A guest blog by Julie Boston:

It’s 8.30 am on Monday 18 October and I am standing with Climate Rush outside the Department for Transport holding an axe and a transport message for the Minister.

My aim is to expose the Condems’ proposals which will make rail travel more unaffordable, more stressful and, if they destroy Network Rail, more dangerous. Their plan is to give the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) longer franchises which would allow increased profits, closure of unprofitable but socially useful stations and lines and the right to slice up Network Rail.

Most of the TOCs are bus companies with First Group being the dominant. First Group’s threat to public transport is so destructive that, in 2006, trade unionists in the U.S funded a publication exposing their exploitation of local authority grants in the UK and their anti trade unionism of drivers of U.S school buses – as a warning to British transport workers.

But I am hopeful. Climate Rush not only see the link between the low carbon emissions of rail and the high carbon emissions of private cars, they are prepared to act. And they act with style. We are all wearing a sash with a message. My sash says ‘Well behaved women rarely make history’. This makes me feel involved and more confident.

Climate Rush, inspired by the Suffragettes, know that campaigns have to be focused and imaginative to attract media attention and generate public support. We in the West hear little about the collective struggles and achievements of other countries. The night before our visit to the DfT, I stayed with a Bolivian friend who grew up in a poor community in La Paz. She fuels me with news of the improvements created by the MAS government under Evo Morales and the Climate Change conference held in Cochabamba in April. None of this is reported by British media.

No one benefits from a world dominated by private cars. The collective approach of Climate Rush is a step towards creating a more equal society where many of our needs will be provided more efficiently and more humanely. Meeting them has been inspirational.

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