⬆️ Looking Up - MM#594
Good day my good friend.
I start this by - and I am only doing this due to a matter of personal and professional decency - correcting something in Friday’s newsletter. Where I implied that Nottingham Forest where the only English team to have won back-to-back European Cups. Now, as a Manchester United fan, I tend to not remember the achievements of a certain team who play in red and are from Merseyside, and it appears that I did so on this occasion.
If you want me to name that team, its bad enough that we got sucker-punched by Arsenal yesterday, so don’t push your luck. Onto the newsletter.
If the recent announcement by the Prime Minister still has you hot under the collar, we are talking ‘changing the narrative’ on sustainable transport at Mobility Camp 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
🚶♀️ Green shoots
As I alluded to on Friday, last week the UK Government published the results of the National Travel Survey from 2022. While it has its flaws, it is a useful pulse check on progress on transport throughout the UK. And this one is particularly interesting as it is the first survey that has been free of the effects of travel restrictions associated with COVID for any decent length of time.
Within the vast amount of results and analysis, there is one green shoot, as in literal green shoot. In fact, the average UK person is walking nearly the same number of walking trips per person per annum in 2022 (267 trips) as they were in 2006 (275 trips). Furthermore, the number of trips the average person takes has rebounded following a gradual decline from 2018 (262 trips per annum), and certainly is nowhere near as low as it was in 2015 (219 trips per annum).
Digging into the data a bit, we find that the trends are very similar between males and females. Females consistently walk more than males do, and the direction of change correlates very closely between the two groups.
Where it gets slightly strange is in the analysis by age. To be honest, the overall picture is slightly messy. But since 2019, one of the most radical changes is the crash in the average number of trips of those aged 17 to 20 years old, from 269 trips in 2017 to 174 in 2022, though most of the other age groups have recovered to their pre-COVID levels.
However, the analysis of changes by trip purpose gives some insight. Here, we can see a huge spike over the last few years of the classification “Other including just walk.” This peaked in 2020, which is understandable given that walking was one of the few permitted exercises during lockdown. But what is more interesting is that just walking has been the most common journey purpose for walking since 2017.
Finally, because there is a specialised analysis for school travel. The data over time shows some degree of stability for both the 5 to 10 and 11 to 16 years old age groups since 2002, though the decline in walking as a mode of travel to school is much more pronounced in the 11 to 16 years old age group (45% in 2002 to 37% in 2022).
Ok, just one more. Because this is the real kicker here. Since COVID-19, walking is the only mode of transport that has increased its percentage of trips undertaken by the average person. From 26% of all trips in 2019 to 30% in 2022. In comparison, cars dropped as a percentage of trips from 61% to 58%, and public transport from 10% to 8%.
If we are being honest, we don’t really know what is going on here. Walking as a mode of transport is very much under-researched compared to others. But, we may be able to infer based upon some degree of logic and bits and pieces of research from elsewhere:
The COVID-19 pandemic may have established new travel habits that have resulted in more local trips by walking, notably working from home that may result in more local errands and trips.
This has eaten into the percentages of local trips by other modes of transport, notably for car, bus, and rail.
The breadth of the ‘other including just walking’ captures a broad range of potential journey purposes. Walking for exercise during lunch, walking meetings, walking the dog, as well as just simply walking.
The one thing that really stumps me is why 17 to 20 year olds are walking so much less. I am sure that many of you with greater knowledge of this age group can provide answers better than I can.
This on the whole is extremely encouraging. Walking is the lowest carbon form of transport, it is one that is accessible to the majority of people, it is great for your health and that of the population at large, and it actively takes away from short car trips - which are especially bad regardless in all aspects. This is something the UK should be building on, and providing more space for walking.
What you can do: Start off by reading Cities Alive - Towards a walking world. Yes, its a largely corporate publication, but its an excellent one full of useful policy advice.
The simple thing to do is to prioritise walking in every single scheme that is delivered. The planning for walking toolkit by Transport for London gives a good overview of design principles to work towards, and not to compromise on, when it comes to any transport scheme. Evidence from a good Healthy Street Audit also helps.
🎓 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.
TL:DR - They could reduce the number of private cars on the road. Which is nice.
TL:DR - Price is really important.
Congestion and incentives in the age of driverless fleets
TL:DR - Congestion-based taxes FTW.
Practitioners' perspectives on cycling equity: Bridging the gap between planning priorities
TL:DR - We don’t talk about equity enough in planning.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
Community Transport is full of these kinds of people. And I need to give a shout out to everyone at the Glenfarg Community Transport Group. After the local bus service was axed. Originally, they wanted to run one bus a week.
Now, they run 11 services a day. What I love is about how this service is not just about connecting people to essential services and work, but also to life-enriching activities. Good stuff!
📼 On the (You)Tube
You know what is great about riding around on public transport? Just being able to look at the world going by outside the window. As this example of Montreal shows.
What you can do: The next time you are on any form of public transport, just stare out of the window and watch the world go by. Its great.
🖼️ Graphic Design
This is one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. If you live in Europe and North America, you are lucky (90.6% of the population are within 500 metres of a public transport stop). For Latin America and the Caribbean (43.3%), Eastern and South Eastern Asia (40.9%), Central and Southern Asia (33.7%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (30.7%), not so much.
📚 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.
US clean energy drive fuels shortage of engineers in Australia (The Guardian)
Burning Man access is closed as heavy rains muddy the playa (The Verge)
Utopian City Investors First Tried to ‘Fix’ San Francisco (The Daily Beast)
A surprising explanation for the global decline of religion (Big Think)
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