The myth of ‘road tax’ returns to haunt us again. Comparison website Confused.com seem to think cyclists should be liable for a tax abolished more than 70 years ago
Road tax – two words guaranteed to raise the ire of most cyclists. It’s quite an achievement for something which hasn’t existed for 74 years.
Read more. See also: IPayRoadTax.com
INADEQUATE PUBLIC transport has pushed Dublin down the rankings in a table of Europe’s top shopping cities according to a survey published this week.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Globe Shopper City survey found that while Dublin performed strongly when the number of shops was considered and did well on the length of its sales seasons, the city scored poorly in terms of public transport and this pushed it into 14th place out of 33 European cities.
OPINION: THE PRIORITIES set out in the Government’s Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012 – 2016: Medium-Term Exchequer Framework report of supporting enterprise, health and education are absolutely laudable. In a time when exchequer revenues are outstripped by expenditure, needs must.
But when one examines the transport stratagem against the three objectives it becomes clear the proposed investment does not deliver, nor on one other key criterion: maximising value for money. Most especially it will not promote public health, something that is increasingly linked to our level of active travel, to the best possible degree.
Cyclists who have been killed or injured on London’s roads were remembered during a tour of the 10 most dangerous junctions. Read more
How about doing that here?
Sustrans says its projects more than double the percentage of pupils riding to school within a year
Children cycling to school. It’s one of those things, much like apple pie, that in theory everyone supports. Pupils get exercise, stay slim, and arrive in the classroom energised … Read more
Liverpool’s Primary Care Trust is to part-fund the implementation of 20mph speed limits across residential roads in the city. The PCT will contribute £400,000 towards the £1.4m anticipated cost of the council programme to implement 20mph signed-only limits over the next four years. The Trust will also fund a £265,000 programme of perception surveys and community engagement work. Continue reading UK: NHS part-funds city 20mph limits
Boris Johnson’s jolly-good-fun image is so bound up with cycling that it’s easy to forget that his road management strategy as London mayor has always deferred to the London motorist. His 2008 transport manifesto led with pledges to “put the commuter first” by “making traffic flow more smoothly,” and it was clear long ago that the Conservative mayor had no intention of allowing his cycling policies to result in car, van and lorry drivers slipping down the road-user hierarchy. This video clip showing a section of one of Boris’s “cycle superhighways”.
It has taken the Netherlands 25 years to build up its culture of respect among its road users, and the law plays a big part too. Read more
On Monday, the fashion student Min Joo Lee, 24, became the 13th cyclist to be killed in London this year. She was hit by an HGV while navigating the Kings Cross one-way system near York Way.
The blogger Olaf Storbeck wrote that Joo Lee’s death was sadly predictable given the “appalling” road layout in the area. He called it one of the “worst death traps for cyclists in London”. Read more
