Mobility Matters Daily #116 - One for our friends on two wheels
With some data on global trade routes
Good day friend.
What a week for workers to start digging up the road outside my house, and relaying it. I cannot help but feel sympathy for them, but sat here in a hot and humid house as the windows are closed to stop the noise and smells from outside, my patience is wearing thin. To the news.
James
COVID-19 has increased the number of people cycling. At the weekend.
An interesting article from the always-interesting Laura Laker showed that, after the numbers have been crunched, weekend cycling in the UK is up compared to before the pandemic. This seems to stack up with the government’s own transport COVID-19 statistics, although the report mentions National Cycle Network data that I have not been able to source. Furthermore, the data shows that during the week, cycling is back to its pre-pandemic levels.
This is where the data gets interesting. The latest data from the UK (April) showed that 46.6% of people were still working from home at least part of the week. When cycling was hovering at pre-COVID levels, car travel was down but rising, and the same for public transport. More analysis is needed, but this indicates to me that some people are taking fewer commuting trips, and may be using their cars for local trips. Understanding this shift in trips is crucial for how we plan what happens next.
Legal challenges to cycle way schemes are not just a UK thing
Reading this story from the Republic of Ireland about how a challenge to the South Kerry Greenway in the country’s High Court was dismissed raised a wry smile. Whilst my knowledge of the Irish legal system is non-existent, seeing such a project challenged on Compulsory Purchase grounds and its impacts on habitats shows that winning arguments about the merits of schemes is challenging at the best of times.
Cycling in Ireland received a significant funding boost from the National Transport Authority in recent years. Much of the attention has been on Dublin, which has the biggest share of the funding, but greenway projects are becoming more popular as a means of providing strategic connectivity by bicycle. Especially where you have an old railway just rotting there. Kind of reminds me of how Sustrans got started in the UK.
Visualisation of the Day
This is a map of the global economy, for want of a better term. With the majority of international goods being shipped literally by ships, these are the major shipping routes. A few are of no shock, such as through the Suez and Panama Canals, the South China Sea, and from Singapore to the Cape of Good Hope. A couple of interesting ones are the route from the Cape of Good Hope to Southern Brazil, and how spread the Europe to North America routes are.
Source: Marine Traffic
Yes, I have changed the title of this section. Stat of the Day was a fun pun, but didn’t really reflect the content being posted.
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