So I bunged out this tweet last night because I had a feeling that the judgement on the Streetspace case brought against the Mayor and TfL would be interesting.

And indeed it is...

Transport for London proposed during the first wave of the pandemic to adopt a 'Streetspace Plan' (though a lot of 'people called is Streetscape) and rough theory was "hang on pandemic means fewer people can be on public transport, can't let everyone move to cars, do something"
This was of course at the same time as the government changed the Network Management Duty, which was sold as a major change in guidance that would make a lot happen, very quickly.
As campaigners may well be aware, it didn't quite pan out that way on a national basis and a lot of stuff happened, and then unhappened. Quite a lot of things were done that wasn't that great. Some great stuff happened that got ripped out. And some great suff remains.
A big problem was what to do with Central London. So, the Mayor proposed a series of corridors to be made traffic free. As is usual with a Mayor it was promised to be world leading. https://t.co/vdlrd4xJ4H
In practice change was slow, but eventually a scheme was put forward for Bishopsgate on the A10 through the side of the City of London near Liverpool Street. This used a series of bus gates to create a road for buses and cycles with emergency vehicle access.
This is what the taxi trade wound up objecting to, combined with the Streetspace guidance itself. And there was a hearing last year.
Normally with a Judicial Review you don't get to see the submissions, but because TfL had their's argued against it is available in a separate judgement today along with strikethrough for the inadmissible bits. https://t.co/lwM3fK6cUk
Also published today is the main judgement itself, which lists the details on five grounds. It is lengthy, but as it is a judgement it is well written and relatively self explanatory. https://t.co/2FBv7qxUfd
Is the judgement right? Should TfL Appeal?
I think yes to both, which is contradictory but coherent in my head. Perhaps a bit like TfL's defence...

It is good to see challenges, even to things I support. We've seen back of someone today who was against courts challenging power!
The Mayor and TfL have a lot of contradictory guidance and plans. This is perhaps normal, but the essence of the judgement says to me TfL should:
- have a clear plan in Streetspace for taxis
- use equality impact assessments to help shape decisions
- document decisions better
What surprises me somewhat about this, is that TfL's weaknesses in the case are actually similar to those they had in defending CS11, when they couldn't pinpoint the decisions being made. Did they learn from this case? https://t.co/EmqWHoly2m
Anyway, it is totally coherent for me to want more walking and cycling, want more inclusive streets, and for TfL to work at improving their processes. They are as ever, imperfectly good. Most right ideas, but execution needs improving. Over to you, Mr Mayor...
...because I'm going to slump in front of a film to ignore lockdown three. (apologies for rushed thread, without much to say, the brain is only so good at the moment).

More from Government

Parents in cities, please pay attention to the reopening details from the Whitehouse.

Biden says "small classes". What we need to understand is how they plant to accomplish this.

Through "childcare programs in schools". We see this all over states w/ closed schools.


We need to grasp that the AFT, NEA, & local unions are systematically working to decouple education from childcare.

Their vision is your child sitting on a device all day, watched by a childcare worker, being "taught" from a Teacher working from

This isn't a paranoid conspiracy theory - it is already happening in the majority of districts across the US where schools are closed.

"Learning Hubs" open, supervised by childcare workers, sometimes in the same "unsafe" school

There is NO OTHER WAY to get "small classes" without Hybrid + wraparound childcare. Your child will spend 2-3 days per WEEK supervised by low wage workers and sitting on a laptop.

Here's

Fairfax,
Typically excellent piece from @dsquareddigest The exponential insight is especially neat. Think of it a little like fishing...today you can’t export oysters to the EU (because you simply aren’t allowed to), tomorrow you don’t have a fish exporting business (to the EU).


The extremely small minority of people who known anything about this who think that Brexit will be good for the City make a number of arguments which I shall address in turn...

1. They need us more than we need them. This is a variant of the German carmakers argument. And we know how that went...Business will follow the profit opportunity and if that has moved then so will the business...

And what do we mean by us / we. We’re not talking about massed ranks of Euro investing / trading etc blue blooded British institutions.

Au contraire. We’re talking about the London based subs of US, Asian and indeed European capital markets players...As soon as they think the profit opportunity has moved then so will they...it’s a market innit...

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