Sustaining the Momentum

However, it's not just the young, fit people that benefit - the elderly, the very young, the disabled - everyone gains access to very cheap, clean and sociable independent mobility. Even if you're a total sceptic when it comes to climate issues, the benefits of active travel infrastructure are obvious.

 This is a great article on how streets in America transformed from the domain of the pedestrian to the racetrack of the automobile in the 20th Century through lobbying by the automobile industry. Although many countries are now undoing the decades of compromises in city design to accommodate the car, there is plenty more to be done.

This is a great video showing junction design examples in the Netherlands, and how a holistic approach to cycling and walking infrastructure across entire urban areas can create safe and pleasant spaces for both motorists and vulnerable road users, while providing short junction waiting times and honouring desire lines of all road users.

"Transport poverty" is the habitual use of unsuitable public and private transport solutions due to the failure of the transport system's design to accommodate sustainable and active solutions such as cycling and walking. The (Alternative) Department for Transport blog shows how the UK's shockingly bad state of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure makes for crowded cities and impoverished transport options.

Interesting article by the BBC on how the rise of motorised private cars restricted pedestrians' right to the road in the United States. In the UK, there is no law forbidding crossing the road in any place, but the Highway Code (Rules for Pedestrians) advises pedestrians to cross at crossings if possible, or to use a place where they can clearly see in all directions if not. Pedestrians are of course forbidden on motorways and special roads.

The United Kingdom should take some tips from this mentality of prioritising streets as places to live and not through-routes - we would benefit massively as a result.

The great local roads researcher Wesley Johnson has released a new book on the 1960s plans of the NI Government for a Belfast Urban Motorway, and looks at the social and transport effects it had. The BUM (what an acronym) lives on today as the A12 Westlink, though it's only a shadow of the ambitious (but reckless in hindsight) plans of the '60s.

A great video by Network Rail explaining the basics of switches and crossings on the UK rail network.

The History of the London Overground - a short video explaining the basics of the LO. It is essentially an infomercial for Transport for London but it's quite interesting.

Belfast's cycling community often jokes about how our cycle lanes often give way to anything and everything, and often to nothing, but I'm fairly sure that this claims the prize of "shortest length of cycle lane before having to give way".