Mobility Matters Daily #133 - It's getting hot in here, so ride your bikes later
Also, ever wanted to know how American's spend their day?
Good day friend.
Yesterday, I hooked up my bike trailer to the bike, and set off to Tesco to do the weekly shop as usual. With a box full of food and other essentials, I came back to my bike and starting attaching things for the haul home. Some kids nearby asked whether it was a cargo trailer (it was I replied) before asking how fast it goes.
Now, I’m not as quick as I once was, although certainly no slouch and I can handle a hill or two. Combined with never having being the cool kid at any stage of my life, the only answer fitting was “it goes as fast as it needs to.” And from that, you can see how exciting my Sunday was. I hope yours was more exciting. To the news.
James
Our cities are becoming too hot to live in, and that’s a transport planning problem
You don’t need me to remind you that tempurature records are being smashed everywhere. This article in City Monitor shows that instances of extreme heat in cities have been going up in cities across the world over the last 10 years.
How we build our cities could be the difference between a hot day and one that is completely stifiling. The phenomenon is simple. Concrete, which is the main building material in streets and buildings, absorbs the heat from the sun and retains it, radiating it back as the day progresses. Ideas such as pavement materials that cool the surface temperature, to more green areas and tree cover are being pushed as solutions. Just having a tree reduces the surface temperature of the street area that it covers by 5.6C. We need to adapt to a world that will be hotter, and our streets will need to adapt to it as well.
The weather does discourage people from using bicycles
“We don’t cycle in this country because it rains too much.” My word, the number of times I have heard that whilst trying to convince commuters to give the bike a go on a cold, wet Tuesday morning in Bedford. Whilst it is tempting to quote Alfred Wainwright (“There is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”), the planner should ask whether there is some truth here. According to this research on bike share schemes and the impact of weather by Richard Bean, Dorina Pojani, and Jonathan Corcoran, the weather certainly has an impact.
The headline results include the peak of usage being at 5pm in hotter climates (compared to 2pm to 3pm elsewhere), while usage peaks when the temperatures are 26C to 27C. And yes, the rain does depress usage. This is not to say that the usual weather has a bigger impact on cycling that better infrastructure. But given the choice between cycling in hot or wet weather and not, a noticable number of people would choose not to.
Visualisation of the Day
We all know how we spend our day. But this visualisation shows how, in 2015, the average American spends their day. Looking through the data as it progresses throughout the day, I can only count a few occasions where the percentage of American’s travelling exceeds 10%.
Source: FlowingData
If you don’t do anything else today, do this
Read Transport for London’s annual report. Its always a worthwhile read, but after the last year it is even more so.