#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No.23
#BikeIsBest Digest Edition No. 23 | Wednesday, July 20th 2022 | View in browser
Hello and I guess now we know what 38 degrees feels like in the UK - and for many people, it was pretty scary. Hopefully you and your communities managed to get through a very challenging few days without too much harm.
CAN CYCLES CANCEL CLIMATE CATASTROPHE?
Extreme weather events are becoming more common as our climate changes due to human activity - and we know a massive solution is decarbonising transport. Cycling, and the cycling industry, has a huge role to play in enabling more active travel journeys. Plus it’s way more fun than being stuck in traffic.
BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY
LEADERSHIP HOPEFULS FINALLY GRASP CLIMATE MANTLE
In a climate hustings, all five Tory candidates finally said they won’t unpick the UK’s environmental commitments, including a pledge of Net Zero by 2050, reports the Guardian. With transport 27% of our carbon emissions, and road transport most of that, cycling and walking are key in reaching our climate goals.
NO, IT’S NOT JUST LIKE 1976
My London cycling and walking counterpart, Will Norman, made headlines this week by highlighting two graphs comparing global temperatures during the summer heatwaves of 1976 and 2022, and yes they are very different. Climate change is real and we’re fast running out of time to act on it.
GET READY FOR GROWTH, SAYS ECF
The European Cyclists’ Federation’s Kevin Mayne says EU spending on cycling infrastructure is set to grow and with it cycling numbers. There’s potential for car production jobs to shift to cycling production, he argues, as mode shift happens, reducing our reliance on Russian oil with it.
CAPITAL CYCLING!
Cycling numbers in London are almost 25 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to new data. The Evening Standard reports 14 per cent more cyclists were counted on weekdays and a whopping 82 per cent at weekends. Transport for London relaunches its cycling strategy, including boosting numbers of women and black and ethnic minority Londoners cycling, in a bid to meet its target of 1.3m daily cycling trips by 2024.
GIVE TREES A CHANCE
With the heat rising it’s never more relevant to plant trees to reduce street temperatures, by up to 20 degrees in the hottest weather. They make walking and cycling more pleasant, and indeed possible, during heatwaves. If there’s new trees near you, remember to water them in hot weather if you can - saplings struggle in high temperatures too. The Guardian included trees in its ‘cooling sweltering cities’ piece.
GIVE PEOPLE FRIENDLY STREETS A CHANCE
Jeremy Vine praised a graphical redesign of London’s Marble Arch junction last week, a story picked up by the Daily Mail. In a clip created by Hamburg-based designer Jan Kamensky, commissioned by Shimano, the five traffic lanes at Marble Arch are dismantled, giving way to plants, water features, paving and plenty of people enjoying the space. Some inevitable grumbling aside, conversations like this shift the Overton window - aka they change what we believe is possible.
OTHER HEADLINES
SOLIHULL FTW
A new rapid road space reallocation scheme has popped up courtesy of Solihull council and it’s already facilitating kids cycling independently. Creating a new dedicated cycle route into Solihull town centre, this ATF2 (Active Travel Fund tranche 2) route uses temporary materials with the aim to make it permanent in near future. Here’s a quick video.
INTERESTING GRAPHIC OF THE WEEK
Those heatwave maps.
Source
ACTIVE TRAVEL PHRASE OF THE WEEK; OVERTON WINDOW
The policy parameters within which we see normal society operating. The idea is this is a worldview, and can be shifted. New ideas that may seem radical at first, can become normal over time - and this can and does apply to how we use our public spaces.
Until next time,
Founder, #BikeIsBest
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