Fun, Fun, Fun - MMD#574
Good day my good friend.
One of the joys of walking dogs (I walk my two every morning) is that you get to see the changes in your local streets in real time. Over the last couple of weeks, the sunshine and showers has meant that the hedgerows and trees are gradually encroaching on the pavement, while the plants underneath are increasingly finding the cracks and poking their heads through. I am pretty sure that in the next few weeks the late summer flowers will make an appearance before the September cut. So enjoy the blooms of summer while you can, my fellow Brits.
Mobility Camp is taking place on 26th September 2023 in Birmingham. It would be great to see you there. Get your tickets now.
If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else who you think will love it. I will love you forever if you do. ☺️
James
Build for micromobility, and it will come? 🛴
Lots of literature has been published on scooters and other forms of micromobility. But little that I have seen on the relationship with the built environment. I must have looked in the wrong places, as this article by Yushan Zhang, Dena Kasraian, and Pieter van Wesemael of Eindhoven University is a literature review of said literature, and its a fascinating read.
A key conclusion is that more research is needed on the network effects of the built environment on micromobility. We know a lot about parking issues on streets and how systems work, but not how the built environment helps to support a wider network of micromobility services. We also need to study the changes over time as we know very little about how built environment changes (often slow) affect scooter operational changes (often quick). So a research area to watch,
Travelling for fun is unequal 🤸♀️
William Wordsworth is one of England’s most famous poets. He also hated the building of a new railway to Windemere in the Lake District. He seemed to not approve of the “pausing traveler's rapturous glance.” Now, travel for leisure is the most popular reason for travelling in the UK. But this is not an equal thing. A new research paper by Marina Toger, Umut Türk, John Östh, Karima Kourtit, and Peter Nijkamp adds to the already vast pile of evidence supporting this, looking specifically at Stockholm. The abstract gets right to the heart of it:
The study traces – through the use of spatially dependent multilevel models – the mobility patterns of people from the greater Stockholm area, using individual pseudonymised mobile phone data and other publicly accessible data. We find significant socio-demographic inequalities in the observed residents' spatial leisure choices, where less affluent groups display especially low variation in mobility when comparing between weekdays, weekends, vacation season and work-periods.
Random things 📚📰
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
Disinformation researchers under investigation: what’s happening and why (Nature) 🕵️
The World’s Small Farms Need More Support to Confront Climate Change (The Daily Yonder) 👩🌾
In Montreal, they don’t know which way is north (City Monitor)
The Flowering of Overground lines & colours – How Soon is Now? (London Reconnections)
Something interesting 📼
There is some big building going on in the Chilterns. And Geoff Marshall went to see it.
If you do nothing else today, do this 👇
This episode of the War on Cars Podcast covers the expansion of the Southern California Freeway network. And it is a fascinating listen. Heartily recommended!