♿ Get On With It - MM#631
We have had nearly 30 years to take action to make transport much more accessible. And we are doing a very poor job of it.
Good day my good friend.
This week is the start of mental week. Not that it means that its some form of week dedicated to improving mental health (I touched on this somewhat on Friday). But this is the week before the week before Christmas, which is a mix of urgent deadlines, getting that report out before the break, last minute panics, office Christmas parties, and everyone getting to Thursday afternoon and realising that it can’t all be done. You look after yourselves out there, you lot.
Reflecting this, for this week I will be dropping the section on people who do inspirational section. Not because there isn’t any, but believe it or not its the section that takes the longest time to research and write. And I need every spare minute this week!
If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else who you think will love it. The main way my audience grows is through your recommendations. I will love you forever if you do. ☺️
James
🦮 The report you should read right now
Transport for All’s new report has come out, and it asks a profound question. Transport for All have a habit of putting out great reports into the needs of disabled people, as shown by their still-amazing Pave the Way report, that managed to shut up many poorly-informed voices on both sides of the low traffic neighbourhood discussion.
When a new report into the transport experiences of disabled people asks “are we there yet?” you can bet that the answer will be no. And when one of the sections of the report is titled “Transport is largely inaccessible” you can bet the answer will be a firm no. Some of the responses and statistics in the report are honestly shocking.
56% of disabled persons are either unhappy or not happy at all with their journeys;
Disabled persons they surveyed take around a third of trips every week compared to the average in the National Travel Survey;
If barriers were removed, disabled people would make around 50% more trips than they do now;
But this paragraph hit me the hardest:
Respondents told us they weren’t confident that action would be taken to remove barriers. 44% of respondents told us they thought that the accessibility of transport and streets would get worse in the next 10 years, while only 28% felt things would improve and a further 28% said things would stay the same.
I can’t say I blame them for this.
Next year, it will be 29 years since the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act. So we have had nearly three decades to get our act together. What has the impact been? Disabled access on the UK rail network is variable at best. On buses, almost all buses are accessible but many stops are not. Footways are poorly maintained, not level, and in many cases there is a lack of dropped kerbs.
And the worst thing is that we are still not listening to the experiences and perspectives of disabled persons. They are much wider than simple issues of level access or people who are blind, with hearing loss, or in a wheelchair.
The challenge that I often hear is that the situation facing individual disabled people can be highly personalised. Whilst I accept that, for example, a person who has lost full mobility in their legs will experience travel differently to someone who has partial mobility. But this is a cop out, and prevents work happening on common barriers and issues that people with disabilities face.
The most important thing that you must do is read the report. It contains brilliant, practical recommendations as to what you can do to make the lives of disabled people better. Much of this is for low or nil cost as well.
The second most important thing that you can do is start to reframe your way of thinking. Probably the most important tool for doing this is the Social Model of Disability. This is not a set structure or conceptual model, but what it does do is put the needs and experiences of disabled people at the centre, removing the temptation to design solutions that rely on them changing their behaviours to conform.
For me, the most radical element of this model is how it sets disability as an outcome. People can suffer impairments to, for example, their sight or hearing. But because, for example, a crossing point does not have tactile paving or an audible warning, that results in disability.
The reason I set this all out is because no matter what kind of disability or impairment you look at, chances are there are solutions that planners and transport professionals can deploy that will help. Or good quality engagement can identify new solutions. What is often lacking is the mindset shift. Considering the needs of people who are disabled requires a concious, purposeful effort to change how you work and the methods that you use.
It also involves a lot of failure. Ever since I was asked to navigate Bedford High Street in a wheelchair in 2007 I have been trying to improve how I consider the needs of those who are oppressed, and I still mess things up and get things wrong (don’t ask me for relevant terminology, for example - I will get it wrong but not from a place of malice). And that is ok.
Changing how we do things, and how we work is hard. In the UK we have had nearly 30 years to get it right with regards to disability. The clear message back is that while we have come some way, we have got a long way to go. And those affected are (rightly) getting impatient. Time for us to up our game.
What you can do: Devour the 15,000 word highlight report on the experiences of disabled people travelling in the UK. Read every single word. And act upon it. Better yet, have a meeting with your team (whether it be the people you work with or a project you are working on) and explore how you can action some of these recommendations.
🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author - they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
Impact of roadside advertisements near traffic signs on driving safety
TL:DR - Don’t put advertising boards in front of road signs.
‘Inner-city is not the place for social housing’ – State-led gentrification in Łódź
TL:DR - We talk a lot about state-led gentrification in western cities. Turns out the same may be true in post-Soviet cities as well.
Electrification pathways for public transport systems
TL:DR - There is a lot of research into this, and a lot of recommendations. Time to make some of this work a reality.
TL:DR - Policy makers are not as good at policy engagement as they like to think that they are.
📺 On the (You)Tube
Housing and transport are the two largest costs in many modern households. In this video, City Nerd looks at the cities in the US that crush these two household items the hardest.
📻 On the Wireless
This is from a podcast earlier in the year. Jam Tomorrow is a podcast about how the post-World War II promise of a better Britain actually turned out. The whole series is highly recommended for my British readers, but the episode on Housing especially should be listened to. It covers everything from New Towns, to Right-to-Buy to NIMBYs.
🖼️ Graphic Design
This is not the visualisation you may think it is. This is not a visualisation of city lights at night. Nor is it of transport networks. This is a visualisation of the location of mobile phone towers across much of Europe. The hidden network we all rely on.
📚 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.
The Climate Canvasses of the Little Ice Age (JSTOR Daily)
Does the body really “keep the score” of trauma? (Big Think)
Are young people poised to slam the brake on endless economic growth? (The Observer)
This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI (MIT Technology Review)
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