Mobility Matters Daily #153 - Struggling towns and decarbonising aviation

Plus some fun with sea passenger statistics

Good day my good friend.

If the adults act like children, its time for the children to act like adults. And as more young people are flocking to careers to help battle the climate crisis, maybe it is time that us old gits moved out of their way. Or we should at least stop crushing their spirits by getting them to write technical reports and push project papers around to ‘give them experience.’

Here are today’s articles, especially selected for you.

James

I agree with the Lorax (Source: Flickr)

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Is transport the answer for struggling towns? It depends

This post by the usually-excellent Centre for Cities on whether transport investment should be a priority for ‘weak’ towns is a funny one. It rightly says that many factors affect the ability of a town to ‘level up’, and even good transport links don’t mean your town is saved. But its conclusion is strange…

While public transport systems should be improved wherever there is a clear weakness, it should not be in the main focus of levelling up towns. Rather, policy should address bigger barriers such as skills, housing and crime in these places.

That’s not how I read their analysis. I read it differently, and I would write the conclusion as follows…

While public transport systems should be improved wherever there is a clear weakness, this should be based on an understanding of the challenges facing a town. Sometimes, policy should address other barriers such as skills, housing, and crime in these places if they are the higher priority challenge. Only by understanding this will there be a realistic chance of levelling up your town.

There may be pathways to decarbonise aviation

Whilst aspirations for electric planes gain the headlines, the research and the thinking about how you decarbonise aviation is much more interesting. This includes using market-based mechanisms to stimulate change (good luck getting that past the Chicago Convention), managing destinations in a low-carbon manner, and how to recover after the pandemic. Being practical, we cannot uninvent aviation, so the issue comes down to how we reduce its impact.

Something interesting for today

The total number of passengers on short sea ferry routes from UK ports

I had a little fun with the Department for Transport’s latest statistical release on sea passengers. It confirms that the UK ferry market is Dover, then everything else.

If you do nothing else today, do this…

Check out why the Open Future for the internet is so important. A big thanks to Aimee Whitcroft for pointing this my way.