[sustran] FW: CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN #38

[Paul Barter]

Forwarded message - sustran-discusses anti-spam features always stop
this getting through directly ...
-----------------------

From: "Car Busters" <carbusters at ecn.cz>
To: englishbulletin-l at ecn.cz
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 22:38:45 +0200
Subject: CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN #38

Ahoj! (That's Czech for hi.) We are happy to provide you with our 
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=======================================
- -- -- CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN -- -- -- -
=======================================
Edition no. 38 - September 2002 - English version
.......................................
Car Busters, Kratka 26, 10000 Praha 10, Czech Rep.
tel: +(420) 2-7481-0849 - fax: +(420) 2-7481-6727 <carbusters at ecn.cz> -
<http://www.carbusters.org>


Since this month's designated bulletin compiler - we won't mention 
names here - is off visiting family in Moravia, this issue is prepared 
by Randy Ghent. He hopes that, even if this bulletin is more difficult 
for non-native speakers, it will at least be entertaining for those who 
understand it. 


Contents:

BOXERS AND BRIEFS
JOHANNESBURG "EARTH PLUMMET" SPECIAL REPORT
PARIS BEACH EXPERIMENT SHUNS CAR TRAFFIC
WORLD CAR-FREE DAYS STARTS IN JUST TEN DAYS!
CAN WE SEND YOU SOME POSTERS? PLEASE?...
BLURP, BLURP...NO, WE'RE NOT DROWNING!
CYCLISTS, PEDESTRIANS DELIGHT OVER EUROPEAN 
LEGISLATION
RESEARCH HELP SOUGHT
BIKE LOCKERS ENCOURAGE TERRORISM?
DISCLAIMER

-----------------

BOXERS AND BRIEFS

- "Driving promises to become more environmentally friendly, 
stylish and fun," says a Time Magazine special report: 
<http://www.time.com/time/2002/greencentury/entransport.html>.

- Under severe financial pressure in its American heartland, Ford 
Motor Company is pulling the plug on its Norway-based electric 
vehicle division, Th!nk. The August 30 announcement marks the 
latest in a series of reverses for electric cars. General Motors and 
Honda stopped making them three years ago; most industry efforts 
to reduce pollution and carbon emissions are now focused on other 
technologies: <http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-02-
04.asp>.

- A new report found average speeds on key London roads were 
just 2.9 mph, less than walking pace: 
<http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12102453,00.html>.

- The September issue of Carfree Times is now out, available at 
<http://www.carfree.com/cft/i027.html>. Quoting urban planner 
David Harvey, it says: In 2030, when five billion people are 
predicted to live in urban areas, "a mix of grinding poverty, social 
strife, violence, wasteful consumerism, and crumbling infrastructure 
may become 'a dystopian nightmare in which all that is judged 
worst in the fatally flawed character of humanity collects together in 
some hell-hole of despair.'" A refreshing respite from the 
disgustingly positive news that tends to dominate car-free 
publications.

- ITDP, the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy - 
which is really quite interesting despite a name that will put you to 
sleep - is now producing an excellent bimonthly Sustainable 
Transport E-Update. Issue no. 2 can be found at 
<http://www.itdp.org/STe/STe2/>. ITDP supporters paying US$20 
or more a year receive Sustainable Transport, the organisation's 
annual print magazine.

- The September issue of The New Colonist ("A Web Magazine 
About City Living") is on-line at <http://www.newcolonist.com>.  
This month's issue contains an interesting article on the car-free 
(and bicycle-free) pedestrian town of Gulangyu, China (pop.: 
20,000).

- For information on EU Greenwash Day - aka "In Town, Without 
My Urban Assault Vehicle!" - go to <http://www.22september.org>.


JOHANNESBURG "EARTH PLUMMET":
CORPORATE REPS DESCEND ON SUBURBAN MEGA-MALL
[based on Environmental News Service, Adbusters and 
Indymedia.org]

"That's right: the Earth Summit is being held in a mall," reports 
James MacKinnon of Adbusters, live in Johannesburg. "And not 
just any mall, but a gold-and-glitz palace of Belgian chocolates and 
Italian espresso, American running shoes and Scandanavian 
fashions...This is just the reality of environmental politics in 2002."
It must've been the perfect environment for BMW to show off its 
US$100,000 hydrogen car, as it did inside the BMW Group "Earth 
Lounge" - a massive dome with swirls of white clouds, blue seas 
and green continents. With its slogan "Sustainability. It can be 
done," BMW was just one of some 700 corporations descending 
on the UN summit in record numbers, each vying to convince the 
world of its eco-righteousness.
Organisations like Greenpeace have charged that the companies 
have received preferential access to both the conference site and to 
delegates who will include some 100 heads of state. In the 
meantime, hundreds of NGO delegates have been denied access 
to the convention center due to "fire regulations."
South African groups such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the 
Landless People's Movement marched August 31 to say the 
summit was a sham. Posturing as deliverers of "sustainable 
development," the people it brought together are the same ones 
implementing the policies - water and electricity cut-offs, evictions, 
lack of health care, education and land - that hurt them most. 
During the summit, The Landless People's Movement was staked 
out by 19 police "hippos" (apartheid-era township tanks). South 
Africa Independent Media Centre says such actions of the past 
days "send a clear signal that the ANC Government can bring to 
bear the authoritarian machinery of the state in a more efficient 
manner than its apartheid predecessor."
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everyone - including the normally 
servile Tony Blair - blasted the US for refusing to sign the Kyoto 
climate protocol.
As for the protests, they start tomorrow, September 4. According to
Future Forests, visitors to the summit will add at least 
500,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, mostly 
through transport.


PARIS BEACH EXPERIMENT SHUNS CAR TRAFFIC
[by yours truly, with moderate plagiarism]

Over two million Parisians and tourists were lured to the banks of 
the Seine by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe's car-free urban beach, 
a four-week experiment (July 21 to August 18) complete with palm 
trees and imported sand. 
Reminiscent of the May 1968 Situationist slogan "Beneath the 
cobblestones, the beach," the city heaped 180 cubic metres of 
sand onto the concrete embankment, creating two beach areas 
that would become a haven for sun worshippers.
The experiment proved to be an overnight popular success, despite 
a swimming ban in the Seine due to pollution. Sunbathers, office 
workers, hand-in-hand lovers, children building sand castles, street 
musicians - all were part of the atmosphere of "mingling" and 
"mutal respect."
"Paris Beach is the antidote to the notion 'Adapt the town to the 
car,'" Delanoe's deputy mayor Denis Beaupin told FranceSoir 
newspaper, recalling an infamous remark by former President 
Georges Pompidou.
The beach was actually built on a stretch of the Seine that 
Pompidou turned into an urban motorway in the 1970s.
"The French left is saying loud and clear: Pro-car policies are out," 
reported CNN on August 18.
Delanoe hopes to pedestrianise both sides of the Seine through 
central Paris as soon as 2007 if current policies to boost public 
transport reduce car traffic enough. [Ed. note: Yet, from what we 
know about traffic generation and evaporation, it's possible that car 
traffic will only be effectively reduced by the pedestrianisation 
project itself: Traffic in congestion conditions simply expands or 
contracts to fill the available road space.]
Paris Beach is set to become an annual fixture and inspire other 
pedestrian experiments in the city.


WORLD CAR-FREE DAYS STARTS IN JUST TEN DAYS!
[submitted by the Car Busters crew]

Norway, The Philippines, Russia, the Czech Republic, USA, India, 
Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Ireland, Spain and the UK will be 
among the nations blessed with actions during World Car-Free 
Days 2002 - "Fifteen Days to End the Auto Age." [Hype, hype.] 
We at CB Central would kindly ask organisers to supply us ASAP 
with more than a cryptic description of what you're planning, as to 
enable some semblance of an international media effort to be 
organised. (No, we're not bitter, really.)
Still urgently needed are self-proclaimed car addicts as guinea pigs 
for our trial Autoholics Anonymous programme. Please have your 
friends and relatives contact <carbusters at ecn.cz>.
Everything else can be found at 
<http://www.carbusters.org/carfreeday>.


CAN WE SEND YOU SOME WORLD CAR-FREE DAYS 
POSTERS? PLEASE?...
[ibid, ditto, dictus]

So excuse the casual tone, but here we've got some 400 or so A3- sized
World Car-Free Days colour posters in need of distributing to 
people who will find them useful or at least nice. Might you be one 
such person? For you North Americans, A3 size is the size of a 
Car Busters magazine when opened (it magically becomes A4 
when closed!). You can either order posters by credit card if you're 
feeling generous (see <https://order.kagi.com/cgi- bin/r1.cgi?8WP&&>,
towards the bottom), or we might just send 
you 25 or so for free if we happen to not think you're an evil 
incarnation of Satan. In the latter case, thankfully, you can still 
download the posters for free from 
<http://carbusters.org/carfreeday>.


BLURP, BLURP...NO, WE'RE NOT DROWNING!
[ibid, ditto, dictus]

Re: the Prague floods, see our website ("What's New" section) for 
a groovy picture of Skoda cars under water. We've kept our 
proverbial heads above water, but said website was down for 26.82 
hours before being miraculously brought back to life on the US- based
CriticalMassHub.com server, until our local server's 
electricity was restored. Thanks again to Michael Bluejay of 
Austin, Texas, for the temporary web hosting. [applause] Michael, 
come on down!
We noted that, while Prague authorities normally insist cycling is 
not viable here, during the floods they warned residents to keep 
their cars out of the city centre and to walk or cycle instead (metro 
and tram service was sketchy). The result, despite the crisis, was 
a temporarily vast car-free zone and near-perfect cycling conditions 
(the best since the World Bank/IMF protests of September 2000, in 
fact). Local groups are urging the authorities to take note, prioritise 
cycling and expand the existing official car-free zone. See 
<http://www.cyklopraha.cz>.


CYCLISTS, PEDESTRIANS DELIGHT OVER EUROPEAN 
LEGISLATION
[based loosely on "Driver Fury Over Euro Cycle Laws," in The 
Observer, August 4]

British road laws may be changed to make motorists legally 
responsible for all accidents involving bicycles and pedestrians. 
European legislation, that bane of tabloid newspapers, could force 
the change, which could see accidents caused by negligent 
cyclists and walkers paid for by motorists.
Motorist organisations responded fiercely, and Britain may opt out 
of the legislation again. The legislation could put motor insurance 
up by GBP 50 (or about one percent of the average total annual 
cost of owning a car).
In Britain, drivers are presumed innocent and not liable for 
compensation unless the cyclist can prove negligence. But in 
France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Holland and Germany, drivers are 
almost always liable and must pay compensation from their 
insurance policies.
European officials believe the Europe-wide legal harmonisation 
move will make the roads safer and encourage more people to get 
on their bikes. The European Commission document says: "Motor 
vehicles cause most accidents. Whoever is responsible, 
pedestrians and cyclists usually suffer more. In some member 
states the cyclist is covered by the insurance of the vehicle 
involved in the accident irrespective of whether the driver is at
fault." The pro-cycling lobby says the law would "redress the balance" 
against "the most vulnerable road user." Supporters want motorists 
to be criminally liable for any accident involving a cyclist or 
pedestrian. "It's not the person sitting in their steel box who gets 
killed by the cyclist," said Kevin Mayne, director of national cycling 
body CTC. The law could lead to a tougher criminal process for 
drivers who injure or kill cyclists, he said.
The proposals have been drawn up by the European Commission 
and will be debated by the European Parliament in the autumn. If, 
as expected, Britain opposes the plan, it could be imposed there 
with majority support from other EU countries.


RESEARCH HELP SOUGHT + BIKE LOCKERS ENCOURAGE 
TERRORISM?
[submitted by Dave Morris, Nottingham, UK - 
Dave.Morris at nottingham.ac.uk]

Could I ask bicycle-riding subscribers to Car Busters to forward me any 
relevant information from cities around the world where trams/light 
rail operate. I'm attempting to identify all the tram and light rail 
systems which allow bikes to be carried, and the relevant rules and 
conditions imposed by the public transit company.
I am also trying to identify tram systems which use flexible rubber 
rail "fillers" to fill the top groove in the tram rail. These products
are 
potential life savers for cyclists and people using a wheelchair, as 
they prevent tyres getting trapped in the rail. However, they only 
seem to be suitable for railway crossings where speed and volume 
is low. If anyone knows a location where they are used on high- speed
and high-volume urban tram routes, I would be glad to hear 
from them...

Our current problem [in Nottingham] is that, following September 
11, a Kafka-esque security division within our Department for 
Transport (TRANSEC: TRANSport SECurity) are insisting that 
enclosed bike lockers at railway stations are a security risk. The 
theory is that bombs could be left inside. Of course, there is no 
discussion on preventing cars from parking next to these stations, 
which obviously have greater theoretical potential to transport and 
store a bomb.
Enclosed lockers are the only way that many people are happy to 
leave their bike all day/overnight. They are a relatively new idea 
here and this is a very negative development. I received an e-mail 
from Nottingham City today, confirming that the lockers MUST be 
removed. Ironically, due to the efforts of my supervisor (Hugh 
McClintock), Nottingham was one of the first rail stations in the 
country to have cycle lockers - about 15 years ago.


DISCLAIMER

Don't.

(Our translators requested that this be kept short.)


[end]

____________________________________________

CAR BUSTERS
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tel: +(420) 2-7481-0849 - fax: +(420) 2-7481-6727 <carbusters at ecn.cz> -
<http://www.carbusters.org> ____________________________________________


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