Adam Tranter

Active travel groups call for clear targets on walking and cycling in England Exclusive: Groups including British Cycling call for active travel strategy to be put on equal footing with road and rail

Read more: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Active travel groups call for clear targets on walking and cycling in England Exclusive: Groups including British Cycling call for active travel strategy to be put on equal footing with road and rail

Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3 (CWIS3) Dear Secretary of State, Active travel directly advances all five of the Government’s missions — improving health, creating opportunity, delivering safer streets, driving economic growth and meeting our decarbonisation commitments. To realise this potential, the forthcoming Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3 (CWIS3) must move from good intentions to a clear, long-term, fully deliverable national plan comparable to other strategic transport programmes. Currently, CWIS3’s proposed objectives, “ensuring people are safe to travel actively” and “ensuring people feel it is an easy choice”, are open to interpretation and not measurable.

List of signatories

NEW: 50+ transport and health groups have written to the Government calling for clear targets in the upcoming Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3, as well as a comprehensive plan for a national active travel network, matching the long-term strategic focus given to roads.

How the UK’s dependency on cars slows down the economy Clogged up Britain

“Moving to a situation where cars are not considered the fastest and most convenient mode of transportation will take ambition and imagination. But the alternative is a very expensive dependency, which clogs up the UK economy.”

theconversation.com/how-the-uks-...

Pavement Parking: An Unhappy Fifth Birthday | Adam Tranter Five years ago, the Government’s consultation into tackling the scourge of pavement parking closed. Still, no action. In what is a very unhappy fifth birthday, I joined Ned Boulting, Laura Laker and ...

Five years of inaction. Now what? 🤷

Living Streets' @tansbraun.bsky.social joined @adamtranter.bsky.social on @podstreetsahead.bsky.social to talk pavement parking https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamtranter_pavement-parking-an-unhappy-fifth-birthday-activity-7400632118323863552-SYUU

Good on them for at least tackling it.

Worst birthday ever.

Leeds

If we put growth to one side, we should not private pavement space so that people ordering a handful of groceries are prioritised over people in wheelchairs. On a narrow pavement, as many in Britain are, it’s not good for pedestrians.

Just as you thought food delivery companies couldn't inflict any more misery on society:

Instead of using lowly-paid gig economy contractors to deliver groceries, they're replacing humans with robots, who, in turn, force humans off the pavement into road traffic.

Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

It's wild, given all we know about decarbonisation, what gets labelled worthy and what gets labelled indulgent.

Source: www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/article/cycl...

You might like to read HMRC's own assessment of the scheme, which is very positive: www.gov.uk/government/p...

New Sunderland-made Nissan LEAF qualifies for £3,750 discount under government’s EV grant in a boost for North East manufacturing Vs Rachel Reeves to curb high-end bike purchases in Cycle to Work scheme

Compare and contrast the Government language.

£3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’.

Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’.

And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.

‪I would like to apologise for where I referred to “workers” above. The delivery companies fought in the Supreme Court who concluded they were not workers, entitled to minimum pay, safe working environment and holidays, because they could substitute their labour. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Life as a food delivery worker: ‘Sometimes men open the door naked’ To earn a living as a delivery rider, some work 10-12 hour days, contending with low pay, exhaustion, accidents, injuries and harassment. Is this a new form of modern slavery?

We are living in a real-life episode of Black Mirror: an app dispatches workers, monitors their every move, while riders - some using rented identities - risk abuse, exhaustion and invisibility.

“We are a very modern kind of slave.”

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Bluesky hivemind: which topic(s) would you like to hear us at @podstreetsahead.bsky.social discuss next?

Unless there's an unbreakably valid safety reason why not, all button-operated pedestrian crossings should activate the lights in pedestrians' favour instantly when pressed.

BYD Campaign Compares SUVs to Horses | LBBOnline Little Black Book, Created by TABOO, the campaign contrasts BYD's SUV with the chaos of old-fashioned transport

More about the ad here: lbbonline.com/news/taboo-b...

Car brand BYD's new SUV ad pokes fun at people walking and cycling, comparing them to Horse & Carts.

It joins a long list of car ads that sell a false promise of convenience and aspiration while punching down at sustainable transport modes.

So I made it a bit more realistic...

It’s crazy also to think that in Google/Waze, there’s a huge global corporation who create products to alert you of the presence of Police officers or speed cameras so you temporarily obey the law. Other users can touch the screen, distracting themselves from driving, to contribute to the madness.

So much of the Left tries to replicate the Right when it comes to transport policies, carefully doing everything they can to avoid upsetting drivers.

Here's what happens when you focus on the majority of people who stand to benefit from improved transport options.

Should Britain Fall Back in Love with Cars? A response to Tim Leunig's call for Britain to fall back in love with cars

An article in the Financial Times argued that Britain should “fall in love with cars again” and invest in more motorways.

Here’s why the economic argument is flawed and why we should not.

open.substack.com/pub/pinecono...

It would be impossible to parody this commercial.

The makers mistakenly made a built in-parody of how horrible it is to be stuck in a car (and psychologically un-healthy) and how much more fun, human, enjoyable, interactive, spontaneous and less-expensive it is not use one is. @usa.streetsblog.org

Cars deliver the dependency that car ads promise.

Trapped in traffic and stuck travelling long distances to work because of car-centric planning?

Be grateful, says Mercedes-Benz’s latest advert which aims to persuade us that spending two years of our lives stuck inside a car is somehow actually a good thing.

Pedal Power Remains Most Efficient Way To Travel, Confirms Scientific American Scientific American confirms that human on a bicycle more efficient than salmon, seagulls, or jet planes, updating a piece from 1973.

Good article on the graph and its impact: www.forbes.com/sites/carlto...

The Most Efficient Traveler Isn’t a Bird or a Fish—It’s You on a Bike A famous graphic, now updated, compares locomotion in the animal kingdom

Source: www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-hu...

A human on a bicycle is nature's most efficient traveller.

A version of this graph went on to inspire Steve Jobs of Apple, who used it in a 1980 presentation describing the personal computer as "the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds."

Everywhere you look in this industry, it's built on exploitation and deception.

It is quite wild, to me at least, that despite all of this, big high street names and investors, rather than running a mile from the brand reputation risk, are leaning into it.

Your upmarket Deliveroo might be made by your local kebab shop "On one hand, it’s a lifeline... But on the other hand, it’s a harbinger of doom.”

Your next pricey takeaway could well be cooked in an entirely different kitchen from the one you expected, delivered by someone who doesn't match the picture of the courier, using what the platforms say is a bicycle but is actually an unlicensed motorbike.

www.londoncentric.media/p/host-kitch...

Lisbon’s Streets and the People Trying to Change Them | Streets Ahead

NEW EPISODE! 🚨 Lisbon’s Streets and the People Trying to Change Them

Lisbon is a beautiful city with a reputation for being a safe place. That's true from one lens, but look deeper and you'll discover a city with one of the worst road safety records in Europe.

shows.acast.com/streets-ahea...

Afraid not!