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Heathrow growth is focus of climate-change protests
Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
No flights are disrupted, but the weeklong camp outside the airport shows how increasingly vocal the movement is becoming in Britain.
—
Heathrow is the granddaddy of European airport nightmares, legendary for its long lines and lost luggage. But the hundreds of protesters who descended on the airport’s administrative headquarters Sunday weren’t furious passengers demanding better service, but climate change activists seeking to block expansion of the beleaguered facility.
In a daylong action that did not live up to fears that it would disrupt operations at Europe’s largest airport, hundreds of activists marched through this small village slated to become the site of Heathrow’s third runway. A smaller group clashed with police and was eventually surrounded when it attempted to encircle the headquarters of Heathrow’s private operator, BAA.
The greatest show of force was a midday parade through this village’s streets — shadowed by Heathrow’s lumbering jets overhead — as demonstrators carried placards reading, “No Third Runway,” “Altitude Sickness” and one of the catchier slogans of modern protest, “We Are Armed Only With Peer-Reviewed Science.”
More than 1,800 police officers, some in riot gear, surrounded the perimeter of the airport and scuffled periodically with protesters as they faced off outside BAA headquarters. Six people had been arrested by Sunday night, bringing the total number arrested during the week to about 40. None of the demonstrators entered the airport terminals.
The weeklong protest outside Heathrow highlights the momentum of climate change activism in Britain, where reducing carbon emissions has come to dominate public discourse.
(20 August 2007)
The protest seems to be getting more publicity in the online media.
Related: A different kind of turbulence (Leader in the Guardian).
Australian public transport users unite in call for federal funds
Public Transport Users Associations
Public transport users from around Australia have united to urge federal government funding for public transport, citing major economic, health and environmental benefits to be gained from improved alternatives to the car.
In a report prepared for public transport user groups around Australia, it was found that:
· public transport makes a significant contribution to minimising congestion costs for business;
· greater use of public transport would help to rein in Australia’s ballooning oil import bill;
· shifting journeys to walking, cycling and public transport would reduce Australia’s rapidly rising road transport emissions; and
· reduced car dependence would make Australians healthier, making them more productive in the workplace and cutting the burden on our health system.
The report, Moving Australians Sustainably, also found that national governments across the developed world make significant investments in public transport. Although the Australian government spends billions of dollars each year on local, urban, regional and interstate roads, it currently claims that public transport is the sole responsibility of state governments.
“Arbitrarily ruling out federal funding for public transport leads to cities that are dirtier, more congested, less healthy, less sustainable and more vulnerable to rising oil prices,” said Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) President Daniel Bowen. “Quite simply it’s bad public policy.” ..
The report is available as PDF, 740Kb.
(16 Aug 2007)
Very limited media coverage, and thats despite the ultra-moderate and non-accusatory tone of the PTUA’s report. They might as well have said what they really think about the federal governments flat refusal to support public transport.-LJ
Legal quiz on £5.5m rail platform
BBC
Wales’s disability rights commissioner is taking legal advice on whether the absence of a lift at a rail station’s £5.5m new platform breaks the law.
Network Rail is paying cabbies £3 to ferry passengers with mobility problems from other parts of Newport station to platform four. ..
However, [Disability Rights Commissioner] Dr Fitzpatrick is now seeking legal opinion on whether the platform, as a new development, is breaking disability discrimination laws.
“What’s driving this is the needs of golfers, not the needs of ordinary customers,” he said. He added: “Throughout Wales there are lots and lots of people who’d travel by train if they could. “It certainly ignores them and excludes them and means that they are second class in terms of any provision that the station is going to be able to give to them.” ..
(19 Aug 2007)
Buses threaten strike if trams get the green light
Jacqueline Theodoulou, Cyprus Mail
THE INTRODUCTION of a tram system to Nicosia is on the table again, much to the displeasure of bus and taxi drivers across the capital.
Bus drivers have in fact threatened that if such an idea is even considered, they will go on an indefinite strike in September.
But the Mayor of Strovolos, Savvas Eliofotou, who is against the idea of a tram system for the time being, said this was an idea that always came up during discussions over the island’s appalling public transport system.
“Every time a transport problem crops up, the idea to introduce the tram appears,” Eliofotou told the Cyprus Mail. “But there are so many simpler things that can be done before something like the tram is imported. Such as upgrading the existing transportation system and creating a system for school pupils. Have you noticed that when schools are closed, the transport situation suddenly improves?”
(Aug 2007)
Inspectors told to stay away
Stephen Moynihan, The Age
The public don’t like them much, but it seems even Yarra Trams executives would sooner avoid their own ticket inspectors.
Sources have told The Age that inspectors were told not to patrol trams serving the city or St Kilda Road on Thursday night.
Why? Yarra Trams chief executive Dennis Cliche was entertaining board members and visiting company heads from parent company Transdev in France and the party would be taking the tram to see a concert. The inspectors were not amused. One said it appeared Mr Cliche was ashamed of his own staff. ..
(18 Aug 2007)
