Category: Transport

Save the Woodhead Tunnel demo

This year we have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-open the Wood­head rail line.

Join the Save the Wood­head Tun­nel Cam­paign in demand­ing the Gov­ern­ment hold to their promis­es on sus­tain­able trans­port and cli­mate change and re-open this his­toric and impor­tant line.

http://savethewoodheadtunnel.blogspot.com/

This year we have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-open the Wood­head rail line.

Join the Save the Wood­head Tun­nel Cam­paign in demand­ing the Gov­ern­ment hold to their promis­es on sus­tain­able trans­port and cli­mate change and re-open this his­toric and impor­tant line.

http://savethewoodheadtunnel.blogspot.com/
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?f=q&hl=en&time=&date=&ttype=&ie=UTF8&cd=2&geocode=0,53.495117,-1.830297&om=1&msa=0&msid=100950118038398329239.000441a586b51a597a528&ll=53.478239,-1.897888&spn=0.122593,0.274658&z=11&source=embed
www.climatecamp.org.uk

Cycle from Had­field, meet train sta­tion, mid­day

Time: Sat­ur­day 2nd August 2008, 2pm
Place: Wood­head Tun­nel, West­ern entrance (click here for a map, or see below)

Cam­paign­ers work­ing to ‘Save the Wood­head Tun­nel’ are to hold a demon­stra­tion call­ing for the Gov­ern­ment to re-open the his­toric Wood­head line.

Locals argue the reopened Wood­head rail­way line would help reduce trans­port green­house gas emis­sions and the demon­stra­tion is timed to coin­cide with the nation­al Cli­mate Camp to be held at Kingsnorth Pow­er sta­tion in August.

Local activists argue the re-opened line would relieve con­ges­tion on local roads, boost the local econ­o­my and open up the area to tourists. The future of the tun­nel has been in doubt since Nation­al Grid began rout­ing cables through it ear­li­er this year. Cam­paign­ers have received assur­ances from Sec­re­tary of State Ruth Kel­ly that the tun­nel will only be pre­served for rail use after 2010 IF the case is made for the route to be re-opened.

A spokesper­son says:

“Here in Long­den­dale it’s all too obvi­ous what’s wrong with the government’s trans­port pol­i­cy. The A628,a road that pass­es through the Peak Dis­trict Nation­al Park, is clogged with cars and heavy good vehi­cles, whilst planes from Man­ches­ter Air­port spew out green­house gas­es over­head. Mean­while one of the most mod­ern rail­way tun­nels in Britain stands emp­ty.

We demand a sus­tain­able trans­port pol­i­cy with freight tak­en off the road and onto the rail­way and com­muters tak­ing the train rather than the plane. We want trains through the Wood­head Tun­nel again!”

The demon­stra­tion will include a sam­ba band, pic­nic and speak­ers and coin­cides with the Camp for Cli­mate Action which is to be held from 3rd-11th August at the coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Kingsnorth, Kent.

Wher­ev­er you are, please join us for the demo — we are espe­cial­ly keen to hear from peo­ple on the oth­er side of the Pen­nines who wish to set up their own group. You are all wel­come.

savethewoodheadtunnel@gmail.com

I‑69 Protesters Shut Down Asphalt Yard Again, Arrestees Face Severe Repression

Fif­teen I‑69 oppo­nents were arrest­ed Mon­day morn­ing (15/7/2008) block­ing the entrance to Gohmann Asphalt, and need your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Many of them are being held on trumped up felony charges, and some of the female-bod­ied arrestees have been put in exceed­ing­ly unsafe sit­u­a­tions.

Fif­teen I‑69 oppo­nents were arrest­ed Mon­day morn­ing (15/7/2008) block­ing the entrance to Gohmann Asphalt, and need your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Many of them are being held on trumped up felony charges, and some of the female-bod­ied arrestees have been put in exceed­ing­ly unsafe sit­u­a­tions. As of this time they are still chang­ing the charges on the fly, and we have been unable to bail out peo­ple with seri­ous med­ical con­di­tions. We are doing our best to make sure every­one is safe and get every­one out, but we need mon­ey. Any lit­tle bit helps! Dona­tions can be made through our Pay­pal account on stopi69.wordpress.com

or to the I69 Legal Office, 323 S Wal­nut, Bloom­ing­ton, Indi­ana, 47401

Peo­ple who have been call­ing the jail con­stant­ly and demand­ing humane treat­ment of the arrestees have done a great ser­vice, but at this point stop­ping those calls would make the job of the legal sup­port team sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er as we try to keep lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open between us, the arrestees, and the jail/D.A.’s office. THANKS!

****

This morn­ing, over 20 cit­i­zens opposed to the con­struc­tion of Inter­state 69 shut down work at the Haub­stadt Asphalt Yard belong­ing to Gohmann Asphalt & Con­struc­tion, Inc. Five of the oppo­nents locked them­selves togeth­er in a cir­cle at the yard’s gate, accom­pa­nied by five oth­ers ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing them as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble in the face of sum­mer heat and the threat of police vio­lence. With con­struc­tion slat­ed to begin this week, oppo­nents are demand­ing that Gohmann imme­di­ate­ly drop their con­tract for work on I‑69. Addi­tion­al­ly they demand that Gohmann and their accom­plices, River­ton Truck­ing, Inc., drop a spu­ri­ous civ­il suit brought against the only I‑69 oppo­nent arrest­ed at a pre­vi­ous lock-down at Gohmann Asphalt’s Haub­stadt facil­i­ty.

Gohmann A&C is the pri­ma­ry con­trac­tor with the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion for the con­struc­tion of the first 1.77 miles of Sec­tion 1 of the pro­posed high­way from Evans­ville to Indi­anapo­lis. Sev­er­al weeks pri­or, five oppo­nents chained them­selves to a truck leav­ing Haub­stadt Asphalt Yard belong­ing to Gohmann Asphalt & Con­struc­tion, Inc.. The five—accompanied by twen­ty-five supporters—demanded that Gohmann drop their con­tract with INDOT or face con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion and work stop­pages. Until Gohmann drops its con­tract, oppo­nents will con­tin­ue to hold them account­able for the evic­tions of farm­ers, the dis­rup­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, and the dev­as­ta­tion of the envi­ron­ment caused by I‑69.

I‑69 has been hot­ly con­test­ed for almost two decades, with voic­es raised against its part in the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, the eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty of South­ern Indi­ana com­mu­ni­ties, and the vio­la­tion of Hoosiers’ prop­er­ty rights. Although over 70% of Indi­ana res­i­dents are opposed to the road, the gov­er­nor and cor­po­rate inter­ests are ram­ming I‑69 down the throats of South­ern Indi­ana res­i­dents in a com­plete sub­ver­sion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.

Over 400 fam­i­lies will be dis­placed in South­ern Indi­ana; thou­sands of acres of farm­land, wet­lands, and wildlife refuge will be paved over; and the already-pol­lut­ed tri-state area will face thou­sands of pounds of increased dai­ly emis­sions from the increased truck traf­fic through the region. The inter­state is ulti­mate­ly intend­ed to stretch from Cana­da to Mex­i­co, link­ing up with an exten­sive net­work of roads being con­struct­ed there. The high­way is a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of NAFTA and oth­er free trade agree­ments through­out the Americas—the same free trade agree­ments that have cost 31,000 jobs in Indi­ana alone since their begin­nings in 1994.

“This road is being billed as an eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus for South­ern Indi­ana, but in fact it will only bring min­i­mum wage jobs at truck stops and fast food joints. Mean­while, all the oth­er jobs are shipped to sweat­shops fur­ther and fur­ther south of the bor­der. The peo­ple of Indi­ana deserve bet­ter,” said Judith May­land, a pro­tes­tor at the site.

Var­i­ous cit­i­zens’ groups have opposed I‑69 for two decades, but with con­struc­tion start­ing this week, oppo­nents are step­ping up the resis­tance in order to ensure that the will of the peo­ple is enact­ed.

“We’ve writ­ten let­ters, attend­ed pub­lic meet­ings, and vot­ed, and despite mas­sive oppo­si­tion they’re still try­ing to build this road,” one of the locked-down oppo­nents said. “They haven’t lis­tened and they haven’t lis­tened. Now it’s time to lay our bod­ies on the line so that they final­ly get it that when we say ‘No road!’ we mean ‘No f***king road!’”

for more info vis­it stopi69.wordpress.com

****

Legal Update on Gohmann Actions and Ensu­ing Repres­sion

West Coast Climate Convergence; Canning and trainings and glitter, oh my!

August 12th, 2008

West Coast climate lock-onAugust 12th, 2008
From July 28 — Aug. 4th over 400 peo­ple gath­ered on a pes­ti­cide-free farm in Coburg, Ore­gon to learn, share, orga­nize and net­work. Work­shops and keynotes cov­ered issues from the I‑5 bridge expan­sion (Colum­bia Riv­er Cross­ing) to grow­ing veg­ta­bles year-around. The week high­light­ed fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment projects through­out the West, and then cre­at­ed a space for peo­ple to learn the skills need­ed to fight them.

The phrase direct action has been invoked in many ways for many move­ments. Often, in the cli­mate move­ment it is used to describe non-vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that direct­ly con­front and seek to phys­i­cal­ly halt fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment projects, such as lock-downs to equip­ment and road block­ades. At this year’s West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, we spoke of direct action as not only tak­ing action against dirty fos­sil fuel projects, but also tak­ing action for com­mu­ni­ty solu­tions and sus­tain­abil­i­ty!

The week led up to a day of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence on Mon­day, which con­sist­ed of two major acts of dis­rup­tion, street the­ater and ral­lies. It was awe­some to learn about the details of pro­posed dirty ener­gy projects, then hear the per­son­al sto­ries from impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing them, and then final­ly orga­nize and take action in the efforts to stop them.

The first action tar­get­ed the I‑5 expan­sion due to pro­posed increase indi­vid­ual car and truck traf­fic, which would increase neg­a­tive health issue in sur­round­ing areas, increase green­house gas emis­sions, and dri­ve depen­den­cy on oil. Maya, who learned her climb­ing skills at the con­ver­gence, climbed across a promi­nent Port­land bridge drop­ping a ban­ner that read, “6 more lanes = more sick peo­ple, no I‑5 expan­sion”. Below her, con­ver­gence atten­dees per­formed the­ater involv­ing huge card­board bum­mers, as well as hero­ic bicy­clists.

The ral­ly then moved along the water­front to the head­quar­ters of North­west Nat­ur­al Gas Co., a com­pa­ny who would own and oper­ate new pipelines pro­posed through Ore­gon asso­ci­at­ed with Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG). In front of the build­ing three young women locked them­selves to each oth­er, block­ing the entrance to the build­ing while lead­ing chants. The group sang, “Palo­mar is No Solu­tion, LNG is New Pol­lu­tion” as well as, “You can’t Fool us, We’ve been Watch­ing: No More Green­wash­ing”.

The Con­ver­gence was co-spon­sored by Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est Action Net­work, as well as local groups includ­ing: Ener­gy Options, Friends of Liv­ing Ore­gon Waters, Colum­bia Riv­er Clean Ener­gy Coali­tion and Cas­ca­dia Earth First!

Over­all it pumped me up, gave me some new ideas, and fueled me to work hard­er and have more fun in our fight for a bet­ter future!

Here are a few trin­kets about the week:

-One of the most pop­u­lar work­shops was led by a com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber direct­ly impact­ed by Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) devel­op­ment in Wash­ing­ton. Not only did she come to speak about LNG, but she led a work­shop about can­ning, dry­ing and freez­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles in prepa­ra­tion for decreas­ing food avail­abil­i­ty due to fuel prices and cli­mate change.

-The NW Nat­ur­al action was orga­nized as a women’s action. We chose to do this for a few rea­sons, includ­ing because we were find­ing that the “sexy” roles were often being tak­en by young men in the group, while women were doing a lot of sup­port and behind the scenes orga­niz­ing. As we orga­nized we came up with ways to make the action super fun, includ­ing by cov­er­ing our­selves and our lock-box­es with glit­ter and heart-shaped stick­ers. One of our banner’s read, “Pipeline thru my heart” with a map of Ore­gon with a drawn pipeline through it. This actions was awe­some, inspir­ing and fun!

-All of our keynote speak­ers were amaz­ing! Includ­ing: Louise Benal­ly with Black Mesa Water Coali­tion, Jane Williams with Cal­i­for­nia Com­mu­ni­ties Against Tox­ins and John Sundquist with River’s Turn Farm.

Here are some videos, and more cov­er­age (includ­ing a hilar­i­ous right-wing blog inter­pre­ta­tion) to learn more:

youtube video of Post Con­ver­gence ACTIONS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4cR-8sJHQU

Ore­gon­ian Video of No I‑5 Expan­sion ban­ner hang:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/08/protesters_climb_onto_morrison.html

Gen­er­al Cov­er­age of Cli­mate Con­ver­gence:
http://www.kval.com/news/26195294.html
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=125947&sid=4&fid=1
h

Arsonist hit car dealership (Athens, 5/7/2008)

A fire erupt­ed at 03:22, inside a car deal­er­ship, on Kala­makiou street, 97, at Alimos, wreck­ing 5 cars and dam­ag­ing 14 oth­ers and also the build­ing.

Source: http://www.naftemporiki.gr/news/static/08/07/05/1535490.htm

A fire erupt­ed at 03:22, inside a car deal­er­ship, on Kala­makiou street, 97, at Alimos, wreck­ing 5 cars and dam­ag­ing 14 oth­ers and also the build­ing.

Source: http://www.naftemporiki.gr/news/static/08/07/05/1535490.htm

Issue Two of the ‘Roadblock Report’ Now Out!

3/7/2008
Issue two of the inde­pen­dent newslet­ter of the I‑69 cam­paign is now out for your down­load­ing, print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plea­sure.
You can find both the first and the sec­ond issue on the web­site of Road­block Earth First! http://stopi69.wordpress.com/resources or on the media archive sec­tion of the I‑69 Media Office’s web­site http://i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com/media-archive

3/7/2008
Issue two of the inde­pen­dent newslet­ter of the I‑69 cam­paign is now out for your down­load­ing, print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plea­sure.
You can find both the first and the sec­ond issue on the web­site of Road­block Earth First! http://stopi69.wordpress.com/resources or on the media archive sec­tion of the I‑69 Media Office’s web­site http://i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com/media-archive
In this issue:

- let­ter from the edi­tors about media/independent media
‑break­ing news sto­ries about
• the tree sit evic­tion,
• Bloom­ing­ton torch march,
• retal­ia­to­ry actions across Indi­ana,
‑action reports on:
• home demos,
• sol­i­dar­i­ty demos,
‑updates on
• the nature walks on the route,
• the com­mu­ni­ty bar­bq,
‑opin­ion pieces about
• the flood­ing in Indi­ana,
• a response to alle­ga­tions of vio­lence in office demos.
‑I-69 Lis­ten­ing project inter­view
‑Crit­i­cal thought piece on the future of the ‘anti-glob­al­iza­tion move­ment.

The sec­ond issue is for­mat­ted in 8.5”X11”, to be dou­ble sided. Email road­block­re­port (at) yahoo.com if you would like a dif­fer­ent for­mat.

As well, the I‑69 Media Office is announc­ing the launch of its new web­site, i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com . The I‑69 Media Office is an inde­pen­dent clear­ing­house for anti-I-69 infor­ma­tion and action report­ing. Please explore our ‘under con­struc­tion’ web­site for more infor­ma­tion on what we do.

Climate Camp Bike Ride

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

London, Brighton & Manchester Critical Masses commemorate dead cyclists

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

Fol­low­ing the killing of Marie Vesco on the A23 her friends, ram­pART and Food Not Bombs asked peo­ple to ride to Brix­ton, where she served free food every Sun­day after­noon with Brix­ton Food Not Bombs.

Approx­i­mate­ly 600 cyclists left Water­loo going South via Lam­beth North, then Elephant& Cas­tle, going round a few times stop­ping the traf­fic. Via the Oval we went to Brix­ton, where we stopped at Win­drush Square. By now there were maybe 300–400 cyclists left (there was a bit of North-Lon­don snob­bery). Dif­fer­ent peo­ple spoke about Marie and how they missed her. How she died and why she worked with Brix­ton Food­Not­Bombs and how giv­ing out free food was so impor­tant to her. There was a min­ute’s silence for her.

Then we cycled North again, police stopped us halfway up towards Stock­well. They had tried to dic­tate the tem­po pre­vi­ous­ly, but rogue cyclists broke through, stopped the traf­fic ahead of the police line and in that way forced the police to let the Mass go (Health and Safe­ty and all…).

They man­aged to block Stock­well Road and we did­n’t quite get the momen­tum of break­ing through. To the cop­pers’ sur­prise the tip of the Mass turned around, cycling back on them­selves and turn­ing off the main road fur­ther down (Sid­ney Road I think). We made our way to the Oval, cycling past the Crick­et knobs, some of which were using bad lan­guage, when we came in sight. Oth­ers were sup­port­ive.

Vaux­hall Bridge end­ed up being a bit of a split­ter were we lost a few peo­ple. Going across the bridge, past Par­lia­ment we hit the square, encir­cling it a cou­ple of times, until some­thing hap­pened with the sound sys­tem (as always) not quite sure what. music stopped. Rais­ing bikes, block­ing road, we then went to see the queen. The whole ride took about two hours and a bit. Nice atmos­phere, good mix of peo­ple and bikes and so good to have some music on the way (three sound sys­tems).

What hap­pened with the sound sys­tem on the North side of Par­lia­ment Square was that the police stopped it play­ing and rid­ers strong­ly object­ed to this ban which caused a long traf­fic holdup.

The cycle police keep on tar­get­ing Crit­i­cal Mass sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone around Par­lia­ment while doing noth­ing to stop sound sys­tems in cars, bus­es and lor­ries. Also the SOCPA leg­is­la­tion is cur­rent­ly under review and oth­er police are tend­ing not to enforce it.

video of ride.

More videos:

cycling down brix­ton road

through brix­ton high street

out­side the ritzy, enjoy­ing some tunes, before a min­utes silence in mem­o­ry of Marie Vesco

rid­ing up the mall

bring­ing the mass & some music to the queen
============

Yes­ter­day the Brighton Crit­i­cal Mass month­ly bicy­cle ride was done in the mem­o­ry Marie Vesco — the young French woman who had been killed on her way from Lon­don to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade, that was held on the 4th of June. We, at Crit­i­cal Mass decid­ed to com­plete her jour­ney to EDO MBM (ITT) bomb fac­to­ry that she could not make.

The usu­al meet­ing place The Lev­el, 6 p.m. saw police wait­ing for some sort of a demo. There were: 2 police vans full of cop­pers, 1 CCTV UNIT van, 6 motor­bikes, and none of the police on bicy­cles.

The ride had com­menced as have rode onto Lewes Road escort­ed by police motor­bikes. For a while it felt as if we were prime min­is­ters escort­ed to some impor­tant meet­ing.

When we had reached the bot­tom of the Home Farm Road there were few police wait­ing for us. We then went to the fac­to­ry to be aston­ished by the police pres­ence at the fac­to­ry. There were at least 40 offi­cers with dogs wait­ing for some sort of a riot.

We have held one minute silence for Marie and went back to town where after a half an hour police had left us alone.

Over­all a suc­cess.

video of ride.

============

This month Man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass had a one minute silence to hon­our two pas­sion­ate cyclists that were killed this month by motorists, and to remem­ber all our cycling com­rades that have been killed on the roads.

NORMAN FAY
Nor­man Fay died on Fri­day, June 20. He was cycling to the York cycle ral­ly when a motorist col­lid­ed with him.

“He was just 72 so it’s come as a real shock.

Nor­man had a well deserved rep­u­ta­tion for fine crafts­man­ship and engi­neer­ing, and had an infec­tious love of all things cycling. His bikes have been many peo­ple’s intro­duc­tion to cycling and his exper­i­men­ta­tion with dif­fer­ent cycle forms appealed to hard core enthu­si­asts and occa­sion­al rid­ers alike. I’ve been the lucky own­er of a cou­ple of his bikes, one of which I bought when I was 18 and I still have but is sad­ly gath­er­ing dust in the hut.

Both Nor­man and his late wife Mar­i­on were both found­ing mem­bers of South Tyne­side Friends of the Earth.

Whilst he died rel­a­tive­ly young in mod­ern terms, his con­tin­ued cycling proved that you’re nev­er to old to get on your bike. Maybe it’s time I dust­ed off mine.

A true local hero.”

MARIE VESCO

Marie Vesco was killed by a car on Wednes­day 4th June while cycling to Brighton. Active in var­i­ous Lon­don social cen­tres, Whitechapel and Brix­ton Food Not Bombs, she now had plans to open a new social cen­tre.

Marie was part of a group of twelve cyclists who left Brix­ton in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to join the Smash EDO demo. They were on the A23 by Burgess Hill when an impa­tient gas guz­zling imbe­cile swerved across two lanes straight into Marie, then anoth­er car hit her. She died instant­ly, there was noth­ing her friends could have done. The dri­ver of the sec­ond car got straight on his phone as soon as he came to a halt — not for an ambu­lance but to call his lawyer. He then start­ed push­ing Marie’s mates around. One dri­ver has been arrest­ed.

Road resistance round-up from the Midwest US

Indi­ana June 24- Resis­tance to I‑69 has been rapid­ly heat­ing up in the past month. While the first protest camp set up was qui­et­ly evict­ed in ear­ly May, a tree-sit and occu­pa­tion cre­at­ed in the path of a pro­posed onramp lat­er that month last­ed five weeks.

B-rad Camp - against I-69Indi­ana June 24- Resis­tance to I‑69 has been rapid­ly heat­ing up in the past month. While the first protest camp set up was qui­et­ly evict­ed in ear­ly May, a tree-sit and occu­pa­tion cre­at­ed in the path of a pro­posed onramp lat­er that month last­ed five weeks.

Dur­ing that time, par­tic­i­pants also built an elab­o­rate ground camp, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly car­ry­ing on inten­sive orga­niz­ing with local fam­i­lies threat­ed by the road, cul­mi­nat­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic in Oak­land City attend­ed joint­ly by landown­ers and eco-activists. Excit­ing demon­stra­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty actions hap­pened through­out the month — in Bloom­ing­ton, Louisville, Mary­land, and beyond.

Dubbed B‑Rad Camp (after Brad Will, an Earth First!er and Indy­media jour­nal­ist mur­dered by the Mex­i­can state), the occu­pa­tion was evict­ed last Fri­day, June 20. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed around the camp, with the two treesit­ters being exposed to extreme dan­ger and bru­tal­i­ty by the state climbers. Three addi­tion­al pro­test­ers were arrest­ed at a police check­point on their way to sup­port those fac­ing evic­tion.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions were launched almost imme­di­ate­ly, and one per­son was arrest­ed that after­noon at an I‑69 plan­ning office in Bloom­ing­ton. Since then, demos have been called across Indi­ana, at offices belong­ing to the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, con­trac­tors, and the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources, who were respon­si­ble for lend­ing climbers to INDOT. Near­ly 100 peo­ple joined a torch march in Bloom­ing­ton the fol­low­ing night, lead­ing police to scram­ble to pro­tect the down­town plan­ning office while peo­ple chant­ed, drummed and shot off fire­works.

A few chants from this demo and oth­ers: “They wreck dreams — we wreck roads” “I‑69 Shut it down, dri­ve INDOT out of town” “No more roads, no more jails” and “Sol­i­dar­i­ty means attack — against the road we will fight back” and at the end of the torch march “We will win!”

Since then, local orga­niz­ers have worked to put togeth­er legal sup­port for those now fac­ing charges (none extreme­ly seri­ous), while oth­ers have con­tin­ued to act in response to the evic­tion. A mil­i­tant office inva­sion against Bernardin Lochmueller and Asso­ciates (a deeply com­plic­it con­trac­tor) in Evans­ville today end­ed in con­fronta­tions with man­agers and bro­ken win­dows.

This account is only a brief sum­ma­ry of some of the more vis­i­ble actions that have occurred in the past weeks against I‑69. Mean­while, many peo­ple have con­tin­ued with oth­er kinds of excit­ing oppo­si­tion efforts, includ­ing the Road­block Report (avail­able on the web­site), the I‑69 Lis­ten­ing Project (a push to cre­ate more space to dia­logue and share sto­ries across the spec­trum of farm­ers and oth­ers resist­ing), and gar­den­ing with landown­ers along the route, among oth­er exper­i­ments to spread and deep­en the strug­gle.

More details and pic­tures can be found at
www.stopi69.wordpress.com . Pic­tures at http://stopi69.wordpress.com/photos/

BAA’s par­ent com­pa­ny, Fer­rovial, is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing much of the fund­ing being used to cur­rent­ly build I‑69, through its pur­chase of the Indi­ana Toll Road.

Manchester & London Critical Masses this Friday + South London

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

After­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

Manchester Critical MassAfter­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

A total­ly ace bike ride around our city to meet oth­er cyclists and ride on our roads…For a few hours once a month we can show how beau­ti­ful our city can be when bicy­cles, instead of cars, dom­i­nate the roads.

it’s such a nice and socia­ble and fun way to spend a Fri­day evening on a bicycle..wow. so ace. and now we’re get­ting big­ger and bigger..someone said they count­ed at least 150 peo­ple on the one last month, how ace is that?!!. come and be part of our love­ly friend­ly cruise around..to col­lec­tive­ly enjoy the beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence that is rid­ing a bike.

—-

Peo­ple’s com­ments about Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass

“…it’s bril­liant. Usu­al­ly I’m charg­ing around on my bike, get­ting where i need to go as fast as i can. Crit­i­cal mass is dif­fer­ent. It’s about enjoy­ing rid­ing. It’s the most relaxed ride around the city I’ve ever had. Where all my wor­ries and fears float away. And I’ve met some love­ly peo­ple too”

“I was scared it would be some angry bike mil­i­tants but every­one is so friend­ly and the ride is fun no aggro at all. See you next month!”

“it’s quite some­thing to have that many peeps rid­ing round at once.”

“Crit­i­cal Mass some­times has a rep­u­ta­tion for being an angry rab­ble of cyclists that want to string up any car dri­vers they see. This is not true of Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass, it is a fluffy mass of peo­ple that like to have fun on bikes, there are often have chil­dren with us and a bicy­cle sound sys­tem to add to the par­ty fun atmos­phere. As well as being fun and
a social event it is also to show how great a car free city will be. This is achieved every month by show­ing motorists an alter­na­tive, yet crit­i­cal mass Man­ches­ter does­n’t aim to annoy dri­vers we want them to join us..”

“I spend all month, every month, rid­ing around behind exhaust pipes and swerv­ing out of the way from angry, dis­re­spect­ful dri­vers, I live in a world that is dying from cli­mate change..only the oth­er day it was announced the white rhi­no is extinct, it tears me up inside. Rid­ing a bike isn’t going to change all of that instant­ly but I believe that not only does it mean less cars on the roads but rid­ing a bike also gives a feel­ing of con­nec­tion with one’s sur­round­ings and oth­er peo­ple and through this we can start to act in oth­er ways that can cre­ate social change”

“Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t a place to vent the anger that comes from hav­ing to deal with cars (I don’t think), because it’s nice to, instead, spend that time enjoy­ing rid­ing my bike. Some­times it can feel so alien­at­ing rid­ing a bike sur­round­ed by so many motorists. Crit­i­cal Mass shows that we are not alone and that we are grow­ing. It’s the most fan­tas­tic piece of direct action I’ve ever done- I want there to be less cars on the roads and by
being one less car there is!!!”

(tak­en from emails we’ve received)

============

Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don for Marie this Fri­day

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

The Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don will attempt to go all the way to Brix­ton to cel­e­brate the life of Marie, who was killed by 2 cars on her way to the demon­stra­tion against the arms trade in Brighon, see:

https://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/06/400604.html

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

============

South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass?!

The first ever south Lon­don Crit­i­cal Mass is hap­pen­ing on Fri­day 4th of July, and every first Fri­day of the month there after.

It will take place @ 6.30, start­ing from Peck­ham library.

Help cam­paign for safer roads for cyclists. All oth­er human pow­ered trans­port wel­come too!
Mas­sive rolling sound sys­tem pro­vid­ed by rawkus rick­shaws.

arrest charges dropped — round-up: Fossil Fools Day & M1 Conspiracy

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

—-
M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

—-
M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008
Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court yes­ter­day. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court today. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Arrest­ed over a year ago the pro­test­ers had their hous­es raid­ed with prop­er­ty such as com­put­ers and phones tak­en and held for the dura­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

This rul­ing in the midst of a crack down (2*) on green protest sets a prece­dent for polic­ing of envi­ron­men­tal demon­stra­tions. The Judge resound­ing­ly reject­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s argu­ment that the hang­ing of ban­ners over the motor­way would con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance. He went on to say: “that all of the avail­able mate­r­i­al (pre­sent­ed to
the court) is con­sis­tent only with peace­ful protest.”

Cam­paign spokesper­son Dr Julie White, a GP from Sheffield, said: “this is vic­to­ry for the right to protest in the face of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of expand­ing roads, run­ways and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in a time of cli­mate cri­sis.”

The activists say that the expe­ri­ence has not deterred them from tak­ing action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change and will be attend­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action(3*) at Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent this August.

Con­tact Julie White on 0779851073.

NOTES FOR EDITORS
1*) The Depart­ment of Trans­port have decid­ed against widen­ing the M1 any fur­ther: http://www.nowideningm1.org.uk/

2*) this month the Sun­day Her­ald report­ed that pro­tes­tors in Scot­land had been harassed by police after peace­ful demon­stra­tions: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2210574.0.protesters_police_treated_us_like_terrorists.php

3*)The Camp for Cli­mate Action went to Heathrow last sum­mer over the build­ing of a third run­way this year it will pitch up at Kingsnorth over the poten­tial build­ing of the UK’s first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

—-

Bac­ton gas ter­mi­nal 19

On 1st April, EF!ers block­ad­ed the gas ter­mi­nal at Bac­ton to cel­e­brate Fos­sil Fools Day. The police tried to arrest every­one, and got 19 peo­ple. For a full report, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20420

Due to return to a rur­al Nor­folk police sta­tion, peo­ple were keen to phone up the police sta­tion to find out what was hap­pen­ing. The police had not tak­en any deci­sion, and a few days before decid­ed to drop charges against all but 3 peo­ple locked-on who got off with cau­tions.

—-

Police drop charges against Wun­der­man pro­tes­tors

The three activists arrest­ed fol­low­ing the inva­sion of Wunderman’s offices have had all charges against them dropped.

The envi­ron­men­tal­ists, from direct action group Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, had been charged with “bur­glary of pens, paper and phone calls”.

They were held after stag­ing a four-hour sit-in over two of par­ent agency Y&R’s key clients – Land Rover and BAE Sys­tems.

The action was part of a world­wide cam­paign against cli­mate change, dubbed Fos­sil Fools Day. In the UK, the group also staged demon­stra­tions out­side Porsche deal­er­ships, the head office of E‑on, and a coal mine in Wales.

The three activists man­aged to get into the Y&R build­ing –Greater Lon­don House on Hamp­stead Road, NW1 – by pos­ing as exec­u­tives from a new­ly-pri­va­tised wing of the MoD called Har­rion­Pro­jects, a spoof com­pa­ny whose cen­tre­piece is the Har­rion, a civil­ian ver­sion of the Har­ri­er Jump-Jet.

Once inside, they bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves into the con­fer­ence room, oppo­site Wun­der­man EMEA chief exec­u­tive Mar­cus Starke’s office.