Snowcar gets a ticket

Spotted by one of colleagues...

London then and now

This is the text of a speech by Jenny Jones, Green member of the London Assembly.

I have posted it here because I want to add it to my boriswatch site: 

http://delicious.com/wildnorthlands/boriswatch

I think it shows why BJ is a very dangerous man indeed to have in charge of London. Apparently even the tories are a bit worried about him. 

Green Transport for a showcase city
18th October 2008
Cllr Jenny Jones AM

(Slide 1) Some of you will be coming to London for the Olympics in the
summer of 2012. I had hoped that when the world's media turned their focus
on London in four years time, that they would be surprised by how green the
city had become.

(Slide 2) Our previous Mayor, Ken Livingstone, was not only full of
aspirations - his green words were slowly being turned into a physical
reality by four years of having to do a budget deal with the Greens on the
London Assembly.

We had hoped to continue that process right through to the 2012 Olympics and
to showcase all the pioneering projects and changes that we had made in
London.

Alas, that is not the case and the new Mayor does not need the Green Party
member's votes on the London Assembly in order to pass his budget. Boris
Johnson, London's new mayor, has already cut some of our pioneering projects
and may well drop others.

I want to take you through the main achievements of the first eight years of
the Greater London Authority and set out our vision for creating a
sustainable transport system in London.

Then I will bring us back down to earth and look at what is happening under
our new Mayor.

(Slide 3) London as we are now

(Slide 4) London's big challenges

·                    London's population is growing fast.
·                    The public transport system is already over crowded and
roads congested.
·                    We need to contain that growth within London and avoid
building on green field sites in the south east of England.
·                    Achieving less pollution, even with a higher
population.
·                    Not enough money.

(Slide 5) Big solutions?

·                    Build on brown field sites and increase density of
development;
·                    Build low or zero carbon developments and
infrastructure;
·                    New public transport infrastructure,
·                    Reducing demand and a switch to walking/cycling.
·                    Using technology and behavioural change to reduce
pollution.

(Slide 6) Achievements
We have many achievements to be proud of.

1) Zero growth in traffic across London since 2000, despite rising
population and associated car ownership. This compares with 1.5% average
growth per annum in the UK.

2) A 5% switch from cars to public transport. Includes a record number of
people using the tube system (over a billion a year) and a 40% increase in
bus passengers since 2000.

3) Over 80% increase in cycling since 2000.

4) The fastest decline in road casualties of any region in the UK. 40% less
people are killed or seriously injured on London's roads now, compared to
the mid 1990s and this is 65% less children than in the mid 1990s – that
adds up to 600 less children a year killed or seriously injured on our
roads.

5) In the first eight years we had major innovations such as the
introduction of the Oyster card and Transport for London's (TfL) takeover of
the orbital railway in London.

From the licensing of the mini cabs, to river transport, the funding of car
clubs and door to door transport, London is now running a comprehensive
system, with something for everyone. It is not yet an integrated transport
system, but the cracks are getting smaller.



(Slide 7) My personal favourite was the congestion charge. This is
campaigners drinking champagne on the first day.

(Slide 8) We should also be proud of our Climate Change Action Plan.

I'd like to take you back to the list of solutions.

(Slide 9) Five solutions

Slide 10) Planning policy

Over 90% of new developments are on brown field sites in London.

London has tighter restrictions than the rest of the country, on how many
cars are allowed with new developments. There are now more car free
developments, although these are still the exception – even near public
transport hubs.

Nearly all areas of inner London are subject to parking restrictions and/or
resident only parking schemes.

Housing in London is now three times the density of many other regions in
London.

From 2001 to 2006, London's housing density increased from 48 dwellings per
hectare to 84 dwellings per hectare, as the Mayor's planning strategy took
full effect.

It is worth remembering that much of the most expensive and desirable real
estate in London is also in the most densely populated areas of London.

(Slide 11) Zero/low carbon developments

New developments must include 20% on site renewable energy. However, more
emphasis placed on the creation of combined heat and power generation.

A new zero carbon development is being built at Gallions Reach in east
London, just down the road from the Olympics. However, other zero carbon
developments will be slow to follow.

Public buildings and offices in London will be retrofitted with energy
conservation measures as part of the investment by the Clinton foundation
and the alliance of 40 major cities around the world who want to take action
on climate change.

Public transport infrastructure

The previous mayor had plans for a massive infrastructure programme in
London worth over £60bn between now and 2025.

The overwhelming majority of this massive investment is in rail and tube,
which currently accounts for only 15% of London's modal share.

Infrastructure being built

Tube upgrade – we are finishing the first seven years of investment and
because of part privatisation have gone well over the £8bn budget agreed for
the work (original cost to 2010).

Docklands Light Railway (DLR) extension to Lewisham and eastwards through
the docklands.

East London Extension connecting the railway system in east London to the
tube.

(Slide 12) Infrastructure planned

Capacity improvements to the railway system in London (£7bn needed, but not
promised).

Tram schemes to replace over crowded bus services.

Crossrail connecting Heathrow airport with financial district of Canary
Wharf and also the poorer areas of East London (£13bn is latest estimate).

Creation of a green grid of new parks and inter-linked open spaces in East
London – making the new developments accessible by walking/cycling
(estimated cost £500m, still unfunded).



(Slide 13) Traffic reduction

Transport for London estimated in their strategy document 2025, that this
£60bn of investment still wouldn't be enough to meet the demand for
transport from a growing population. The gap between the demand for
transport and its supply would have to be filled by a combination of:

·                    More walking and cycling. Reversing the historic
decline in walking. Increasing cycling by 400%.
·                    Reducing the overall demand for travel.
·                    Road pricing (congestion charging) across the whole of
London.

The price of continuing to neglect pedestrians, the majority of road users,
will be severe overcrowding on buses, tubes and roads. My calculation is
that a 1% drop in walking could mean an extra 2 million motorised journeys
in London, compared to today.

Spending on walking and cycling in London has increased five fold since
2000. We are spending over £55m on cycling this year and due to initiatives
which greens put into place, that is likely to climb further next year.

Spending on traffic demand management measures has increased to over £30m a
year. These measures include mainstreaming school and workplace travel plans
throughout London – which have been very successful in reducing single
person car trips by an average of 5%.

We had received a commitment have modernised all 785 junctions which
currently have traffic lights that have either sub-standard crossings, or no
pedestrian signals at all.

The current mayor is trying to strike a balance between bring lights up to
national safety standards, whilst increasing motorised traffic flows.

I also hope that the Legible London project will have spread throughout the
capital, so that we have a consistent and user friendly signage system for
pedestrians.

(Slide 14) Technology and behavioural change

All the new buses coming into service by 2012 will be hybrids, saving over a
third on fuel and emissions.

(Slide 15) Talking people out of their cars

The budget for Travel Demand Management is £33m a year. Successes include:
·                    On target for every school to have a travel plan by
2009, average of over 7% reduction in school run – two million fewer car
journeys a year.
·                    TfL support for car clubs means that 85% of UK car club
members are in London.
·                    More than 150,000 additional people being covered each
year by workplace travel plans.

(Slide 16) The new Mayor

This is a Mayor without ideology, a philosophy, or a plan.

He has dropped the £25 emissions charge targeted at gas guzzling cars.

He is consulting on abolishing or watering down the western extension of the
congestion charge. If abandoned, it could cost TfL £70m a year and also lead
to traffic increasing by 15% as it returns to pre-charge levels.

Government has a deadline of end of October to go begging to EU for an
extension to the time it has to meet the EU limit values. This is a key
immediate issue for the mayor, who has a legal duty to improve air quality,
but he is currently on track to make things worse.

The Mayor is consulting on abolishing the mid year inspections for black
cabs, despite the 39% failure rate, the largest proportion of which is for
emissions

He is consulting on replacing the large capacity bendy buses, which would
mean a large increase in the number of buses on the road, and will increase
the cost to TfL, create more congestion and lead to a big jump in emissions.
Unless the consultation changes the Mayor's mind, Boris will be taking
decisions which make air quality worse, not better.

The Low Emission Zone has been retained and seems successful. However, the
big policy test for the mayor comes in 2010 with the extension of the scheme
to the huge numbers of light vans in London.

Boris has cut the hydrogen vehicle purchasing scheme – the biggest in UK, if
not the world. However, London is going ahead with purchase of ten more
hydrogen buses.

Emphasis is now on electric vehicles and creating more charging points
around London.

Conclusion

Unless the Mayor tightens up on planning and car parking standards then
London will be home to an estimated 400,000 extra cars by 2025.

The Stratford City development, next door to the Olympic site is one of the
worst examples of outdated and bad planning with over 10,000 new car parking
spaces.

The Olympic media centre was due to follow this car dependent habit with
over a thousand parking spaces, but this has now been halved in the legacy
plans.

Unless the planning and economic policies are changed in order to reduce
demand for travel, especially in central London, then over £60bn of
investment in rail and tube capacity will not be enough.

Unless the London mayor increases walking and boosts cycling by 400%, then
the roads and public transport system will clog up. London needs as many
people doing journeys by bike, as currently use the railway system.

We are likely to be spending over 70m on cycling next year as we bring in a
Velib style cycle hire and other cycle priority measures, but this is far
from enough.

Crossrail alone will be receiving an average of £500m a year in Government
subsidy for the next ten years. Yet, it will be used by a fraction of the
people who TfL is hoping to get on their bikes.

The Olympic visitors and documentary crews who come to London in 2012 and
examine our green credentials, will not be comparing London to how it was
four years before, but with how their own cities are in 2012.

Despite the fact that London was starting to lead the country in taking
action on climate change and sustainable transport, we are now going into
reverse gear. We are also falling behind what some other cities are
managing.

Whether it is the Paris 'velib' bike hire scheme, or the New York pledge to
get all their yellow cabs to become low emission hybrids, we should be
adopting the best from around the world.

Hosting the greenest games is one achievement, but being the greenest city
to ever host the games is a better one.

GREATER*LONDON*AUTHORITY

Find romance on a Supertram Cyclists Special!

cue drippy music...

It's nearly a year since Chris and Richard met on a Supertram Cyclist's Special. They were both single at the time, discovered they had common interests, like cycling, and to cut a long story short, they have now set up house together.

Here they are on that tram ride a year ago, and to mark the occasion Chris and Richard will be leading a ride on this January's special.

Who will find romance on a Supertram cyclists special this year? Come along on the 25th and find out!

(Supertram special leaves Cathedral Tramstop at 10 a.m. on the 25th.)
(pic: l-r, Tim, Chris, Richard, Patrice)

Cycling to the inauguration

Quite liked this story - this guy's riding across America to get to Obama's inauguration. Only problem is, he hasn't got a ticket! I need a miracle! (as the dead-heads used to say)

Cycling Paramedics in Sheffield

There is a brand new city centre service provided by the Ambulance
Service. There are two fully kitted out bicycles with paramedics able to
get to people in medical trouble within the inner relief road far more
quickly than an ambulance. Because of this it has improved the chance of
saving lives (eg. cardiac arrests).

The new city centre bicycle ambulances service joins cycle mounted
police and fire prevention teams. It is a fantastic achievement for
Sheffield.

However there are several teething problems that need addressing urgently.

1. The need for the two of them to have a base in the city centre where
they can rest/have a drink etc out of the elements with a secure place
where their bikes can be parked. At present they are having to cycle in
from Middlewood.....beyond Hillsborough.

They have spoken with the services at Yorkshire House, which would be
ideal. However the people who own/manage the building say they cannot
have bikes within the premises. The police leave their bikes secured to
the safety railings in front of Yorkshire House (not ideal). With all
the paramedic equipment on the panniers of the ambulance cycles this is
not possible.

2. This newly launched service needs some high visibility publicity. I
am sure it would be good to have the City Council playing a part in
helping get media coverage.

Obstruction on Upper Hanover Way.

This isn't on the cycleway yet, although it leaves very little room for pedestrians, but once
the re-design of the cyclepath takes place it will have to be moved (at the taxpayers expense ofg course) A little forward thinking would have helped here.

Obstruction on Eyre st.

Sheffield council's latest attempt to kill cyclists.

The Beeching of model railways.

The Carfield Ave branch is now closed.

Cycle routes – the Wakefield recipe:

(Based on our experiences on the TPT link that follows the A655 in from Castleford)
1. Take one sub-standard footpath
2. Paint some cycle route markings on it
3. Allow to stand while shrubbery grows over it.
4. Sprinkle liberally with broken glass.
5. Finish with stepped kerb onto fast dual carriageway
6. Serve cold!
On the other hand the Rhubarb Route towards Horbury is quite good.

Castleford

Sunny day, river in flood.

Derry

Sunny!

Stall on the tram.

Taxis on Castle St

Since a taxi stand was installed on Waingate additional taxis
have taken to waiting for a place, firstly on the pavement
outside the taxi stand area, and then in the contra-flow cycle lane.

This area has a high volume of buses passing and this is putting cyclists
at risk - it's an accident waiting to happen. As you can see this cyclist has taken
to the pavement to avoid the problem.

Could something be done about this please?

More Pictures:-


This one is from Prof. Peter Marsh who says:-

Here is a taxi moving from blocking the contraflow, because I was photographing it! We really need to do something about this, it is disgraceful that they can flout the law in such an important area with such dangerous consequences.

It's Driving Me Crazeee!

Traffic chaos in Sheffield - no wonder the drivers are up in arms about it...

(Sheffield City Council webcam still)

Helmet crash shock horror

My helmet has already been in a crash and I should have
replaced it then, On Tuesday my bike fell over outside the Grouse (fear not, dear reader, I was safely ensconced inside)
- the helmet was hanging off the handlebars and broke in two. Good job I wasn't wearing it at the time!

A sign of the Times

Hoarding at Longnor...

Cycle routes, double standards

Some people have commented that I seem to contradict myself on the issue of what is necessary to encourage cycling. On the one hand I say that slower speeds and less traffic is what is required - on the other hand I am enthusiastic about cycle routes, on and off-road.

The answer is that I think you have to do what is appropriate in a particular location. Take the example of London. When I lived there and commuted from Camberwell to the City in the 80's,
the main problem was that you couldn't actually get along the streets becvause they were so jammed up with traffic. Then cycle and bus lanes started appearing, but the cycle lanes were frequently parked on and London buses are less than accommodating to cyclists. The problem was too big to be dealt with by enforcement so off-road cycle routes, as advocated by Camden Cycle Campaign, started to be built. These aren't ideal - often too narrow - but they do at least allow you to get around. That's an appropriate solution for that particular problem, given that congestion isn't going to disappear overnight, even with the congestion charge. Now that Boris is in charge congestion is going to get worse again.

I would still say that building a cycling culture is more important than infrastructure, but both are needed.

Boris reveals route for Freewheel cyclists

I would urge all cyclists to boycott this event. Boris is turning back the tide of sustainable transport in London. He is looking at removing the congestion charge from West London, to suit his Sloanie friends; he's cancelled the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square; he wants to break the unions and introduce low-wage, low-quality public transport.

Cycle campaigners know that you don't increase cycling, or walking and public transport use, through tokenistic one-off events, or even through introducing more cycle lanes, but by slowing down and reducing the amount of motor traffic on the streets. Boris doesn't get it. Let him and David "Wrong way" Cameron freewheel all by themselves.

Daily Mile

Some of us are using this to record our rides - seems quite good although a bit sport-oriented (when not commuting I ride for leisure personally) There are a South Yorkshire and Commuting groups to join.

It's still in beta at the moment so you need an invite to join. Leave a note in "comments" and I'll send you one.

Saxon Rd

Saxon Rd has been re-surfaced to Clyde Rd. Hooray! Couldn't decide whether to email blog or twitter this - isn't technology wonderful?