycling UK. The charity has therefore called for improved walking and cycling networks, arguing that the cost of failing to provide alternatives to car travel are too great.

He said: “As a person who grew up in Mexico City, I can appreciate what the council is trying to do with the LTNs.”

BBC environment analyst
A new tunnel linking Kent and Essex will create five million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), figures suggest.
Estimates say building the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), a flagship project in the UK’s roads programme, will emit 2 million tonnes of the greenhouse gas.
Meanwhile, traffic created by the road is expected to generate another 3.2 million tonnes over 60 years.
Environmentalists say the statistics make a mockery of the prime minister’s claim to lead on climate change.
A government report published in March provisionally estimated the UK’s net carbon emissions in 2019 to be 351.5 million tonnes.
The Thames crossing is said to be the UK’s biggest roads project since the M25.

We look at four e-bikes, from the hi-tech to the conventional, to see which offers the best experience

It’s fair to say I learned two main things in trying to test out a series of commuter-type e-bikes over the past few months. One was more of a rediscovery: they’re fantastic fun. The other was a surprise: at the moment, they’re really hard to get hold of.
The coronavirus pandemic changed the UK in many ways, and one of the minor impacts was to spark an explosion of interest in e-bikes, as people sought out ways to return to work while avoiding public transport and traffic jams.
After months of back-and-forth emails with bike companies and PRs, I got hold of the four featured below. I wanted to test more models, and some cheaper ones, but it couldn’t happen.
Before I get into the details, there are three general points to make.

“If the Internet was a block of flats, would you want to move in?” asked London-based Jimmy Tidey on tech media site Hackermoon in 2017. An expert on Twitter tribes, Tidey argued that self-selection and algorithms separate people from information which disagrees with their viewpoints, leading to online polarisation.
His latest research delves into the divisive debates about London’s new “low traffic neighborhoods.” Using graphics to represent “filter bubbles,” he explores how a small number of individuals on Twitter can convince themselves and others—including councils—that their opinions are the truly mainstream ones.

Drivers could face a £3.50 daily charge to enter Greater London under proposals from the mayor of London to address the capital’s funding crisis.
Sadiq Khan has asked Transport for London to start feasibility studies for the plan to raise £500m a year.
The boundary charge would be levied on vehicles registered outside the capital crossing into the whole of London – an area almost 80 times larger than the central congestion zone.
An independent review into TfL’s finances, which have been badly hit by the loss of tube fares after the pandemic, suggested that road charging would be the best source of new revenue.
The review said cuts to bus services in outer boroughs, scrapping the night tube, and ending the subsidy for the “Boris bike” cycle hire scheme would provide potential savings but could inflict further congestion and economic damage.
The independent panel was commissioned by Khan during fraught negotiations with the government for emergency funding, after passengers were told to avoid public transport to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
Khan urged ministers to “play fair” by London to assure the future funding of the capital’s transport network, and to allow the capital to keep the £500m a year paid in vehicle excise duty by London-based drivers.

He said the money was spent outside London while TfL used fare income to fund maintenance of major roads in the capital.
The boundary charge could also reduce congestion and emissions and encourage greater use of sustainable transport. On an average weekday about 1.3m vehicles travel into London.