exdulwicher

I'd happily see a ban on fireworks sold to the public and strictly limited / regulated professional displays for dates such as Bonfire Night / NYE / Diwali. There was a much older Guardian article that cropped up on Twitter earlier about the pollution too: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/15/fireworks-bonfire-night-diwali-pollution It's a bit rich on the one hand to be going on about climate change, air pollution etc and then go "hey everyone, let's burn the crap out of everything for a few nights!"

That would depend on the T&C's / operating agreement that the council has with the e-scooter company and TfL has some oversight in it as well. More info here: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/electric-scooter-rental-trial#on-this-page-2

Doesn't need to be that complicated. Dockless scooters and bikes work off GPS, they have geofenced "go-slow" zones where the speed is automatically capped at about 8mph, the parking zones are all programmed in and (in theory), if you leave one randomly lying around, the app is supposed to dock you credit for not leaving it in a designated parking spot. (I don't know whether it does or not, I'm not signed up to them although I've read the T&C's which say they will charge you more per ride if you leave them outside designated zones). Part of the trial stuff is finding out when and how people use them and moving the parking zones accordingly. If you find a host of scooters regularly being left outside the pub, then it'd be logical to put a parking zone there, which means one can be painted in properly out of the way of pedestrians. If you "install" a parking zone and its never used, it's an indication that it's in the wrong place!

It's not correct or at least, your interpretation of it isn't correct (and neither was the Times article which they later admitted). Firstly, data gets "re-baselined" routinely anyway - sometimes due to revised statistical methodology, sometimes to accommodate new streams of data (good example being the info from Vivacity sensors which is far above the previous traffic count stuff), there are various reasons and none of it means the previous stuff was "wrong", just that it's been revised. The data in question is DfT and is essentially estimates based on a series of actual roadside counts of the number of vehicles passing. Main road stuff is pretty straightforward but back streets (residential streets, whatever you want to call them) are much harder; some have very little traffic anyway, some have lots so accurate averages are very hard to come by and the averages themselves hide lots of extremes. The traffic counts in those places are also extremely infrequent, you simply cannot count traffic along every single road so for many roads there's gaps of years between actual counts with the rest filled in by estimates and modelling. That fact also hides info like what has happened along that road in the 10 years since you last did an actual count there - has it become an LTN, has the land use changed (say from residential to business or vice versa), has a new development been built...? Any of those would have a very significant impact on the count. Suppose you did an actual count in 2010 and then another in 2020 and found it was 50% more or 50% less traffic - the data doesn't examine WHY that happened, it simply says "twice / half the number of cars from previous count". Cross referencing with TfL and council data (noting that the councils are responsible for most residential streets, TfL for the major roads and DfT sort of indirectly responsible at this level) and combining things like population density, walking/cycling casualty figures, schools, deprivation indices etc gives a much more complete perspective - the DfT data is simply nowhere close to enough to come to any kind of conclusion. The revised counts don't offer credible evidence that traffic *hasn't* increased, the data is simply too scarce to be used in that kind of context. It can however be combined with other info and assessed in that way. The Times did later (quietly) admit that their article made connections that couldn't be backed up. During the height of Covid, TfL produced a Strategic Neighbourhoods Analysis which showed the potential and need for LTNs, you can see it here: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/lsp-app-six-b-strategic-neighbourhoods-analysis-v1.pdf There's this recent study as well which is a meta-study of 800 peer-reviewed studies on traffic control in cities across Europe: https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/most-effective-ways-reducing-car-traffic Far and away the three most effective ways to reduce traffic are congestion charging, parking controls and modal filters (LTN's / Limited Traffic Zones, they have various names). Again, it's best to do a combination of these things, as no one control on its own is a perfect solution. In the same way that no one data set on its own is accurate... Edit because I posted the same link twice...

This is very true. Can be an issue for blind/partially sighted pedestrians or for people pushing prams/buggies/wheelchairs.

It's classified as micro-mobility rather than Active Travel although it does fulfil a gap for journeys too long for easy walking but not far enough to bother getting a bike out for.

The two main ones: Cargo capacity. Range (not so much the range of the vehicle but the actual comfort level for the user - scooters are a pain for anything over a couple of miles, bikes you can pretty much ride all day). I've not seen a huge amount of info on the "user groups" or the demographics between e-bike uses and e-scooter users but I'm sure it's out there. Noting that the scooter hire schemes require users to be over 18 and hold a driving licence which will dramatically skew the data anyway.

There's this famous clip from a few years ago of exactly that. Guy pretends to be hit, accomplice (pretending to be "just a passing stranger") steps out saying he saw everything, he'll be a witness etc. When the driver ponts out she has a dashcam, they both run off. Well worth getting a dashcam.

The 12 is going between Dulwich Library and Lower Marsh Street (Waterloo) only, it won't go any further into town. I wouldn't expect full services into town to be running until the end of next week depending on how long it takes to pull up all the barriers, move piles of floral tributes etc. TfL website has a live bus services tracker, you can also put a route number in and it'll tell you what the alterations are.

Pets at Home, Southwark (up on the Old Kent Road). Believe it or not, you can also order them on Amazon Prime, truly there is nothing that they can't supply!

Part of me is wondering how much of it is a distraction away from the rail strikes tomorrow and Saturday, plus the TfL strikes on Friday (and/or cost-of-living, inflation etc) Part of me wonders if he really is just that thick and opened his mouth without engaging his brain, particularly as another interview given to The Times he said: "I'm not attracted to the bureaucracy of registration plates. That would go too far." And then part of me is thinking that it's as @Rockets says - the final dog-whistle / pandering to the voters during the last throes of this appalling Government. None of it is remotely workable - even DfT have continually said that bicycle registration is pointless and unworkable so Shapps is off message from his own department. However it's given the papers 2-3 days of clickbait joy. Edit to pick up on @Rockets most recent post: It would cost more (hundreds of times more) to administer than it would ever make in revenue.

You can pay cheques in using the banking app now as well. Take a photo of it within the app, it clears in a couple of days (often faster than paying it in over the counter!) I guess the anecdotes of "old people" will be as varied as they come - there will undoubtedly be some who can't (or don't want to) use smartphones, there will be some that welcome the fact they no longer have to walk to a branch, stand in line etc for a job that can be done in minutes using a laptop or phone. I wonder what will become of the building...? Wine bar maybe. There are only about a dozen estate agents within easy reach of it too, maybe we need another one of those... ;-)

You don't look at the number of cyclists using a route before considering segregated infrastructure. If anything, it's the exact opposite - people aren't currently using it as a cycle route because of (perceptions of) road danger - add in proper infrastructure / remove the danger and it'll be used. In the same way that you don't say "no wheelchair users are trying to access this building, we won't bother building a ramp" or "no-one is swimming across this river, we won't bother building a bridge" The infrastructure is the enabler. There have long been issues with that road anyway - people routinely speed down it, slam the brakes on for the 20mph cameras and then charge off after it. Wide road, good sightlines sort of tempts speeding. Narrowing the road using cycle lanes would solve a lot of the speed issues as well.

I pretty much knew that as soon as that Guardian article was linked, Rockets would be along with more "written by Peter Walker..." You could try reading the original piece of research rather than the summary notes in the newspaper: https://www.centreforlondon.org/publication/london-low-traffic-neighbourhoods/

Bill Bailey has some excellent takes on the National Anthem - he once asked why we would call upon an unspecified deity to save an unelected head of state from an untold fate. And then played a jazz version of the National Anthem. Strangely, he didn't do that one while performing at the Royal Variety Show. ;-)

The alternative point being that spending a lot of money on plastic flags and a cardboard cutout of the Queen for a one-off weekend may not be the wisest investment - especially if people are going to be up in town watching or gone on holiday. I get the "looking smart" and "keeping the place tidy" things absolutely. I just don't necessarily get the need to festoon everything in flags.

Bus passenger numbers in London fluctuate between about 2.2 and 2.4 billion journeys a year, small % increases and decreases. The last 5 years have seen a slight decrease although usage is still far higher than a decade ago. Also, there's been a decrease in the number of vehicle miles due to bus route alterations / consolidation of services so that accounts for some of the passenger decrease. Bus speeds on average dropped slightly 2014 - 2018 before rising again in 2018/19 and then a significant jump in speed 2020 (pandemic - no traffic) and it's largely stayed higher than 2018 since then. Anything else you want to know? Ironic isn't it that the right-wing Government we currently have is doing the best job ever in avoiding accountability, scrutiny and responsibility...?

People need to be paid for the work they do. I'm assuming you're aware of the going rate for all professions and qualifications? It might be a wider societal issue but plenty of professions earn (sorry "rake in") 6-figure salaries at the top end. You might not like that but that's the going market rate.

It's not a private company though. As a public transport authority, TfL gets all its income from fares, commercial activity and income from the Congestion Charge, grants (including business rates) and from borrowing and cash reserves (the latter was left in tatters by the previous Mayor with a deficit of over ?1bn...) When fares income dried up during Covid there was literally nowhere else to go to get any income other than asking Government for a cash injection (bailout / subsidy, call it whatever depending on your view...) The Government has given several short-term funding settlements but over the course of 2 years of Covid, various lockdowns, instructions not to travel etc, TfL was left short of about ?9bn and Government funds can't come close to filling that hole. So the funding they have supplied has come with a load of caveats. "We'll give you ?x million but you need to save ?y million on...." You can negotiate against some of it (like the proposed cuts to free travel for Under 18's) but some of it is being forced through as a condition of the funding. Doesn't matter who you have as Mayor, that's the deal that Government is offering.

They haven't. Even before Covid, London's buses took a subsidy of ?700m from TfL funds, now a lot of that came from the excess that the Tube generated (remember that the previous London Mayor, one Mr B Johnson removed central Government grant for TfL - which was actually almost exactly that sum of money - in 2015). So TfL had to move to a position of generating most of it's funds from fares - it's usually been around 40 - 45% of its income with the rest coming from Congestion Charge, grants plus minor stuff like advertising on the Underground. That allows them to run the buses as a "loss leader" which is fair enough; after all public transport is a service to everyone (even drivers!) so it's generally right that it is subsidised although it's less right that Government doesn't subsidise some of it, it's about the only transport authority in the western world not to receive an operating grant from central Government. Anyway - buses cost TfL ?700m subsidy a year to run. Covid hit, ridership of bus, tube and train fell off a cliff and fare income all but dried up. The Government have offered a few short-term funding deals, grants, loans etc but they've come heavily caveated and ringfenced requiring cuts to infrastructure projects, fare increases, service cuts etc. At one point there were requests, from Government, to remove free travel for Under 18's and 60-65 (which TfL fought back against and eventually the Government stepped back from that one). None of this is the fault of TfL or Sadiq Khan although it plays well for the Tory Government to let people believe that. Especially since the current PM is the former Mayor of London who left TfL's finances in such a terrible position anyway with Garden Bridges and Boris Airport "plans". Pie in the sky stuff that had hundreds of millions of ?? wasted on them. What you really need to be saying is "I can't believe the Government have let it come to this". Except that everyone would believe that - the single role of the Government at the moment is to keep Boris in power and pretend that Brexit "got done", not worry about any of that minor running the country stuff.

The proposal is to replace the Dulwich end of the 12 with the 148 so you're not "losing" the 12 entirely, it's extending the existing 148. However, it won't be going to Oxford Circus, it'll terminate in town. At least, that's the proposal.

Did it lie about where it was going to? 😂 There's a good Twitter thread here on what's going on with the bus cuts and, to a certain extent, the consultations:

To counter that, everyone (well, "agencies") already knows where you are, what you're buying, where you live, what you earn, where you work, where your kids go to school, where and when you went on holiday... Loyalty cards at supermarkets are just a data-mining exercise with the slight benefit that you get extra points or discounts in return for letting them have that info of what you're buying and when/how often. People willingly share vast amounts of info on Facebook and other social media so that fact that a simple coffee shop wants to do away with the hassle and security threat of cash is really not the Big Bad 1984 that you seem to portray. Also, it does away with the inevitable old biddy rummaging around in her purse going "do you want the 42p as well, I think I've got exact change, just let me count it....." while the entire queue behind gets annoyed. Major downside is that donations to charities via tins on the counter are WAY down. Previously you'd get some random, relatively low, amount of change and just drop it in the tin but it'd all add up. Now, that revenue stream for charities has almost completely disappeared.

Thieves aren't entirely dumb - they're normally stolen to order for exactly the same type of car. That way any random roadside ANPR check comes back (on the face of it) entirely legit. If you put the plates from a blue Discovery onto a silver Transit, it'll get picked up very quickly - if you put them on another blue Discovery, chances are you'll get away with quite a lot. Put a tracker on your car. It'll save a load of admin if you have something reporting in to your mobile phone and you can prove where it was at any given time. Also, take any photos of anything unique - custom alloys, any dents/scratches/go-faster stripes/windscreen stickers etc - anything that would make your car stand out even slightly from another one of the same make / model. If you get a speeding ticket and you can easily show that your car has a sticker in the rear window and the culprit car doesn't, that's a dead giveaway. A friend had her plates cloned a long time ago. Reported it and then she got pulled over by the police about 8 times in the following 3 months. They never managed to pull over the cloned car though... Absolutely identical make, model and colour.

RSPB were suggesting putting "mud pies" out as well - with it being so dry recently, the swifts have trouble finding mud to build their nests with. https://www.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/mud-pies-for-house-martins/