19th v 21st century resistance to rail

Posted on 10th January 2012 by Martin Cassini

PM (Radio 4) had an item about Victorian resistance to railway development, implying there was a parallel with today’s opposition to HS2. Seems a narrow comparison, because in the 19th century, there were no telephones, cars or Internet.

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HS2

Posted on 7th January 2012 by Martin Cassini

(Update of 2011 post at Free to Choose): Apart from the likelihood that the £32bn estimate for HS2 will increase to at least twice that sum, the trade-off, whichever way you cut it, is negative. HS2 would shave minutes off a journey between cities already well-served, while doing nothing to connect outlying regions currently starved of viable links, at a time when web interconnectivity is rendering face-to-face business meetings increasingly pointless. Traffic policy presides over casualties, congestion and environmental damage on a colossal scale. Instead of making roads fit for people and improving local rail connectivity, the government wants to sacrifice some of England’s most green and pleasant land on the altar of the high-cost HS2 vanity project.

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Gulliver’s travails

Posted on 6th January 2012 by Martin Cassini

Congestion caused by volume of traffic is acceptable. We’re in the same boat. No problem. But congestion caused or aggravated by unnecessary traffic control – you know, making us stop for no reason other than the light is red – is unacceptable. Human intelligence is a superior, wondrous thing. Yet traffic control reduces us to the level of unthinking robots. The red light brigadiers are Lilliputians disabling Gulliver.

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Red tape, red lights

Posted on 6th January 2012 by Martin Cassini

According to today’s news, NHS red tape is being cut to release nurses from the burden of form-filling so they can devote more time to patient care. As we know, there are moves to cut police red tape too, presumably so they can devote more time to their proper job. Same goes for traffic lights. Isn’t it time for a major cull of those weapons of mass distraction and delay so that all road-users could squander less time stopping needlessly and devote more time to the proper job of getting from A-B safely, expeditiously, with minimum damage to the environment?

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Crocodile tears

Posted on 6th December 2011 by Martin Cassini

Yet another cyclist is killed at traffic lights in London (story here). These “tragedies” are a direct consequence of the infamous rules and design of the road. It means yet more blood on the hands of the authorities who adhere to a lethal priority system and ignore solutions based on equality.

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Kilkenny and traffic lights

Posted on 25th November 2011 by Martin Cassini

This week, at the invitation of a business group, I was in Kilkenny, Ireland, taking stock and sharing my views about traffic (see this in The Irish Times). Kilkenny is a lovely place, made unlovely by traffic queuing at unnecessary traffic lights. At a couple of presentations, objectors asked how I would cater for disabled people. The clue is in the name. Equality Streets = inclusivity. The realistic aim is to make roads a cradle of safety for all road-users. Without lights distracting them, drivers will be sensitive to the needs of others. A new hierarchy will emerge with vulnerable road-users at the top. Fears and objections stem from a lifetime of slavery to rules of the road which are anti-social and divisive. Free from that oppression, the potential for co-operation in human nature will be unleashed.

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Historic connections

Posted on 25th November 2011 by Martin Cassini

On Stephen Fry’s Radio 4 series about the history of mobile phones, a designer of HTC smartphones said he aimed to create devices that were “so simple that using them was almost innate”. It reminded me that traffic regulation seems bent on making life heavy (man), while Equality Streets is about making life fun.

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Fuel prices

Posted on 15th November 2011 by Martin Cassini

A few decades ago, when income tax hit 98%, most high earners went into tax exile. Now the top rate of tax is a reasonable 50%, although it’s due to drop to 40% (also reasonable) as soon as the government can swing it. Tax on fuel is an unreasonable 66% but people hit by the artificially high price can’t afford to fill their tanks, let alone decamp. Ministers justify the unjustifiable by saying they need to raise another £1.5bn. As I keep saying, traffic system reform offers kind cuts in the tens of billions. So what are ministers waiting for? I appreciate the environmental argument in favour of fewer journeys, but CO2 cuts achieved that way are ludicrously small compared with what could be achieved by letting traffic filter instead of stop and restart at gas-guzzling signals. And the greening of cars is at last well under way.

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Death of another cyclist

Posted on 14th November 2011 by Martin Cassini

Is this another case of corporate manslaughter? God save us from the “experts”, especially experts in road design.

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Exhaust deaths

Posted on 14th November 2011 by Martin Cassini

The Commons Environment Committee has confirmed something we already knew: that annually there are 4,000 premature deaths in London attributable to poor air quality caused largely by traffic. Nationwide, the figure is 30,000. Also quoted on The Today Programme was the figure of 200,000 which seemed to refer to the number of lives shortened by two years because of poor air quality ..? A quick search didn’t turn up the report. Committee chair, Joan Walley MP (Lab), said there was no magic wand. But Joan, there is. Scrap priority rules and traffic lights and let traffic filter. That won’t cut emissions to zero, but it will make a massive difference, as explained in my article No Idle Matter. Incidentally, Today was feeble in its coverage and questioning.

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