Mobility Matters Daily #102 - Buses, Streetspace, and how good our rural residents have it
Plus a link to a truly excellent video on bridge maintenance
Good morning friend.
Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy 100 newsletters. Your good wishes is very much appreciated, and it very much means a lot that you continue to subscribe. Thank you. Anyway, less words, more interesting stuff.
Guidance is like buses
Finally, after a long, long, long wait, the UK Department for Transport published its new guidance on creating Enhanced Partnerships, a key plank of the new bus strategy. What does it say? To be honest, not much different to the previous guidance. It does contain templates for legal agreements, and it mentions the new bus strategy a lot. It also has bits missing that the DfT says it will include later.
Most interestingly, it clarifies the roles of Bus Service Improvement Plans, and Enhanced Partnership Schemes (basically plans for what Enhanced Partnerships will do). Simply, they are seperate documents, but what will be included in a BSIP - like integrated ticketing and bus priority - will also be in an Enhanced Partnership Scheme. As I read it, the BSIP is simply a document to bid for funding and to say to government how serious authorities and operators are about making improvements, but the Enhanced Partnership gives it legal weight. But without funding, this could put local authorities and operators in a very tricky position to meet their requirements under the Enhanced Partnership.
COVID-19 measures to improve walking and cycling in London are still going through the Courts
I missed this story from a couple of weeks ago. Transport for London has successfully overturned a verdict from the UK’s High Court that said that the Streetspace plans for reallocating roadspace in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were unlawful. The full transcript and videos of the case are available on the Court of Appeal website.
I won’t comment on the relative merits of the case, as I frankly do not have the legal knowledge to do so. But this shows why delivering active travel improvements is so hard. When every small victory is a long, hard battle against overwhelming odds. This battles must be won, though.
Stat of the day
Sometimes a statistic reminds you how good you’ve got it. When you see countries where less than half of the rural population are within 2 kilometres of a road that can be used all year round, its sobering. The Soloman Islands - I feel for you.
Data Source: Asian Transport Outlook
If you don’t do anything else today, do this…
Watch this video by the always-excellent Grady Hillhouse of Practical Engineering on the closure of the Hernando do Soto Bridge. It perfectly demonstrates the value of having a good quality and robust inspection regime on critical infrastructure before disaster strikes.