FairTrade, pollution, and ... bronchs

When FairTrade started it seemed a bit of a joke.  Now it competes in the marketplace of goods, and in the marketplace of ideas.

Their first offerings of tea were a bit rough, rather like drinking brewed straw, but now products are excellent.  I especially appreciate the quality of wine, coffee, and chocolate.

When it comes to reducing pollution by cycling, it is too easy to think that our efforts are insignificant but they do make a cumulative difference.  What might appear token begins to affect change.  And there is change.

New roads include cycle tracks.  Cities are evolving cycle-friendly infrastructure.  Disused railway tracks are converted into cycleways.  But as yet radical design is unsupported.

We desperately need ideas like SkyCycle and the bronchs to be built now.

I wish,
Elder Adok

Kings Cross to Victoria in 15 pollution free mins

Getting across London can be tediously slow.  Either we burrow underground and melt in the humid heat, or we breath in particulates as we walk, cycle, or drive.  Imagine a practical alternative of reducing pollution by cycling inside fresh air bronchs.

London's Kings Cross looking up
© Darrell Godliman

It would only take 15 minutes of fascinating views to travel from Kings Cross to Victoria.  The passage is highlighted in Brighton Evening which is a chapter from a futuristic but realistic novel.

Virtually every week we hear news of a major city having to take drastic action to reduce suffocating pollution.  If we fly into many cities we are greeted by a whimper of yellow haze.  Imagine clean cycleways (not coloured tracks) designed specifically for uninterrupted travel in clean air.  They would not be heavy structures and could easily plumb into existing infrastructure.

All it needs is the imagination, and political action.  We lack both, but spread the idea!

Here's to true cycling liberation,
Elder Adok