Links

1. Ten Year Transport Plan, found here, was, of course, “dead” by 2004, but managed to sruggle on and had only “Failed” by 2008. It’s well worth looking at the plans/targets in the introduction (e.g. Rail investment, congestion targets etc) and thinking about whether they’ve been achieved.

2. National Road Pricing was floated in 2005. There’s an excellent 24-page briefing here (it won’t take you that long to skim through, honest), and Friends of The Earth have a document about it here (pdf). I haven’t read it; let me know how it is. Plenty more out there on teh interwebs.

3. World’s fastest train is now in China. Best line of the video: “airlines are already reducing their prices to compete”. does the large distance make it more worthwhile than UK? Not sure. But China will have 13,000 km more high speed line in the next 3 years. Astonishing.

4. This is an interesting little website which shows you the pollution effects of a journey by different modes of transport. Check out your greenhouse gasses.

5. Nice pointers for AO4 skills here, from the BBC’s “Ethical Man”. Instead of looking at his blog as asking “Are busses greener than cars?”, think of it as “under what circumstances are busses greener than cars?”. Definitely worth a read.

6. Meanwhile, also on the BBC, from a few moths ago, is a look at whether trains have got better over the last decade or so.

And having mentioned Hybrid cars recently, are they worth the effort. Slate looks at their green credentials in this article and discussion (from last year).