Jon Burke is mainly posting on Bluesky π
@jonburkeUK
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Energy β‘οΈ Waste β»οΈ Transport π² Public Realm π³ Words in @BigIssue, @ArchitectsJrnal etc @ClimateEmergUK Advisor. Enquiries - [email protected]
United Kingdom
Joined April 2012
"Anything else youβre interested in is not going to happen if you canβt breathe the air and drink the water. Donβt sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet." β Carl Sagan
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What if I told you there was a single intervention we could deliver in our cities that would cool them during heatwaves, reduce flooding, scrub pollutants from the air, boost biodiversity, improve public health, and even reduce crime? You wouldn't believe me. But it's true.
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Drivers keep getting angry at me saying that they are only limited by what we allow them to do. And reality keeps proving me right.
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The cooling effect of a single, young street tree is the same as 5 room-sized air conditioners operating 20 hours/day. If every London borough had delivered the 50% increase in street trees that I did as a Hackney Cllr, we may have prevented the U.Kβs first 40C+ heatwave.
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The cooling effect of a single, young street tree is the same as 5 room-sized air conditioners operating 20 hours/day. If London had delivered the 50% increase in street trees that I did as a Hackney Cllr, we may have prevented the U.Kβs first, but not last, 40C+ heatwave.
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This guy went to a school that costs Β£23,000 a year to attend as a day student and Β£46,000 a year to attend as a boarder. Yet, he's got every Deano in the land eating out of his hand as some fake working class hero. Embarrassing.
Good morning and happy Wednesday you lovely lovely people! Iβm having one of favourite breakfasts in Dinos Cafe today. Spicy Korean noodles, chicken breasts & poached eggs with loads of Tabasco. And you know me, I never look when I pour! Itβs time to believe in yourself today,
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Welcome to my worldβ¦π
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What if I told you one study in Manchester found that shade from street trees reduced surface temperatures by an average of 12Β°C and that concrete surfaces shaded permanently by a bank of trees were cooled by up to 20Β°C in the summer? You wouldn't believe me. But it's true.
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Lancaster, California, spent $11.5m creating a pedestrian-friendly downtown. In four years, it attracted $130m private investment, doubled its downtown tax revenue, created 48 new businesses and 800 new jobs, and road injuries decreased by two-thirds. Cities are for people.
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What if I told you that a single young tree planted in a small pit over an impermeable asphalt surface can reduce rain runoff by around 60%, even during winter when not in leaf? You wouldn't believe me, but it's true.
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What if I told you that a high number of street trees close to the home is related to lower numbers of local prescriptions for antidepressants, even when controlling for a wide range of factors, such as deprivation? You wouldn't believe me, but it's true.
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What if I told you a line of young silver birch roadside trees resulted in over 50% reductions in PM levels within the row of terraced houses screened from the road? You wouldn't believe me, but it's true.
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Lancaster, California, spent $11.5m creating a pedestrian-friendly downtown. In just four years, it attracted $130m private investment, doubled its downtown tax revenue, created 48 new businesses and 800 new jobs, and road injuries decreased by two-thirds. Cities are for people.
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'The action of the Suffragettes is ruinous. The feeling amongst sympathisers. isβ¦panic. I am frankly not very hopeful of success if these tactics are persisted in.' - Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1909). People fighting for a better world do not require your approval.
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What if I told you that research has shown that for every 10% increase urban canopy cover there is a 15% decrease in violent crime and a 14% decrease in property crime, controlled for a wide range of socioeconomic factors? You wouldn't believe me, but it's true.
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What if told you that urban trees support a rich and diverse range of wildlife; providing important connectivity between isolated pockets of fragmented habitats, mitigating the negative effects of urbanisation for species such as bats? You wouldn't believe me, but it's true.
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"Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of. communities." β Jane Jacobs
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We live in a country in which not wearing a poppy makes you 'unpatriotic', but dodging Β£3m in tax on your private jet (which could've gone on mental health services for ex-service personnel) puts you in line for a Knighthood.
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No, the Dutch haven't "always been a nation of cyclists"; this is a myth. The Dutch cycling revolution really only began in the 1970s, during the oil shocks. Amsterdam: 1971 v 2020
@jonburkeUK Good for the Dutch but what you fail to understand is that the Dutch have always been a nation of cyclists and their towns and cityβs have been built with that in mind where as here in the Uk most people prefer cars and so our towns and cityβs have been built which them in mind.
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"Not TV or illegal drugs, but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of. communities." β Jane Jacobs
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Ladies and gents, may I give you the 'poor people' of the Netherlands where, thanks to Brexiteers like Frosty the Windbag, GDP per capita is $11,000 more than the U.K. The wilful ignorance flaunted by U.K politicians is a national embarrassment.
It's not a 'problem', it's a good thing. In poorer countries people depend on public transport & bikes. When they get richer they want cars because they bring freedom. Public transport will *never* be good enough for a free people to move around on.
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The absolutely relentless character assassination of Diane Abbott from all sides sends the strongest message possible that if you have the gall to be a passionate, high-achieving black woman in this country, we will go to the furthest lengths possible to destroy you. #LabourLeaks.
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This is the priceless work of art you should be worried about.
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I delivered the largest number of LTNs in the U.K. This is what they do:. * Halve road injuries. * Eliminate rat-running. * Reduce pollution, even at boundaries. * Reduce street crime. Rishi Sunak wants to impose these scourges on you and your family.
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The same Jim Ratcliffe who in 2020 changed his tax residence from Hampshire to Monaco in a move estimated to have starved public services of Β£4 billion is now complaining that Britain's cities are unsafe because of a "failure by authorities to provide basic public services". π€
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"Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of. communities." β Jane Jacobs
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Just so you're aware of the rules:. 1/ Don't throw completely biodegradable corn starch at Stonehenge as part of an environmental protest. 2/ Do poison Stonehenge lichen with with toxic microplastics and particulate matter from the road we built right next to it.
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"If you invite more cars, you get more cars.". "If you make more bicycle infrastructure you get more bicycles.". "You get what you invite." - Jan Gehl.
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Driving.
Whatβs something people romanticize but itβs actually horrible?.
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If you want people to cycle from village and town to their nearest train station, give them this. Drenthe, Netherlands.
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If you want people to cycle from village and town to their nearest train station, give them this. We're a rich country and can afford to deliver a nationwide network of segregated cycle lanes. We'll never decarbonise the suburbs without it.
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"Too often, drivers feel under attack" - Rishi Sunak
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Naomie is from Islington, where 70% of - overwhelmingly working class - households donβt own cars, but are disproportionately impacted by the pollution generated by the multiple cars of well-off Londoners.
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Cars in the U.K are on average 55% larger today than they were in the 1970s and there are twice the number of cars on the U.K's roads as there were 30 years ago, but @BBCNews are running articles claiming that a handful of cycle lanes 'cause congestion' in London. Okay.
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You can find out more about the programme I delivered in Hackney, London, below. If every local authority in the U.K had have replicated it - & Hackney is one of the smallest - we'd have planted 15 million trees in our towns and cities in just three years.
New trees and extra large pits for Mare Street, as part of the U.K's largest urban tree planting & depave programme. Between 2020 and 2022, the Hackney Council is delivering:. π³ 5,000 mature street trees.π² 1,000 mature parks trees.π30,000 saplings. Sous les paves, le jardin!
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@Cobratate @GretaThunberg An unbelievably creepy guy picking on a teenager for not being morally impoverished and scientifically illiterate. The betas will love it.
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In less than 20 years, car culture has destroyed the traditional British suburb, with enormous environmental, social, and political consequences.
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"Anything else youβre interested in is not going to happen if you canβt breathe the air and drink the water. Donβt sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet." β Carl Sagan
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If number plates are so effective, why do drivers kill 600 pedestrians and cyclists every year?. Men like Simon Heffer are ridiculous.
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References! . Tweet II - Armson, D., Rahman, M.A. & Ennos, A.R. (2013) A Comparison of the Shading Effectiveness of Five Different Street Tree Species in Manchester, UK. Arboriculture & Urban Forestry, 39, 157-164.
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I have no interest in whether the Land Rover driver who killed a child in Wimbledon βhad a seizureβ - though, letβs wait for the inquest before taking βsourcesβ as gospel - because the problem is not βbad driversβ. SUVs are too big and dangerous. Thatβs the issue here.
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The police are allowing peaceful protestors to be assaulted in the streets. We saw this with the rise of the Nazis in Germany. This is how fascist societies operate. @metpoliceuk - what are you doing to uphold the rule of law?.
π₯ BREAKING: Just Stop Oil Supporter Assaulted While Demanding No New Oil and Gas. π¦Ί Daniel was assaulted while marching this morning, and remained nonviolent throughout. Disruption is difficult, but it's necessary. ποΈ Sign up to slow march at
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"Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of. communities." β Jane Jacobs
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Dutch holiday company Landal Green Parks have built an entire village in Old Frisian style. It's better than any new build housing development in the U.K. Embarrassing (for us).
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Say what you like about Jeremy Corbyn, but he would have been at every one of those Cobra meetings. You know, like a real Prime Minister.
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"Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of. communities." β Jane Jacobs
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Sopot, Poland v Blackpool, U.K. The decline of Britain has been decades in the making. A huge, but unnoticed, part of our national malaise is the absence of public luxury and cleanliness, which civilises, builds social solidarity, and raises expectations. Start noticing.
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Prime Minister who travels by helicopter and has just found the money to cut air passenger duty in half to encourage domestic flights in a climate emergency claims affordable rail travel is too costly. No vision, no heart, no guts.
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Cars in the U.K are up to 55% larger today than they were in the 1970s and there are twice the number of cars on the U.K's roads as there were 30 years ago, but @BBCNews are still running articles claiming that a handful of cycle lanes and LTNs 'cause congestion' in London.
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The same street, one hundred years apart. The private motor vehicle is an invasive species, which gradually crowds out and suffocates the rich social life of our cities. When cars donβt dominate the streets, life flourishes.
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Rebuilding the area of Los Angeles destroyed by global warming-induced wildfires is expected to cost a minimum of $250 BILLION with costs rising due to the need to remove vast amounts of toxic waste. If you think 'net zero costs too much', I have some terrible news for you.
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Car manufacturers so embarrassed of cars taking over our cities that they leave them out of their adverts. A thread.
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1/ You didn't buy the road when you bought your house. 2/ Controlled Parking is what enables you to park relatively close to your home. 3/ That you care more about 67p a week to manage parking than about prams and wheelchairs being unable to use local pavements speaks volumes.
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Fashionably late is out of fashion.β . Because 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds can look like this.
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The @The_RHS revealed in Greening Grey Britain that between 2005 and 2015, an additional 3 million front gardens were paved over. This has huge implications for overheating, flooding, and biodiversity loss. Homeowners should be mandated to retain 50% 'natural' garden space.
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Where have all the puce-faced Tweeters who love talking about Just Stop Oil delaying ambulances gone?
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Build houses to last 1000 years.
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My reaction every time a centrist dad slides into my mentions to tell me how they βneedβ an SUV to carry their sonβs football boots and do a big shop.
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Jordan Peterson has uncovered our evil plan to improve air quality, reduce road deaths, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars, support businesses, and resurrect the rich social lives of our cities. Here's the 'dystopia' he's is talking about. π€
The idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you're "allowed" to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea--and, make no mistake, it's part of a well-documented plan.
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Tweet III - Bartens, J., Day, S.D., Harris, J.R., Dove, J.E. & Wynn, T.M. (2008) Can urban tree roots improve infiltration through compacted subsoils for stormwater management? Journal of Environmental Quality, 37, 2048-2057.
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In Greening Grey Britain, @The_RHS revealed that between 2005 and 2015 alone, 3 million extra front gardens were paved over. This has huge implications for overheating, flooding, and biodiversity. Homeowners should be mandated to retain or create 50% 'natural' garden space.
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Repeat after me. ThereπIsπNoπWayπOfπSubstantiallyπReducingπEmissionsπFromπMotorπVehiclesπImprovingπRoadπSafetyπAndπReducingπCongestionπThatπDoesπNotπInvolveπFewerπCarsπAndπFewerπCarπJourneysπ.
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Cage these domestic terrorists.
A Ulez camera taken out in broad daylight, 48 hours after installation.
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"Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of. communities." β Jane Jacobs #COP26
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Cars are an invasive species. When you control their spread, life flourishes.
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@dbngb79 @GaryLineker No, the heat map shows the extremity of the temperature relative to the average for the time of year. Just because the internet exists, there's no need to go embarrassing yourself on it.
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@suesustainable I'm not really sure what point you're making? I didn't claim that urban trees can eliminate all tidal, fluvial, and surface water flooding.
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Tweet IV - Maher, B.A., Ahmed, I.A.M., Davison, B., Karloukovski, V. & Clarke, R. (2013) Impact of Roadside Tree Lines on Indoor Concentrations of Traffic-Derived Particulate Matter. Environmental Science & Technology, 47, 13737-13744.
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. and, remember this, if your elected representatives won't listen, your duty is to the future of our children. In the immortal words of the Lego Movie's Lucy 'all of you have the unique ability. to be a groundbreaker, and I mean literally--break the ground!" #tacticalurbanism
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Tweet VII - Kathryn Gilstad-Haydena et al, Greater tree canopy cover is associated with lower rates of both violent and property crime in New Haven, CT, Landscape and Urban Planning Volume 143, November 2015, Pages 248-253.
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Driving is criminally underpriced - given the social, environmental, economic, and health costs it imposes - but weβll struggle to solve the problem of too many cars on the road without also addressing the fact that a single 20 minute journey on public transport costs almost Β£5.
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In recent years, the amount of airtime that the BBC has dedicated to creating the impression of widespread opposition to ULEZ, LTNs, and cycle lanes in London when itβs basically a handful of anonymous Twitter accounts and some disgruntled taxi drivers is, frankly, a disgrace.
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Tweet V - Hale, J. D., Fairbrass, A. J., Matthews, T. J., Sadler, J.P., 2012. Habitat Composition and Connectivity Predicts Bat Presence and Activity at Foraging Sites in a Large UK Conurbation. Plos One 7, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033300.
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Tweet VI - Melissa R. Marselle, Diana E. Bowler, Jan Watzema, David Eichenberg, Toralf Kirsten & Aletta Bonn, Urban street tree biodiversity and antidepressant prescriptions, Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 22445 (2020).
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14% of London car journeys are under 1km. 35% are under 2km. 50% are under 3km. Tell me more about how drivers of polluting motors 'can't afford' to not poison other people?. #ULEZ expansion can't come soon enough.
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We need to kill this death cult before it kills us.
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. @The_RHS revealed in Greening Grey Britain that between 2005 and 2015, 3 million extra front gardens were paved over. This has huge implications for overheating, flooding, and biodiversity loss. Homeowners should be mandated to retain or create 50% 'natural' garden space.
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The @The_RHS revealed in Greening Grey Britain that 2005 to 2015, an extra 3 million front gardens were paved over. This has huge implications for overheating, flooding, and biodiversity loss. For everyone. Homeowners should be mandated to retain 50% 'natural' garden space.
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Austrian regional trains. Reliable. Clean. Modern. Owned entirely by the citizens of Austria.
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βWe used to play out in the streets, but these days all the kids are fat and depressed because theyβre sat at home on computers.β. These days.
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To achieve a real cycling revolution in the U.K, we need to connect every village, town, suburb, and city with fully-segregated cycle lanes. Thatβs it. Thatβs the tweet.
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Lancaster, California, spent $11.5m creating a pedestrian-friendly downtown. In four years, it attracted $130m private investment, doubled its downtown tax revenue, created 48 new businesses and 800 new jobs, and road injuries decreased by two-thirds. Cities are for people.
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Moscow has 36% tree canopy cover (with potential for 50%+), comprised largely of temperate forest specimens. Some areas - particularly those in Soviet-era planned housing developments - average much higher cover, mitigating the impact of global warming-induced extreme weather.
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Just had to block the path and force back a 1.5 tonne Volkswagen T-roc - that can do 0-60mph in five seconds - after its driver mounted the pavement outside my children's school in order to get around a filter. These are the drivers that Rishi Sunak believes are "under attack".
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You can also find out below about how street trees and green infrastructure more generally can be used to radically reimagine our rapidly-warming cities; improving the quality of life their citizens.
Very excited to announce that Dalston's Colvestone Crescent has been chosen as the proposed site for #Hackney's inaugural 21st Century Street! . π New green space in place of cars βοΈ.π³ 40% street trees βοΈ.π² Bike storage βοΈ.π« School Street βοΈ.β‘οΈ Electric vehicle charging βοΈ
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In the Netherlands, where the Dutch invest in safe cycling infrastructure, the over-65s cycle around a quarter of their journeys, and the over-80s cycle around 10% of their journeys. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and cycle lanes don't 'restrict freedom', they expand it.
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1/ One of many new rainwater gardens for Hackney. By systematically eliminating paving and replacing it with gardens and additional trees, we're helping to reduce summer temperatures in a warming city, increase biodiversity and manage high rainfall events.
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. and you can find out below how rebalancing our relationship with the motor vehicles dominate our cities - while still benefiting from them - can drastically improve quality of life while reducing surface transport emissions.
1/ Regardless of background, the closer people live to green space, the more likely they are to experience good physical/mental health, improving lives & reducing NHS costs. THREAD on how we can address the 'green gap' & the climate crisis by radically reimagining our streets!
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Nothing says 'failed transport policy' more than cyclists in hi-vis vests and helmets with cameras on the top.
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If those clutching their pearls and howling about this protest cared about Stonehenge, they would have said something about the Government's decision to run a motorway underneath this monument of huge cultural significance. But they didn't. Make of that what you will.
π¨ BREAKING: Just Stop Oil Spray Stonehenge Orange. π₯ 2 people took action the day before Summer Solstice, demanding the incoming government sign up to a legally binding treaty to phase out fossil fuels by 2030. π§― Help us take megalithic action β
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This is probably a far bigger breakthrough than yesterday's nuclear fusion announcement.
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As parents in Wimbledon mourn a child theyβll never see again because we choose to let people drive oversized motor vehicles in our cities, I want to be clear that Iβll never stop until we deal with this menace, bringing order and calm to our streets. Another world is possible.
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In the past four years, the U.K has experienced:. * Hottest summer.* Two of the driest summers on record.* First winter day above 20C.* Hottest day (twice).* Hottest Aug day.* First day over 40C.* Wettest Feb.* Driest spring. But, apparently, it's all a #climatescam. Idiots.
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Groningen, Netherlands. Huge, thriving market; not a closed shop in sight. Every depressed, crumbling town centre in the U.K could look like this, if only the main political parties weren't committed to bribing drivers for their votes.
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They market their cars as weapons and we allow them on the same roads as children cycling to school. And I still get weird middle-aged men in my notifications obfuscating for and defending this. This is not a serious society.
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@sajidjavid What an absolutely embarrassing response. Please surrender your licence immediately as you clearly do not know the Highway Code and are a danger to young cyclists on our roads.
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