Greenwash corner

Cyclist- and pedestrian-hating Westminster Council has come up with a new gimmick, which will allow local residents to rent cars:

The council has spent almost £200,000 on the project, £50,000 of which has been given by Transport for London. Councillor Danny Chalkley, Westminster's city management chief, said: “The launch of our car club marks a historic step towards the evolution of the way motorists travel within our capital and offers an environmentally friendly improvement to London's pressured transport system.”

Which is complete crap. There is nothing ‘environmentally friendly’ about any of the high-speed/petrol-guzzling cars in the scheme. Councils which involve themselves with ‘car club’ schemes could insist that the cars in the scheme should have a maximum speed limit of 20 mph, perfectly adequate for Greater London.

And how about this for classic ‘bad science’:

Latest research shows that for every car club vehicle made available, up to 20 people will give up their private cars.

This is classic flat earth news based on a press release by those involved in promoting this profit-centered scheme. There is not a scrap of hard evidence that car clubs lead to reduced car ownership or use. I’ve blogged about this crap before, here.