"Catastrophe of Brexit" So good to hear this used regularly and normalised

Why cut fuel duty? I still walk past idling vehicles. This would suggest fuel is still very very cheap. I don't leave my taps running.

@richardparkerwm.bsky.social Sadiq is creating a path you must follow. London is the blueprint

Every day when I walk to Kings Heath High Street with the pushchair I encounter this. Terrible parking and driving. This is why walking is so dreadful.

The film City of Cars is a harrowing view into Birmingham's car dominated streets. This weeks podcast, I talk with the film's maker @sarahchaundler.bsky.social about what went in to making it. betterstreetsforbirmingham.org/ep-10-city-o... #birmingham #westmids

On 9 June, join me & @yosra999.bsky.social for a conversation with authors @sgoodyear.bsky.social & @brooklynspoke.bsky.social about Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile. With Azbah Ansari, Sadok Damak, @reenamahajan.bsky.social, & Gabriela García Portuondo.

Elasticity of demand, is now a good time to reduce public transport prices in UK to get folks out of cars? Or are they too bought in to their cars? Wonder if a £2 bus fare cap could create a surplus and have longer term benefits on car use?

@heidialexander.bsky.social great you saw Kings Heath. Walking and cycling is also an alternative to the car. Birmingham is the most deprived ICB in the country. Access to free cycling and walking, could improves health at lower costs that any drug. Richard and Majid talk the talk, but.......

Unlike deaths on the road, which are typically dismissed as an unavoidable price we pay for being able to drive around, air crashes in the 70s led to the industry and governments working together to make air travel massively safer, as it is today.

While we're talking road safety in Birmingham @richardparkerwm.bsky.social @cllrjohncotton.bsky.social come on, let's agree you've failed to get to grips with road safety. It's not my job to be on top of this. It's yours.

You'll note Manchester in this list. But not Birmingham. @richardparkerwm.bsky.social knows poor road safety and dense traffic drains an economy of productivity Want to know why Manchester is the city on the up? 👇🏼. They have good leadership

In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan brags that road deaths in London are lower than nearly every other European city In Birmingham @richardparkerwm.bsky.social and @cllrjohncotton.bsky.social will shake their heads, wring their hands and give you every reason why Brummies have to accept road violence

@richardparkerwm.bsky.social your move.

In England a driver can be speeding, using cannabis and a phone, overtake another vehicle, mount the pavement outside a school playground and kill a 4-year-old girl while uninsured — and receive just 3 years 10 months for causing death by careless driving. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Really struggling with Trumps actions right now. I'm against Imperialism BUT I'd love The Netherlands to buy the UK and inflict their way of living on us 😂

Phone notifications should notify you, not the entire office / bus / train / café....

Re-upping this today given some of the replies I’ve been getting to my other posts.

How does the UK’s health compare? Researchers at LSHTM recently answered this by comparing age-standardised mortality rates (ASMR) across countries. This placed the UK 4th worst for females and 6th worst for males, out of 20. Surprisingly, UK does better than Netherlands (F) and Denmark (M).

Full write-up: medium.com/healthfdn-da... Our account of the LSTHM research exploring why UK's mortality is higher than comparator countries: www.health.org.uk/reports-and-...

🌹 Prime Minister 🌹 MP 🌹 Mayor 🌹 Police Crime Commissioner 🌹 City Council 🌹 Ward Councillors In May, Labour are going to have to find someone to blame for zero progress in Birmingham on road safety and car reduction..... @brumgreens.bsky.social

Steve McCabe wasn't right, but Birmingham politicians can't prove him wrong. Birmingham City Council has had 6 years to fully implement the LTN in Kings Heath - and is failing. The consequence is driving is as dominant as ever. London and Paris have made progress since 2020, Birmingham has not

The average IQ of both parties just went up.

When I think of Governments being misleading, I'm more drawn to: Cameron and Boris and Brexit Cameron saying we needed austerity Thatcher saying the economy is like a household economy Anything Farage says Reeves doesn't even come close to this lot

This is the lighting I'd love to see in York Rd, Kings Heath

You could - perhaps - have justified a few years of a freeze or even come up with some kind of stabiliser that linked to other transport costs or investment. But what have we achieved from freezing fuel duty for fifteen years? Do we have huge growth from it? Has it held down inflation? (No, no)

Hehe x

Do you trust car manufacturers to tell the truth about the #Health & environmental impacts of their cars? 63% of British adults don't. Where illegal activity is shown by the #Dieselgate trial, the Government needs to enforce recalls, paid for by manufacturers. @clientearth.bsky.social

The killer in this case should never be allowed to drive again. But why are the people who design our roads to keep producing this result never held to any account?

Kings Heath High Street daily scenario: I'm on a bus with (I'm estimating here) 50 or 60 people on it, being held up by about 50 or 60 single occupancy vehicles. So we're all moving at 4mph. The positive effects of the high street carrying two buses moving at 10mph are huge. Huge.

Is there an economic analysis from a reputable source to understand the costs and expected momentary impacts of Labour's relentless migration strategies? Has OBR commented?

All this talk of Birmingham being more like London, this 👇🏼 is the London-like behaviour I hope Brum is able to mimic

I'm really hoping for @zackpolanski.bsky.social to announce "of course there is such thing as society". Time to end the competition and division between individuals and start to create better, more connected, more inclusive communities.

James May just did an entire bike episode, including a cargo bike for groceries!

Please support my petition, Marina. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

When cyclists are blamed for not wearing high-viz, just remember this advertisement for the 2.5 tonne all-terrain vehicle by Land Rover Ideally suited for the school run 🙄

We cannot take this for granted …

Read this and tell me that LTNs in two wards in South Birmingham are a problem.

I dunno, convert some of the endless paved space reserved for cars into green space that can absorb water, maybe? Sorry, forget it. That could result in a car owner being inconvenienced, which would of course be far worse than the flooding of our cities and towns.

I wish Labour were as committed to good stuff as they were to bad stuff

Word on the street is that there are a bunch of new folks joining Bluesky right now, so it seems like a good time to re-share my first & biggest STARTER PACK of urbanists & city-making organizations from across the world. Hope you’ll consider following the excellent accounts here. And please share!

Because Reform are the party of "true patriots"... www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8...

Hello and welcome to all our new followers! Please do sign up to our newsletter to stay in touch with the latest air pollution news, find out about our campaigns and how you can get involved.

New data shows just £1.5 million was given to councils in England in the past year to tackle air pollution – down from a high of £225 million in 2021 @bylinetimes.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2025/11/21/t...

Compare and contrast the Government language. £3,750 EV grant on a £35k car: ‘helping families’. Cycle to Work: ‘subsidising leisure’. And yet cycling delivers TEN TIMES the impact of electric cars for reaching net zero. It’s almost like narrative, not data, is driving policy.

Gill-ty as charged. I wonder if Nigel Farage will be giving a press conference on this one?

We await your response Mr Farage

Has Nigel Farage or Zia Yusuf remembered who Nathan Gill is yet? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Car Size xkcd.com/3167/

Anyone else expecting Labour's Road Safety Plan to consist of a focus of drivers born outside UK, and putting leaflets in supermarkets telling drivers to be more careful.