An SDLP Northern Ireland assembly member has proposed making riding a bicycle in Northern Ireland illegal except where the rider is wearing a plastic hat. I can’t find much coverage of it, but this proposal appears to have already been delayed from August.
Also ongoing under-reported news from Northern Ireland, highlighted by Christian Wolmer this week, is the £800 million A5 dual-carriageway construction. The bankrupt Irish government (who are already being prevented from opening another new motorway by the workers who are waiting to be paid for having built it) and the cut-happy British government are going halves on the Derry to Dublin road apparently because it makes for a nice piece of symbolic government cooperation. I’m no expert on the Northern Ireland issue, but my understanding was that the British and Irish governments were already quite good at cooperating, and the issue is instead one of divided communities. So what could be better than further dividing communities by driving another motorway through them?
The DfT has found that 60% of the people who are able to cycle say that they don’t because they think it’s too dangerous. Who would have guessed? And the road haulage industry have noticed that they’re getting rather poor publicity over all the cyclist deaths and victim that’s blame going on — but it’s ok, their PR department are on the case.
After a slow start, Bristol has allocated all of its £11 million cycle city budget. York is still getting through its cycle city pot, with half a million on routes to and facilities in the station.
There is nobody cycling in Blackpool, therefore building cycle paths is a waste of money, say taxi drivers. Blackpool cabbies have slammed the council for creating a road nightmare in the town. “That’s our job,” the taxi drivers said.
Meanwhile, Boris has announced that London taxis will be electric by 2020. I expect this to happen about as much as anything else that Boris has promised to make happen. Boris is being praised for bringing in strict rules for taxis — six month checks and an age limit on the vehicles. No newspaper journalist seems to have noticed that all he is doing is reversing his earlier relaxation of the rules…
There’s a 46% rise in those unregulated First Capital Connect season ticket prices outside of central London.
Northamptonshire’s road safety partnership is the latest to run out of money and switch off its cameras.
36,000 Motorists break speed limits at Gateshead Metrocentre. None prosecuted. The Metrocentre, largest “shopping and leisure complex” in Europe, looks horrible: wide roads, dual carriageways, and acres of car parks. And they’re surprised that people drive too fast in this sort of environment. (I notice that 200k of the Bristol cycling city money went on a bike path to Cribbs Causeway, a similar out-of-town motorway-side “shopping and leisure complex”, when the goal should really be to reverse these awful soul-destroying developments.)
A kitten was thrown from a car on the M1. And somebody’s throwing snowballs back at the motorists.
An Oxford Tube intercity bus fell over after taking the wrong exit from the motorway.
Two pedestrians were killed by a Range Rover driving on the pavement in central Glasgow.
The Waterloo cycle hire station is open. I used it last night, and then ran for the train — ten minutes had been wasted running around the Picadilly area trying to find a bike in the first place. Could you put some on Albemarle Street please?
Fat coppers break their bikes.
Nice acceptable middle-class crime: while local authorities have to cut services, Westminster are owed £18 million by people who think the world should organise itself around their Mercedes. Meanwhile in Kent, nice middle-aged Jaguar owners have a bit of fun killing people on the motorway.
Wanking behind the wheel gets you a driving ban. Mobile phone use not considered an equivalent offence.
For the benefit of vulnerable road users, the US are setting minimum noise levels for electric vehicles, which will presumably amount to a de facto global standard (unless and until another major car purchasing nation sets a stricter standard).
Delightfully absurd transport solution of the week? A system of delivery tubes under Croydon.
A special bumper pack of zen: first, via RailwayEye, a Christmas carol flashmob in Sheffield station:
And via Going Underground, Christmas carols at Charing Cross:
Finally, via Hembrow, this delightful 1960s video of trains in the snow:
At War With The Motorist 