Shivaji Shiva
@shivajishivalaw.bsky.social
Charity lawyer; charity trustee; transport campaigner. [I cannot access DMs]
Open streets to people, close them to cars
Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 4d agoDo you know about soccer tennis? Saturday nights are tournament night for the sport on the Granville Street Pedestrian Zone, & these teams are no joke! Nice way to cap off a great day on the people-street. Overheard one family talking about how they “can’t believe how great Granville Street is now.”
There is arguably no greater act of climate arson than building a giant parking garage at an airport served by a train station. ( looking at you Port of Portland )
Martin Austermuhle@maustermuhle.bsky.social · 2d agoOne part of Trump's $22 billion makeover of Dulles that's been missed is his big, beautiful, world-record 32,000-spot parking garage. That's *way* more parking than recent estimates show the airport needs, and it would tower over the historic terminal: www.notus.org/metro/dulles...
Trees for Cities: "Heat maps from Friends of the Earth show that across five major English cities, areas with more trees and green spaces are up to 5°C cooler. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations states that strategically planted urban trees can cool the air by up to 8°C."
How Urban Trees Cool Cities and Reduce Urban Heat | Trees for Cities
Discover how urban trees reduce heat, cool cities and tackle the urban heat island effect while creating healthier communities.
treesforcities.org
Now with a version that applies to streets. Thanks, Michael.
Michael@scottgoblue314.bsky.social · 3d agoMay I interest you in The Triangle
Ideally you'd have regulations that force car manufacturers and tech companies to disable certain phone features and other digital distractions while the car is in motion. That's a heavy regulatory lift, of course, but the goal of advocates is to speak difficult things into existence.
Dan Keshet@dankeshet.bsky.social · 3d agoWhat solutions are out there for getting drivers off their phone? (non-rhetorical)
If you think garbage containers will ruin "the beauty of a street" and permanently alter the city's "character and history" but don't address how cars and SUVs affect those same qualities, you are telling on yourself.
Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️@jgbollard.bsky.social · 4d agoThis is it boys, the platonic "New York can never get better" piece www.archpaper.com/2026/07/litt...
It’s unlikely, but I hope the person who tours south Birmingham nightly doing just this, reads Peter’s message.
Peter Walker@peterwalker99.bsky.social · 5d agoEvery single person who rides an ostentatiously noisy motorbike can just fuck off. Those who do so in London or any town or city, and especially those who use chainsaw-volume engine revving as a “warning” can then fuck off all over again.
One of the worst things you can ever hear is a politician use the word "pragmatic" I remember John Glen(n?) doing this when telling a Salisbury community land trust they were about to get shafted. And he didn't even have the decency to be the cool John Glen(n?) www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Burnham promises ‘pragmatic’ approach to North Sea oil and gas
PM tells reporters the government cannot ignore the energy resource ‘when people are struggling’
theguardian.com
Actress Geraldine Chaplin takes a rest during filming of the 1967 psychological thriller Peppermint Frappé in Cuenca, Spain Happy #BicycleBirthay, Geraldine! Born July 31, 1944
The post below is about car culture but honestly this applies to politics in general. I'm sick of hearing about "pragmatism" or "electorally feasibility." A lot of things we take for granted now were radical & seemed impossible until they were won. Stop telling people to shut up & eat their gruel.
Bread and Rosie@rosiemund.bsky.social · 5mo ago"We have a car-centric society now & it would be too complex & costly to change!" (in the US & elsewhere) is just lack of imagination & ambition, & throwing good money after bad, usually with a side of "I don't want to (but framing it as a feasibility issue makes me sound like less of an asshole.)"
This is even worse than Badenoch’s letter yesterday, as she has space to explain what she would do instead of net zero targets to tackle the climate change she accepts is real but then doesn’t. She accuses Labour of not having a plan, then insists we should trust her unannounced plan will be better.
MAGA Make Awnings Great Again Grade II* listed country house in Buckinghamshire. Awnings added in 2024
Cities that refuse to tow away cars left where they shouldn't be are making a policy announcement that they support this.
Shivaji Shiva@shivajishivalaw.bsky.social · last wk.This junction near the Selly Oak triangle illustrates how ill-managed and obtrusive the storage of private cars in south Birmingham is. @betterstreetsforbirmingham.org
"...the White House has just ordered 250 brand new Cadillac Escalades, giant SUVs which have a suggested retail price of more than $90,000 each and cost significantly more to customize for secure uses."
Let them eat SUVs: Trump White House orders fleet of luxury cars as Americans struggle
Americans are facing a deepening affordability crisis but at least Trump and co have ... 250 new Cadillac Escalades
theguardian.com
I'd be a surveyor (mapping urban expansion in Colombo, I believe), a railwayman (in Malaya and Singapore - in what capacity, I do not know) or raising up to seven children with a tight budget.
Revan@revan.eurosky.social · 7d agoEnough “what would you do on the commune questions” If you got sent back 100 years and were given your grandparent’s job, what are you doing?
“Kokushobi”
Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they)@doctorvive.bsky.social · last wk.Japanese officials have coined an entirely new word to signify the dangerous heat of #ClimateChange. It's "kokushobi," which means "cruel heat day." This coinage is but a drop of the coming shower of cultural changes that climate change will force upon us. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/w...
It's depressing that this moved me so much, but did. First time I've heard a politician praise a group of immigrants, without caveat, for a long while.
Farrukh@implausibleblog.bsky.social · last wk.Andy Burnham, "To me, carers should be the best paid people in society, not the worst" "Many people from other countries have been caring for my dad" Andy Burnham praises migrants to the UK who care for our elderly, a stark contrast to Keir-island-of-strangers-Starmer
Don't allow anyone to tell you that a day spent exploring used bookstores, greenhouses, libraries, cafés, and bakeries "doesn't classify" as self-care.
To quote Mark Blyth, the climate crisis is ‘a giant non-linear outcome generator with wicked convexities. In plain English, there is no mean, there is no average, there is no return to normal. It’s one way traffic into the unknown’. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
There is no ‘getting back to normal’ with climate breakdown | Mark Blyth
As the IPCC report makes clear, there are now only unknown and unfamiliar alternative futures that we can choose from, says political economist Mark Blyth
theguardian.com
James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · 7d agoIt's not going to become 'the norm' though, is it? That's what so fucking terrifying about it. It's going to become a lot worse, very quickly.
This is the thing. Even if you pay to park, you will not and cannot begin to pay the full cost of the parking you use - partly because people vastly underestimate the cost of parking but also because the negative impact on others' lives goes far beyond the financial cost.
Matthew Lewis -- living in the era of cults and consequences@mateosfo.bsky.social · 7d agoYou can't have government subsidized street parking AND safe streets. You can't have government subsidized street parking AND affordable housing. You can't have government subsidized street parking AND solve climate change. But drivers, of course, view street parking as their social security:
You don’t want hands free driving, you want trains. You want trains you want trains you want TRAINS
When Parody Candidates float better policy ideas than 95% of career politicians .... 😎
Count Binface@countbinface.bsky.social · 3y agoUnder a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface
🚲 "Convenience, practical reasons… it's my best form of transport. If I have any appointments, medical check-ups in the city centre for example, I'll get there by bike." 👇 Read Michael's story here.
Everyday cycling at 89: “It’s my main way of looking after myself”
Edinburgh resident Michael, aged 89, shares why he cycles every day: "convenience, practical reasons… it's my best form of transport".
cycling.scot
This should be good and you can also follow him here @tomflood.bsky.social
IrishCycle.com@irishcycle.com · 7d agoCar adman turned road safety and sustainability advocate Tom Flood to speak in Dublin Tom Flood -- whose work used to include car advertising but who turned his skills to promoting road safety and mobility beyond cars -- is to speak at an event in Dublin on September 22nd....
We should normalise "like selling coffee/cake/donuts to cyclists" as an idiom for something that's absolutely piss easy because for one thing it's true but also it might embarrass business owners into not blaming their failure on bike lanes when it's usually because their coffee tastes like ass.
