Going backwards on Castle Street

Just when you think we might be making progress here in Cardiff, the council goes and undoes it with a daft consultation that didn’t need to take place.

After enjoying the serenity of no through traffic on Castle Street, the council has decided to turn it back into a traffic sewer.

A recommendation to reopen the street, which was closed to help food and drink businesses remain viable during the height of the pandemic last year, will be brought before Cardiff Council’s Cabinet at its next meeting on Thursday, June17.

Two Lanes on Castle Street to re-open to general traffic

The amount of work campaigners have had to put in this past decade to get the council to at least address the climate emergency; air quality issues and the safety of its citizens is vastly disproportionate to the amount of work required to undo it all —a single survey.

That’s it, I’m out.

I’d say it appears to be a retrograde step (caveat I haven’t seen the decision reports etc) and the fact that over 55s strongly in favour of reopening and under 35s not says a lot about the future we need to be building

— Sophie Howe (@sophiehowe) June 12, 2021

I think the time has come to move to higher ground. Councils in Wales aren’t trying to avert a catastrophe, they’re steering and accelerating towards it.

You don’t change the future by leaving the present the way it is. The council elections are next year. It’s another opportunity to elect representatives who have a vested interest in leaving the world in a better state than they found it.

Update…

Somehow, this story actually gets worse.

Cardiff council will use £300,000 of ‘clean air funding’ to make a road wider and the pavement narrower on a city centre street.

Cardiff is using Clean Air funds to reopen one of city’s most polluted streets to cars and shrink the pavement – Wales Online

I can’t do this any more. You can only bang your head against a brick wall before you start to forget why you are doing it. Humankind’s finished. Enjoy the apocalypse.