Tag: traffic
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South College Street Consultation
The Aberdeen City Council has a consultation open until the 19th January 2021 on proposed changes to South College Street. This work is part of a bigger project known as the Berryden Corridor which will see a dual carriageway built from north to south through the central city. I spent much of last weekend writing…
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Cycling to the rescue
It’s the last day of school today for goodness knows how long but it’s not all bad. There are some benefits to this virus. For instance, there’s noticeably less traffic on the roads, especially around the school gate. I think many parents have already withdrawn their kids from school. The air smelt cleaner and fresher…
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An open letter to the Aberdeen City Council about South College Street
This past week I have felt very frustrated with the Aberdeen City Council after I read about their plans to spend £5.5 million adding another lane for private motor vehicles to a road in central Aberdeen. A bike path has not been included in these plans and the road in question is uninviting for pedestrians…
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We need cars to escape the destruction caused by cars
A friend recently pointed out this 1973 essay on cars – The social ideology of the motorcar. It’s a little bit socialist but if you ignore those bits, the points it makes about cars are even more relevant today than they were back in 1973. The author André Gorz, starts by explaining how cars are…
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Killing machines
I want to demonstrate a similarity I’ve noticed between racism and bias against cyclists. Have you ever noticed our unconscious bias towards minority groups like Black British people or African Americans means that if one member of the group does something wrong, the entire group is tarnished? If one African American commits a crime then…
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Pollution from cars is harmful to children
Air pollution from motor vehicles is harmful to humans but especially harmful to children. We know it can damage the growth of their lungs, raise the risk of asthma and allergies, affect brain development and intelligence, raise the risk of heart disease and cancer, and it even affects unborn children in their mother’s womb. But…
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Building new roads leads to more new roads
Last month I stumbled across an article from 2006 called Induced traffic. Again. And again. And again. It was first observed early last century that building new roads generates new traffic. So 1925, 1937, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1994, 1996, now 2006: for 80 years, every eight years on average, there has been…
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But I once saw a cyclist go through a red light …
Why do people feel the need to tell me this? It’s not my job to defend cyclists who go through red lights just as it’s not my job to defend motorists who go through red lights. Or motorists who drink and drive. Or motorists who speed. Or motorists who go the wrong way down a…
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Worst invention ever
I’ve heard designers say the customer is not always right because if Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted they’d have replied with, “A faster horse.” I disagree. The car is the worst invention in the history of all humankind. Some 3,287 people die every day in road crashes and more than half…
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Minecraft and pubic hair
I’ve never paid much attention to where my site’s traffic comes from until recently and now I’m intrigued by the amount of search engine traffic I get for an old Minecraft post I published in 2014. Google Webmaster tools shows me all the search terms people use to find my site. The top 30 search…
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Shared spaces
I want to write about shared spaces. These are road spaces that everyone shares – pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, buses, and taxis. Rather than segregating users into their own space, all signalling and road markings are removed and everyone is thrown in together. The theory is that if you remove all the road markings, traffic lights,…
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What Traffic Fumes Do to Our Children
I copied the following factsheet from George Monbiot’s blog, Car Sick. He is encouraging people to share it: I've written a simple factsheet for schools and parents on what traffic pollution does to children. Please share: https://t.co/DFSDmUIQUX — George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) March 6, 2017 I shared it with our local primary school on Twitter in the…
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Never put cyclists between parked cars and traffic
I was nearly doored this morning by a motorist opening her car door on us as I cycled passed. Fortunately I always take a wide berth around parked cars – for this very reason – and as it was the door missed the three of us by mere centimetres. It was a mother dropping her children…
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Why do some people hate cyclists?
After being the recipient of some verbal abuse recently I got to thinking about what it is that aggravates some people by the sight of cyclists. Why do people have such a passionate dislike of cyclists? To be clear, the cyclist-hating types are a minority and on the whole my experience of motorists here in Aberdeen lifts my…
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Should cyclists be allowed to run red lights?
People like to complain about cyclists: “They don’t obey the law,” “They run red lights,” etc. I’ve seen cyclists go through red lights before but I don’t object when they do it. Why not? I’ll try to explain using a situation I found myself in today. I was on my bike with kids inside at an…
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Bicycle rush hour in Copenhagen
I saw this great YouTube footage of bicycle rush hour in Copenhagen on the Copenhagenize site. As you watch it, imagine how different it would look if each of those cyclists or even the majority of them, were in private motor vehicles instead. Also notice how hardly any of the cyclists are wearing helmets or hi-viz clothing…
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A rant … feeling better already
I have just read the most extraordinary articles and need to have another rant to calm myself down. A friend of mine in Christchurch hinted that there had been some objections to building bicycle paths in the city and so I searched to find out more. Big mistake that was! I should not have read…
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Cycling in the rain: BRING IT ON!
I got completely drenched cycling the kids to school this morning. But as I was peddling along and struggling to see through the curtain of rain battering my face the glass half full part of me was happy about one thing: the fresh, clean air. I, and all the other people in the city, have to inhale the…
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Evil cyclists
An article appeared in the Guardian on boxing day which I somehow missed and just read this morning. The author recounts a recent event where she was crossing the road on foot when a cyclist mowed her down, knocking her to the ground. The cyclist didn’t stop while motorists in cars who were stopped got out…
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Another rant
I just read that a wealthy Aberdeen oil tycoon and his wife have donated £10 million to the hospital in Aberdeen for a new car park. Apparently the wife went to visit friends at the hospital and had problems finding a park. Here’s how I feel about this: Car parking is not a good investment for the…
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