Adam Tranter
@adamtranter
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Active travel advocate. Founder @fusionmediasvs, co-host @podstreetsahead. Was Cycling & Walking Commissioner for @andy4wm. Views all mine. Substack in bio š
š¬š§ + šµš¹
Joined July 2009
Working as Cycling & Walking Commissioner has been a tremendous privilege and a real opportunity to help make our streets both safer and better for walking and cycling. Iām especially grateful to @andy4wm for his backing since my appointment. But today Iām stepping down. š§µ
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It turns out the congestion-busting āfuture of transportā is already experiencing congestion.
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I built a parklet in a car parking space but it was removed by the council because it wasnāt a motor vehicle. Iāve now built a parklet which is a motor vehicle and so the space for the community is back. Enjoy!
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Barcelona has an amazing school cycle bus every Friday. Wherever you are in the world, few kids will see this and think āIād like to be driven to school insteadā. When the project started there were just five children taking part. Change can happen fast.
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Someone in my town has crocheted special Queenās Jubilee bollard sleeves which may be the most brilliantly British thing I have ever seen.
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Hereās why people cycling two abreast is actually better for people driving motor vehicles. Itās quite simple really.
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Expanding roads does not relieve congestion. Braessā Paradox says that if you add more lanes to a road, congestion usually increases. In 2008, the Katy Freeway in Houston was expanded to 26 lanes at a cost of $2.8 billion, and travel times increased by 30%.
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A Dutch start-up is now producing upcycled table tops which fit perfectly on Amsterdam's 18th-century "Amsterdammertje" bollards. With 38,000 bollards in the city, combined with quiet streets and its al fresco culture, they're perfect for enjoying a glass of wine with friends.
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Happy birthday to Eileen Sheridan, who is 99 today. Joining Coventry Cycling Club in 1944, Eileen went on to break just about every distance record there is, including setting the new London-Edinburgh record of 20h 11m 35s. The time was set in 1954 and is yet to be broken.
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The SUV that many think of as safe for their kids is actually not safe at all.
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Left: 16 people. Everybody loses. Right: 42 people. Everybody wins.
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Helsinki planners have modelled what happens when pedestrians are prioritised, rather than forced to wait ages to cross. They found that a 5% improvement in the walking environment leads to a 2.3% increase in public transport use and ā¬8.5 million increase in fares. So, how? š§µ
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A study showed that M25 widening did not result in less congestion, but rather more people used it and quickly gobbled up extra capacity. The economic model to justify the investment relied on the promise of higher traffic speeds. I promise you, one more lane wonāt fix it.
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He:.- KILLED a 13 year old who was on his bike.- Left the scene.- Had no insurance.- Was doing 46mph in a 30.- Had twice come to Police attention for poor driving. He will:.- Serve a 4.5 MONTH sentence.- Get only a 3 yr driving ban. The system is broken.
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When we build bigger roads, we get more traffic. Congestion briefly gets better, then the same, then worse. Ā£Billions is spent in the process. Instead of dualling roads, what if we used the space for active travel instead? Hereās a thread on why it should happen.š§µ
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My guerilla parklet was removed because only motor vehicles are allowed to use public parking spaces. Pleased to say I've found a solution. Looking forward to getting started on parklet 2.0.
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It was good while it lasted. The guerrilla parklet I installed 6 months ago has been removed by the Council today after a single complaint. For the sake of one parking space, this parklet made hundreds of people happy and helped local businesses. Back to the status quo it is!
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This is Paris, today. In a very short space of time, the city has built temporary infrastructure enabling 1 million daily cycle journeys. If you havenāt visited in a while, some parts are unrecognisable. Imagine if every person cycling here decided to jump in a car instead.
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Our streets need to be urgently redesigned to prioritise active travel and mitigate against more frequent extreme weather events. Hereās an example from Cardiff using sustainable drainage systems, new street trees and an improved environment for pedestrians crossing.
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What might our cities look like if we prioritised people, not cars?. Here's a visualisation of what Marble Arch, London's 5-lane mega-roundabout, could look like if we did just that. Visualisation: @jan_kamensky for #ShimanoFutureCities project
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Our kids wanted to go cycling today but the roads are now too busy for them. So, we put bikes in the car + drove somewhere safe. In the car park, tons of bike racks on cars. The fact itās normal to drive somewhere to go cycling in this country should be a massive wake up call.
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I canāt stop thinking about how much more productive our economy would be if our streets were safe enough for older kids to walk and cycle independently, rather than be taxied around by their busy parents.
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For the last 2 weeks, Iāve been using Googleās AI platform to monitor what % of time the space, previously occupied by a cycle lane carrying thousands of people per day, is blocked by parked vehicles. Who wants to guess what % of time itās blocked? Results in the media soon.
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It is a miracle that the mother and her child escaped serious injury in this incident in Solihull. I am concerned that the driver has not been arrested and have asked the Police for more information. If we are to reduce danger on our roads we need to learn from every collision.
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One of these vehicle types is so tightly regulated you are automatically fined if you park it outside of a bay. The other type, not so much.
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A quarter of our car journeys are under 2 miles. When more people cycle, everybody wins. Our new #BikeIsBest ad is now live.
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On this day in 1971, Simone Langenhoff, aged 6, was killed while cycling to school; hit by a speeding driver. Her death and the movement started by her father, Vic Langenhoff, a newspaper journalist, changed an entire country and saved thousands of Dutch lives. Here's how š§µ
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Itās easy to look at congestion and blame the adjacent cycle lane because āit looks emptyā. Then you realise that the data shows people cycling outnumber cars and taxis on this stretch. Really, itās just about efficiency.
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One of these vehicles costs Ā£170,000, weighs 2,200kg and emits around 325g of CO2 per km travelled. The other costs about Ā£250, emits no CO2 and is able to travel at the same speed in cities. It is, according to some commentators, a mode of transport for the metropolitan elite.
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Big fan of these new continuous footway treatments popping up on several side streets in Camden. They clearly prioritise walking and reaffirm the right of way for pedestrians over turning vehicles. They look great too.
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We have, at great societal cost, gradually curtailed the freedom and independence of children to prioritise the convenience of drivers.
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Fixed it for you. Itās not hard. Now people with sight loss or using wheelchairs or pushchairs can use the pavement.
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Twitter, show me a photograph of a beautiful place youāve visited which was spoiled by parked cars. Iāll start. šø Lisbon
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"Oh my god, it's wonderful! More people biking than driving cars!". The Simpsons does bike lanes.
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When you build safe cycling infrastructure, youāre providing people with the dignity of choice and levelling an often unbalanced transport system. A person on a ā¬3 hire bicycle weighing 20kg can outpace a person in an ā¬80,000 SUV weighing 2,600kg - and be safe while doing it.
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In France, at almost every minor side road, there is a simple painted zebra crossing. They reinforce the priority pedestrians have, making walking routes continuous and convenient. Now that the UK has this same priority in the updated Highway Code, itās time for similar here.
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I'm delighted to be appointed by West Midlands Mayor @andy4wm as the region's first Cycling & Walking Commissioner. The way we move is changing and I'm here to build on the unprecedented funding to help deliver safe and convenient options for people to walk, wheel and cycle.
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Build cycling infrastructure so good that people wonāt want to sit in cars.
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Sure, Dutch cycling infrastructure enables short journeys but it also unlocks mid-length journeys too. I just cycled the 12km from Rotterdam to Delft; in the Netherlands you can, rather uniquely, cycle safely and comfortably next to a huge motorway.
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This is Susan Rasmussen, Mayor of Royal Leamington Spa. Susan has given up the townās Mayoral car (a Prius) in favour of an e-bike. We all need more local politicians like Susan who want to make cycling a normal thing to do.
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Very important line here from @LouHaigh on road safety:. "We treat road safety in a way as if it is somehow a natural accident. If the number of people being killed or seriously injured on our roads, were being killed in any other way, we'd be treating it as a pandemic."
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Bike racing is back. Yesterday the capital city of Zagreb in Croatia held their annual Traditional Refuse Collectorās Bicycle Race.
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For the first time in ten years, emergency response times for firefighters in Paris have fallen to below seven minutes. A key reason? Because the French capital's network of new cycle lanes are also wide enough for use by emergency services.
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This newly-built Aldi shows it *is* possible for supermarkets to do cycle parking right. And if they do it well, people will use it. ā
Covered from the elements.ā
Right by entrance.ā
Good natural surveillance.ā
Simple use of Sheffield stands (no wheel benders)
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This is one of Niceās new emergency segregated cycle paths. Wow.
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An important point made by former active travel minister Trudy Harrison today:. In schools, when you ask how many kids cycle to school: no hands go up. When you ask how many kids would like to cycle to school: all the hands go up. šāāļøšš»āāļø. We owe it to kids to enable them.
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We can all do our bit to call out dangerous driving and make it clear it's not welcome in our communities. I'm really grateful to Birmingham's @GreenLaneMasjid for producing this hard-hitting film on road safety. One mistake behind the wheel can change lives forever.
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This picture perfectly illustrates just how much space weāve given over to cars. Now, as people try to social distance during #COVID19, everyone is realising it.
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One of the most successful consumer cons of the 21st century is persuading people they need a truck or SUV for two bags of shopping.
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A new study showed that M25 widening did not result in less congestion, but rather more people used it and quickly gobbled up extra capacity. The economic model to justify the investment relied on the promise of higher traffic speeds. āOne more lane will fix it.ā.It never does.
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This is in Coventry, not the Netherlands.
Took the kids and the dog to the National Bike Week Road Show @ Millenium Place yesterday. Here's a little video of our ride down some of the #coundoncycleway
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Itās wonderful seeing the Olympic success of Laura and Jason Kenny. If youāre cheering at home, please remember this is also how they travel from A to B. Team GBās Elinor Barker and Tom Pidcock were both hit by car drivers while training for the games.
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He:.- KILLED a woman and her three dogs.- Was drunk + high on drugs.- Was doing 3x speed limit.- Was racing another car driver at the time. He will:.- Serve 40 months in prison.- Get a 5 yr driving ban. Just what would you need to do to get a lifetime ban?.
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Here's the difference, side by side, before and after a Low Traffic Neighbourhood in Hackney, London. Places reclaimed again by people, not through routes for Waze. If you like the look of this, write to your local Councillor and tell them so. š¹ @mum_on_bike
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You could fit 48 car parking spaces into this town square in Warwick, at a push. With average car occupancy of 1.6, that'd serve around 77 people, roughly indicated in red. But by creating a brilliant public space, with regular events, local businesses benefit much, much more.
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āYou canāt do that in Paris! This isnāt Amsterdam!ā. They did it anyway.
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Nice to see e-cargo bikes featured in The Times today (good work @fusionmediasvs team)!. It got me thinking: Isnāt it funny how a Ā£35,000 SUV is perceived as totally normal but a Ā£4,000 cargo bike is so outrageous the price should make it into the headline?
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Sometimes we use a car when what we really needed was a coat.
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A telling before and after installation of a modal filter, taken just days apart. Where would you rather live, work and shop?
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Riding a bicycle to and from work probably shouldn't be a national news story. But it's nice to see it all the same.
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We have long known there is limited space in cities and so we need to use it most efficiently. 1965 London Transport poster
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A Ā£700,000 cycle lane used by 4,000 people each day is being removed because of 322 angry emails. - The value placed on the opinion of each detractor works out as Ā£2,173 per person.- The govās own figures show Ā£5.50 return for every Ā£1 spent on bike lanes.
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I canāt believe this has to be said but residential roads are not race tracks. This CCTV footage of two drivers in #Coventry, who appear to be racing, is sickening. One driver hits a 12-year old boy and the other narrowly misses him. Both cowardly drivers left the scene.
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Players and VIPs get ferried around #Wimbledon in electric SUVs, often getting stuck in traffic. Not Cameron Norrie, the last Briton standing in the tournament. āI donāt own a car. Itās nice to beat the traffic and get a good warm up for sure.ā
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We all have roads near us where āthere isnāt space for safe cycling infrastructureā. There almost always is with enough vision. via @InfraCGI
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In 1972, the Amsterdam neighbourhood of De Pijp saw clashes between parents who wanted safer streets for kids and drivers who wanted to cut through. I went to visit yesterday, 51 years later. The traffic filters and playgrounds remain. It is a place many people want to live. š§µ
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I donāt have a SoundCloud but I do have a podcast on cycling, walking and urban mobility, so yeah. @podstreetsahead
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Rest in peace, Olivia de Havilland, who died peacefully in her home in Paris at the age of 104. De Havilland was still cycling in her 100s!
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This advert, published in 1979, feels just as relevant today as it was then. 44 years later, you'd have perhaps thought the conversation would have moved on.
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School Streets improve safety around the school gates, helping kids to walk, cycle or scoot instead. Those who can't do that can park and walk 100m. Blue Badge holders are exempt. Kids' safety is not "pedantic" or "draconian", so we'll be rolling out more in the West Midlands.
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Two BBC reporters doing a news report while cycling: Richard Bilton in England and @annaholligan in the Netherlands. Can you spot the difference?. The difference is a result of our policy choices over decades. The good news is we know what we need to do to make it better.
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The Give Way markings might provide a clue.
Terrifying moment driver narrowly misses cyclist after pulling out onto the road ā but whoās in the right?
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- Killed a 15 year old boy cycling from close pass.- Doing 50+ in 30 zone.- Didnāt stop, ditched car, called taxi to go home, went to bed.- Didnāt call 999.- Has 8 previous convictions.- Jailed for just 40 months, out in half that. The system is broken.
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Automaker Ford have launched a new campaign āPark The Carā, acknowledging that, even with EVs, āa traffic jam with no emissions is still a traffic jamā. Fordās President describes driving short journeys as a habit āmany of us must changeā, suggesting walking or cycling instead.
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This section of the A40 has a 40mph speed limit. The technology already exists to limit the speeds of motor vehicles via GPS but for some reason, we're only talking about it for e-scooters and e-bikes.
Footage from last night's crash on the A40 showing a car colliding into the Tesla garage at 120mph before it plunged into Park Royal tube station
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Today while cycling in Coventry I saw many ācyclistsā. They were women, men, workers, families, young people, middle aged people, old people. A few wore lycra, most didnāt. Like most people, they arenāt interested in newspaper-fuelled culture wars. They just want safe streets.
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I'm delighted to become the Bicycle Mayor of #Coventry, the first in a UK city. I'm determined to help Coventry, the UK City of Culture 2021, reach its cycling potential, coordinating between existing cyclists, the community, government and nonprofits.
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Shahbaz Khan, 29:.- Seriously injured an 8 year old boy and his 21 y/o sister on a pedestrian crossing. - Left boy with a brain injury. - Was high on cocaine. - Was drunk. - Doing three times the speed limit - 60 in a 20mph zone, at school drop off time. - Ran two red lights. -
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The SUV that many think of as safe for their kids is actually not safe at all.
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Had a lovely time in York but Iām left wondering how the businesses manage without all the āpassing tradeā from motor traffic and without on-street parking outsideā¦
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Sam Hughes, 32:.- Decided to āgo for a drive in the countrysideā after consuming a bottle of vodka, MDMA, cocaine and cannabis.- Drove through a red light and KILLED cyclist Lee Raynor.- Fled the scene and then attempted to deceive officers by claiming to be someone else.- Was
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Pedestrian crossings should be places of safety. Treating vulnerable road users with such contempt rightly sparked outrage in the West Midlands. Well done to @WMPolice for bringing this offender to justice. He was jailed today for 42 weeks.
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It occurred to me today that only a few years ago, through habit, I thought a Ā£20,000 machine weighing 1,500kg was the best tool to collect Ā£5 worth of lunch weighing 600g. I can confirm chips taste better when youāve cycled to get them.
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In 2008, France made it law that practically all 30km/h zones had to be made two way for cycling. In Paris, this meant 200km of (typically quiet) streets were unlocked for new routes, helping cycling to be the most direct and convenient option. And it cost hardly anything to do.
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And the results are in!
For the last 2 weeks, Iāve been using Googleās AI platform to monitor what % of time the space, previously occupied by a cycle lane carrying thousands of people per day, is blocked by parked vehicles. Who wants to guess what % of time itās blocked? Results in the media soon.
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When the Dutch build roads, they typically build adjacent high-quality, direct cycle paths at the same time. This could be done in the UK for a tiny percentage of the budget of new roads schemes. It would transform sustainable connectivity between settlements. Letās do it.
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While Royal Mail have banned posties from riding bikes to do their deliveries, the French postal service La Poste are using these cleverly adapted e-bikes in #Paris.
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If you want to slow down vehicles as drivers approach streets with lots of pedestrians and cyclists, these giant Dutch kerbs are very effective. They succeed in setting the tone of a street and are a match for even larger vehicles. We can and should use these more in the UK.
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Might is not right. When driving and turning into a side road, give way to pedestrians and cyclists going straight ahead. Hereās how to do it.
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This is a new active travel path, on the outskirts of Brighton. The rural context clearly shows congestion is caused by too many cars. But if it was a few miles down in the city centre, some would blame it as the *cause* of congestion, or suggest that cars should get the space.
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Before it's even finished, sources say the Kensington High Street cycle lane will be removed from tomorrow. If politicians cannot show even the tiniest bit of leadership required to keep one cycle lane in, I have no idea how they're going to handle the threat of climate change.
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Return trip to London with my son and a bicycle, booked via @thetrainlineās admittedly nifty cycle reservation and split ticketing feature. I have 28 individual tickets. There must be a better wayā¦
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In my town, plans for road space reallocation were hard fought against. Now weāve ended up with a pedestrian give way system. Why is it always vulnerable road users who lose out?
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A vigilante is someone who attempts to apprehend and punish someone who has committed a crime, without the involvement of law enforcement. A person who encounters a potential crime and passes evidence to police is called a witness. Amazing to see the BBC getting this wrong.
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Nearly 60% of car journeys are under 5 miles. Switching to walking or cycling for short journeys can save you serious money. Not everybody is able to, of course, but those who can switch will also reduce congestion and improve fuel efficiency for those who still have to drive.
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Love this. 144-year old family dairy ā¦@Jones_Brosā© used to do their 10-mile city delivery route by diesel van. Now London has started to change the way people get around, rather than grumbling about it, theyāve invested in cargo bikes from ā¦@RaleighBikes_UKā©.
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A thread on Play Streets - how society demonised children, briefly gave them places to play before shunning them for cars. And what might be next?. 1835: Highway Act bans street games on Highway. 1860: 12-year-old George Dunn sent to prison for 5 days for playing in the street.
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