The Transport Action Network’s second national grassroots one-day gathering is in London on Saturday 30th September. There will be sessions on buses, rail, air quality, and biodiversity, and training on successful media engagement. If you want to go, BSTA will pay your registration fee and can help with transport costs. See the details here, and reply to this email if you want to go.
Transport Action Network has helped us and other road campaigns, and has its national conference in Birmingham on September 10th. Meet other transport campaigners and hear how some local authorities including the Welsh Government are reviewing their transport plans to reduce carbon. Do you want to go? BSTA may be able to help with costs if you will give a report. Let us know, and book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-traffic-reduction-and-climate-conference-tickets-321333817097
Bradford-Shipley Travel Alliance next meets at 7pm on Tuesday July 19th. Come and meet others involved and work together to beat the menace of more traffic and climate change. The venue is as usual Tambourine café (thanks Tom for coffee and small bites). Please put this in your diary and come if you can.
Birmingham City Council has announced plans for an ambitious supersized Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN), spanning the entire area within the inner ring road. The plan would see the city centre split into zones, with roads closed off to traffic, preventing and discouraging short car journeys within it. The traffic restrictions will be combined with significant investment in public transport, pedestrianisation and protected cycleways. A workplace parking levy will be introduced to reduce commuting by car and to help fund the improvements.
The Welsh Government established an independent panel in the summer to review its roads programme. The panel chair was asked to fast track scrutiny of the Llanbedr Access Road and Bypass. She has now reported her findings and recommended that the road be scrapped which the Welsh Government has accepted. A package of alternative measures will now be developed to encourage modal shift, reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the negative impact of traffic on Llanbedr and other villages along the A496. We hope Grant Shapps and the DfT and WYCA are watching and learning.
Source: Transport Action Network
TAN keeps us up to date with national news and other local campaigns, and their own challenges to continued road-building. TAN director Chris Todd led us in our July strategy meeting, and continues to advise us. Here are two pieces from recent TAN newsletters which report on national figures who talk the talk.
Who is this meeting aimed at? All BSTA supporters, who want to see a healthy and climate friendly outcome from the Bradford-Shipley road scheme. Chris Todd from Transport Action Network will facilitate this meeting, on Zoom. Please register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUodeqsrD8vHdE3ccgI01L_WGsxUr6XMWb_
Where do we want to be at the end of it? (a) To understand better how we can influence the road scheme. (b) To propose actions that are taken away to work on. (c) To make the most of the period up to early 2022, the expected time for the final formal consultation on the road’s business case.
What will we cover in the workshop? (a)Who are the players (residents, councillors, business, media etc etc)? How to shift players with most interest to have more power/influence, and shift players with most power/influence to have more interest? (b) Create a timetable of decision points. What is a good rhythm of education and campaigning to best influence the scheme? (c) What are the key things that we need to win, drawn from Chris’s experience of other road campaigns.
Please help us prepare for the meeting in these two ways:
Add to the list of ‘players’ we might want to influence, here: https://tinyurl.com/BSTAplayers
Add to the list of road improvements that you would like: https://tinyurl.com/BSTAimprovements