Mobility Matters #79 - British railways, and cycling and road casualties in minority communities
The usual random things in the world of transport
The Strategic Rail Authority is back
Finally, after many months, the review of the UK’s privatised rail franchising system has been published. The William-Shapps Plan for Rail paints a picture of a very different network in the future, where a new public sector body called Great Britain Railways will own the tracks and stations, co-ordinate ticket sales, set most fares, specify timetables, and run and plan the network. Sounds familiar to me.
Its a plan big on ambition and structural change, with the UK government clearly preferring a TfL-style concession arrangement where operators are paid a fee to run trains, and the government takes on the revenue risk. I bet that fight with the Treasury was fun. Its big on words, and there is a lot of reaction (the Railway Gazette has covered much of this). To me, this is another step on the road the railway has taken since the collapse of Railtrack - a greater integrated and guiding role by the public sector. A few headlines on flexible season tickets will not change the fundamental reforms this policy will bring about.
Road traffic disproportionately injures ethnic minorities
New research published by UK pedestrian charity Living Streets shows that deprived ethnic minority persons in the UK are three times more likely to be injured in a road traffic collision as a pedestrian. This confirms historic research that shows those in ethnic minority communities are more likely to be killed in road traffic collisions. But amazingly, there has been no research into precisely why this is so.
The research by Living Streets states a possible reason being that ethnic minorities tend to walk more. A study also indicated that cars entering intersections are less likely to stop if an ethnic minority person steps out. There is also evidence that suggests that some minority groups are more likely to report being injured in a road traffic collision. But I find it amazing that, while there have been innumerable studies showing the higher collision risk to ethnic minority groups, nobody has really studied why.
The cycling revolution isn’t quite as inclusive at it could be
The Milwaukee Independent ran an article highlighting that whilst cycling has seen an uptick during the pandemic, it is not the same for all groups, with black cyclists particularly missing from the conversation. An interesting point raised in the article is how data collection may be partly the issue, with city centre data collection under-counting black cyclists, whilst black cyclists are likely to be disproportionately stopped by the police for traffic violations.
This point struck a chord with me. While the likes of Rebecca Steinbach and Amy Lubitow have done excellent work in building the narrative for why minority communities are under-represented in urban cycling, this isn’t reflected in our data collection. We tend to focus data collection on where we considered cyclists are likely to be, as opposed to understanding what and who we want to measure. I eagerly await some good quality data on the state of cycling by ethnic minorities in cities.