Pedestrian Liberation

Parking Douche!

Check out Parking Douche and watch their video here which explains how it all works:

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Categories actions, good news
Author Peter Miller

#Waitrose trash their own verge?

I recently noticed that Waitrose had parked one of their home-delivery vans on the verge right outside the entrance to their own Saxmundham store. I wonder if they always do that, and if that is why the verge has turned to mud? There is a huge message on side of the van which talks about being responsible, which they are not being really. Then there is another which reads ‘we shop like you shop’ however I don’t think that should give them the right to park like the most selfish of their customers! I can only assume that they just hate the idea of loosing a single parking space in their large car park, but I wonder if they said they would do that on their planning application?!

Needless to say it is illegal to park on the verge next to double yellow lines (unless they are fake lines as they were claimed to be at the Mercedes garage in Ipswich).

Showing the Waitrose van and their large car park and store beyond

Waitrose apparently trash the verge outside their own store

I wonder if their will respond to this post when they see it on twitter?

Tags: saxmundham, verge parking, waitrose

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Bad company, verges
Author Peter Miller

Inspiration from Bogotá, Columbia

11 May

Policy makers around the world have been paying a lot of attention to the transport changes that have taken place in Bogotá, Columbia over the past decade or so, many of which were initiated by their remarkable Mayor from 1998-2001, Enrique Peñalosa who managed to reorient the city away from the car and towards public transport, cycling and walking. Here are some my favorite quotes from the man:

“Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.”
“We need to walk, just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need beauty. We need contact with nature. And most of all, we need not to be excluded. We need to feel some sort of equality.”
“A bikeway is a symbol that shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as a citizen on a $30,000 car.”
“If we’re going to talk about transport, I would say that the great city is not the one that has highways, but one where a child on a tricycle or bicycle can go safely everywhere.”
“One symbol of lack of democracy is to have cars parked on the sidewalk.”

And here he is explaining what he did and why:

This Streetfilm documentary explains how the bike free days work:

And this piece from the New York Times explains their clever bus rapid transit system work:

Simple really, almost child’s play, but it seems to be far out of reach for ‘developed’ countries. What exactly do we mean by the word ‘developed’ I wonder? I am reminded of how Gandhi responded when asked what he though about ‘Western Civilisation’, saying that he thought that ‘it would be a good idea’.

Tags: Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, sustainable transport

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Categories good news, policy
Author Peter Miller

Heroes, motorists and parking places

1 May

The BBC published an article earlier today asking ‘Is there a worldwide parking problem’ in response to a piece of research published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the article they talk about all the cunning ways one can park 600 million cars in a smaller space that at present, or just change the colour of the car park so that the surface doesn’t get so hot.

Unfortunately they (and the report) doesn’t address the question of why so many people drive in the first place, how demand can be reduced. No mention of car clubs, public transport, cycling or simply charging drivers for the spaces they use rather than just providing spaces for free. The BBC gives Bluewater, which provides 13,000 free parking places ‘right next to the M25′, as an example of good practice because they have lots of tree shade. The architect of the Bluewater car parks is quoted as saying “[car parks] should be designed in such a way that they “honour the heroic routine” of driving, working and shopping.”

Heroes, driving, shopping? Now this is getting seriously weird!

They also make no mention of the dramatic reductions in car traffic in many UK cities since about 1995 or the impressive drop in parking demand in Canary Wharf recently; in the late 1990s 12% of workers in Canary Wharf ‘demanded‘ parking spaces, but now only half that number do. I am not sure why This is London uses the phrase ‘demand’; I could ‘demand’ more cycle racks or free bus travel and nothing would change! But I guess heroes can demand anything.

Anyway… I have written to the BBC with my views and will see if I get any sort of response.

Tags: bbc, bias, parking

Comments 8 Comments
Categories infrastructure
Author Peter Miller

Anyone for a burger?

6 Apr

A while back I blogged about the ‘toilet van’ that is regularly parked across a pavement near where I live. The latest arrival is a burger trailer which now appears to have taken up permanent residence half on/half off a pavement on a road close to a local shop which is used by over 1,000 pedestrians a day during term-time. I wrote to the local police a few weeks ago asking them to do something about this, and to various other very badly parked vehicles with no response – and the trailer is still there. In case anyone is interested, authorities have the power to remove “any structure [that] has been erected or set up on a highway“, including “any machine, pump, post or other object of such a nature as to be capable of causing obstruction notwithstanding that it is on wheels”.(Highways Act 1980 Section 143)

Burger trailer being illegally 'stored' half on the pavement

Tags: highways act 1980, obstruction, pavement, section 143, structures

Comments 4 Comments
Categories structures
Author Peter Miller

Not-so-Smart cars at Mercedes Ipswich?

28 Mar

Mercedes of Ipswich provide their customers with delightful messages about the ways they will be able to park their new acquisitions when they get them home, particularly their ‘not-so-Smart’ cars. I spoke to one of their managers about it, expressing amazement at how they were flaunting just about every parking regulation going; he responded by explaining that they painted the lines themselves on their own property and that none of them had any legal weight, he also explained that “no one walked there anyway”! Personally I think they should be sending out much more responsible messages.

Not-so-Smart cars lined up on 'pavement'

More cars on the 'pavement'

A pedestrian cops it, and you just can't fit two smart cars in one space!

Ouch! another the pedestrian bites the dust

Tags: bad parking, Mercedes

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Bad company
Author Peter Miller

Can we help Tesco help themselves?

24 Mar

Tesco appear to need help, and I am not talking about their ‘ shock profits warning‘ last week after which their UK boss quit; I am referring to a phone conversation I had with them yesterday following a complaint I had made in which they assured me that Tesco require all drivers to abide by all laws, including all motoring laws at all times. Now this is very interesting because rule 145 in the Highway Code which reads “You MUST NOT drive on or over a pavement, footpath or bridleway except to gain lawful access to property, or in the case of an emergency” with a penalty of £500 for each offense (Highways Act 1835 section 72). They assured me that they never allow their staff to break this law!

HA1835 S72 has of course been almost completely ignored. A FOI request I made on the Suffolk police last year showed that they had only prosecuted 6 people county wide for this offense during 2009, which included prosecuting kids for riding motorbikes on heaths and bridleways etc. They were not able to identify the circumstances of each incident and I suspect that none related to people parking vehicles on pavements. What I have did notice while researching this post was an article in the Daily Mail which claimed that ‘only’ seventeen cyclists were prosecuted for cycling on the pavement in London in 2008 (which the DM thought though was way too low of course).

The police tell me that it is impossible to prosecute pavement parkers using HA1835 S27 because they would need to wait and gather evidence as to who was actually doing the driving. Technical advances have of course come to the rescue, and suddenly most of us carry the necessary evidence gathering equipment with us all the time; phone/cameras proved crucial following the London riots, and also resulted in the conviction of a police officer for the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 riots. I see no reason why we can’t use them for our purposes now.

I think we need a test case; a quick internet search shows that many people are upset about Tesco driving (and parking) on pavements and also littering pavements generally; and that is without even getting into the wider issues relating to their size and business practices. Are they a suitable target for our purposes? I use the word ‘target’ deliberately, because I think we need to focus on a single large public company that disregards the law every day all across the country and make an example of them that they, and others, cannot ignore. We could of course choose any of the delivery companies (DHL, TNT etc) who are equally bad, however I think Tesco are the best one for us, especially given their assurances that they always obey all laws! Please let me know what you think in the comments section? Will you be able to help by gathering video of local examples? Fyi, we have been offered the support of a powerful environmental law company with this campaign and they should be able to help out along the way with this particular project.

Finally, here are some photos. The first two are from the Daily Mail who campaign vigorously when it comes to riding bicycles on the pavements, as in this example where they even quote the highway code rule ‘You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement’ in virtually the first sentence! However.. they don’t even mention that both of these Tesco vans have broken the highway code in a similar manner and that the first has completely blocked the pavement!