In the first episode of this podcast, one of the three presenters asks why we need a war on cars – and more specifically, a ‘War on Cars’ podcast.
In reply, presenter Sarah Goodyear describes an incident when she was cycling to the studio that day and was almost flattened by an SUV driver steaming through a stop sign.
When Goodyear remonstrated with the driver, she received outraged abuse: ‘You shouldn’t even be in the fucking street!’ Her conclusion? ‘I gotta talk about this…
Paris Marx is a Canadian tech writer and host of the 'Tech Won't Save Us' podcast – a view which more or less sums up this enraging and englightening book. Electric cars, autonomous cars, ridesharing apps, Elon Musk's tunnels, beyond-batshit ideas like flying cars. What do they all have in common? They're 'solutions' to our transport problems dreamt up by men who have no interest in the vital issue of how we do transport such that it is equitable, safe, affordable and low-carbon. What they…
I am raging.
Everywhere I go, on foot or on my bike, I am assailed by cars.
Huge cars. Stinking cars. Cars driven by maniacs.
My town is full of cars, and there is a single priority on every road: to maximise the convenience of motorists, never mind the convenience – far less the safety – of other road users.
I have to walk long distances to cross a road because traffic engineers have put up railings to stop me crossing where I want. I have to wait ages at traffic…
Despite the huge sums of money that had been thrown at SeaChange Sussex, most people in Hastings were unaware of its existence.
SeaChange, the private company which had received millions of pounds of public money to ‘regenerate’ Hastings in East Sussex, including building the much-hated Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (see PN 2658), preferred to keep it that way.
I once went to a ‘consultation’ about yet another new road that SeaChange was building across yet another piece…
‘You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.’
These are the words Tony Blair – not known for self-flagellation – uses in his memoir, A Journey, to describe his decision in 2005 to finally allow the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act to come into force.
When Blair was leader of the opposition, he pledged that if Labour came to power, he would…
In 2015, I went with Peace News’ Emily Johns to the Hastings home of John Shaw, director of SeaChange, the ‘not for profit economic development company’ for East Sussex.
SeaChange – a private company – has been given millions of pounds of public money to ‘regenerate’ Hastings.
This ‘regeneration’ has included building the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road in the teeth of fierce local opposition (see PN 2658).
Emily and I had come from the site of SeaChange’s latest…
Nine years ago, I was part of a big campaign to stop the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road, a monstrosity of a road that threatened fragile habitats in the service of ‘opening up’ land for development. We were also promised, of course, that it would reduce congestion on the coast road between the two towns – a promise that would be greeted with a hollow laugh by anyone with the slightest knowledge of road-building and ‘induced demand’ (more roads create more traffic).
It was a hard-fought…
Roads, Runways and Resistance is infused with a sense of urgency in terms of the climate crisis.
Underpinned by 50 original interviews with activists, policymakers and lobbyists, Steve Melia surveys key campaigns against government transport policy over the past 30 years. These range from the anti-roads protests of the ’90s to the fight against airport expansion and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) mass actions of 2019. His review includes the fuel protests of 2000, which nearly…
This morning I was prompted by a post on Facebook to listen to LBC talk radio. My friend Caroline was advising friends that she was invited on to talk about cycle lanes.
I never listen to talk radio and I’ve even given Radio 4’s Today programme a wide berth after finding myself shouting at the radio so many times. I mean, I do have hypertension and this is not doing the blood pressure any good. I’ve long since stopped watching Question Time for the same reason.
Anyway…
As a non-motorist by choice, I found much to like in this slim book, once I’d got past its very dull title. It’s written by a Swedish group whose name – Planka.nu – translates roughly as ‘fare dodge now’. To my mind this would have been a very much snappier title.
According to Wikipedia, ‘Planka Nu is a network of organisations promoting tax-financed zero-fare public transport...The campaign has received much attention because [it] encourages people to fare-dodge, aiding its…
Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) have exhausted legal action against the Queensway Gateway road which will wipe out the Hollington Valley wildlife site in Hastings, East Sussex.
On 9 November, the court of appeal refused to allow a judicial review of the planning permission for the road.
Preliminary results from CHD’s monitoring show that NO2 pollution levels are already above the legal limit, even before the new road brings 10,000 more vehicles a day.
‘Hastings…
Judge Crabtree warned us that while judgements in magistrates’ courts usually take between 45 minutes and two hours, this one was likely to take considerably longer. He was right; his judgement took three-and-a-half hours. But it was a judgement worth waiting for.
Six activists were being prosecuted for ‘aggravated trespass’ for occupying trees along the route of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road in January 2013 (see PN 2554, 2566).
The first two hours or so of the hearing in…
Grannies Are In Action (GAIA) set up a ‘car wash’ in the
floodwaters of Combe Haven, East Sussex, on 12 January.
Photo: Marta Lefler
Over half the charges against Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) anti-roads protesters have been dropped or abandoned, or have resulted in not guilty verdicts, in the four trials so far concluded. At the time of going to press two trials were still underway, continuing into early February.
CHD, an East Sussex anti…
While ‘[m]any people believe that America’s addiction to automobiles is a cultural problem’, in reality – as cartoonist Andy Singer explains in this wonderful ‘pictographic examination’ of the American transport system – the country’s ‘automobile addiction has more to do with politics, government agencies, and the [US] tax structure’.
Indeed, in the 1920s, most North Americans lived in cities, many of which had great public transit and inter-urban rail systems, leading the president…
Anti-road protesters in Hastings are celebrating the release of embarrassing secret information about the £100m Bexhill-Hastings link road (BHLR), and the dropping of charges against many direct actionists.
Out of a total of 17 activists awaiting trial for nonviolent direct action, 13 had been charged with ‘obstructing an enforcement officer engaged to execute a high court writ’. On 15 May, these charges were dropped, leaving the 13 charged only with ‘…
