News from Elsewhere

Major New Roads In England May Have Funding Pulled If They Increase Carbon Emissions Or Don’t Boost Active Travel – forbes.com


Carlton Reid
An official from the U.K.’s Department for Transport has written to local authorities warning them that budget cut-backs will mean major road schemes, previously considered dialled-in, won’t be funded from central government if they are likely to increase carbon emissions. The schemes may also be cancelled if they do not cater for active travel, such as cycling and walking, or public transit.
Philip Andrews, Head of Road Investment, Policy and Pipeline Development at the Department for Transport, wrote that the government that “will not have sufficient funding to continue to fund all the [major road] schemes currently in the programme to the current scale or timing.”

News from Elsewhere

Review £24 billion roads programme say Lower Thames Crossing campaigners – yourthurrock.com


Staff Reporter March 16, 2022
National Highways have announced another round of Lower Thames Crossing consultation just days after Thames Crossing Action Group, who represent those who are opposed to the proposed £8.2bn Lower Thames Crossing project (LTC), have called for the £24bn RIS2 road programme to be re-opened.  
RIS2 is the Government’s second road investment strategy, and includes the highly controversial LTC.  A section of National Highways Licence, which Government uses to set out the Secretary of State’s statutory directions and guidance to National Highways states that if there are “Major variations, which would affect the Licence holder’s overall funding, have a material effect on the integrity of the RIS or otherwise compromise the Licence holder’s ability to comply with the RIS, would require the RIS to be re-opened.”
The group wrote to Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps MP, on Mon 14th March calling for him to re-open RIS2 based on a variety of major variations.

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The Surprising Lifetime Cost of Car Ownership – doughroller.net

Rob Berger
Have you ever tallied up what it costs to own a car? I don’t mean on a year-to-year basis, but the total cost of owning a car over a lifetime? According to the American Automobile Association (AAA) it costs $8,876 per year to own and operate an average car. Now if you add that up over 50 years, it comes to $443,800, based on current dollars.
But I don’t think that tells the whole story. In fact, we can understand just about everything related to money by examining the financial ramifications of owning a car.
So let’s look at the cost of owning a car from a different angle:
The Opportunity Cost of Owing a Car
For this exercise, were going to look at a single aspect of owning a car: the cost of investing money in the purchase of a series of cars over a lifetime, versus investing an equivalent amount in a diversified investment portfolio comprised primarily of stocks.
Let’s begin by establishing a baseline. Well, assume that an individual pays $20,000 for a car at age 25. She pays cash. Five years later she sells the car for 50% of what she paid and buys another $20,000 car. She repeats this process until she buys her 10th car at age 70. We’ll assume she sells her last car for $10,000 at age 75 and her children drive her where she needs to go thereafter. (At least I hope my kids start driving me around if I make it to 75!)

News from Elsewhere

Study: Megacar Drivers Up to 4x More Likely to Hit Walkers While Turning – Streetsblog USA


Kea Wilson Mar 17, 2022
SUVs and pick-up truck drivers are three to four times more likely to hit a pedestrian when they make a turn than the drivers of smaller cars, a new study finds — and researchers think it’s because federal regulators aren’t scrutinizing the common design features that make it impossible for megacar drivers to see walkers passing right in front of them.
News from Elsewhere

The world’s forests do more than just store carbon, new research finds | Climate crisis | The Guardian


New data suggests forests help keep the Earth at least half of a degree cooler, protecting us from the effects of climate crisis

Nina Lakhani

The world’s forests play a far greater and more complex role in tackling climate crisis than previously thought, due to their physical effects on global and local temperatures, according to new research.
The role of forests as carbon sponges is well established. But comprehensive new data suggests that forests deliver climate benefits well beyond just storing carbon, helping to keep air near and far cool and moist due to the way they physically transform energy and water.

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Get cycling to fight obesity, urges Sir Chris Whitty as he applauds “imaginative” active travel schemes during pandemic | road.cc

Sir Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical officer for England, has urged people to get cycling to fight obesity, saying that “the idea that the UK is a country you can’t actually do cycling is clearly incorrect.”He also applauded what he described as the “imaginative” ways in which local authorities throughout the country sought to encourage active travel during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, reports Mail Online.Speaking yesterday at the annual conference of the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Public Health, Whitty, who became a household name through his appearances in government Covid-19 briefings on TV, said that levels of obesity had increased since the pandemic began.

News from Elsewhere

U.S. Auto Debt Grows to Record High Despite Pandemic – experian.com


stefan.lembo-stolba
In this article:
• Auto Debt Climbs to Record High of $1.37 Trillion 

• Average Consumer Auto Debt Balances Grow Amid Pandemic
• Auto Delinquencies Dipped But Are Now on the Rise
• Car Buyers Skew Prime During Pandemic 
• Auto Balances Increase Most Across High Credit Ranges 
• Young Generations Again Drive Auto Debt Growth
• Consumers in All States See Increase in Auto Balances
• Auto Leasing Slows, While Electric Vehicles’ Popularity Surges

Though the COVID-19 pandemic decisively changed many aspects of Americans’ routines, one of the most notable differences has been in mobility and the necessity to leave the house. 
Pandemic lockdowns and the desire to avoid infection kept many Americans inside, causing them to reconsider how much they can get done without leaving home. With stay-at-home the new normal in 2020—and a record number of people working remotely—the nation rapidly adapted to delivery services, and many online retailers saw their businesses boom.

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Tyre Extinguishers go global as activists vow to make owning SUVs ‘impossible’ – independent.co.uk


Climate activists who have been deflating the tyres of SUVs in the UK have said they are going global with their campaign to make it “impossible” to own the vehicles/
The Tyre Extinguishers claim followers in the US states of Arizona and Colorado have already ‘disarmed’ 4x4s, with supporters in Europe geared up to follow suit.
The group say the luxury vehicles, also known as SUVs, are a climate disaster, cause health problems through air pollution, and make roads more dangerous.
Activists targeted the wheels of dozens of SUVs in the Didsbury suburb of Manchester on Tuesday evening.
But the owner of one of the cars said it was an electric vehicle and condemnd the group’s actions as “dangerous and irresponsible”.
“It’s not just an inconvenience,” he told the Manchester Evening News . “My wife’s pregnant and I need to get her a hospital at some point.
Last month the Tyre Extinguishers claimed to have ‘disarmed’ over a thousand SUVs in Brighton, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, and Edinburgh.
The group’s aim is to make it impossible to own a 4×4 in urban areas across the UK. A spokesperson told The Independent earlier this month they were planning to ramp up their campaign.
Tyre Extinguishers said they were preparing to launch French, Spanish, Italian and German versions of leaflets “at the request of activists”.

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