Mobility Matters Daily #202 - HS2, consolidation in micromobility, and apples and pears
No Cockney rhyming slag here
Good day my good friend.
Ahead of some big bits of work coming my way in the next few weeks, I am polishing off the bits and peices that have been hanging around for ages. So my witterings at the start will be rather short from now on. Anyway, here are today’s links just for you.
James
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There are rumours circulating that the Eastern spur of High Speed Two, running from Birmingham to Leeds via Nottingham and Sheffield, is up for the chop. Its gone over about as well as you would expect it to. From a pure journey time reduction perspective, it’s a crazy idea, with potential journey time savings of an hour between Leeds and Birmingham being lost (its close to two hours by train now). From my perspective, this is the high speed line that should be built, but it comes down to how investment decisions re-inforce one another.
Work by the likes of the IPPR reveals a challenge with centralised decision making - it reinforces existing biases. In economically successful areas, investing in better infrastructure makes sense economically due to higher potential returns. But investing in economically underperforming areas could have a more significant impact. Recent work to change the Treasury’s Green Book sought to overcome this by placing more focus on the strategic case for schemes. But at the same time, the Benefit:Cost ratio influences decisions, and that is a lottery that can produce results that may not be in the strategic interest.
Micromobility consolidation appears to be gathering pace
In news rumoured for a while but with no firm statements either way until yesterday, the e-scooter company Tier bought bike share company Nextbike. Voi and Lime have already followed this path, and it makes plenty of sense to do so. Like much of mobility, micromobility can achieve lower costs per rider through larger scale operations, and so aquisitions such as this are likely to become more common, and in a few years time we will have a clear idea who the dominant market players will be.
It also reflects an interesting transport dynamic. There is some degree of substitution between bicycles and e-scooters. So consolidation makes sense. Why cannibalise each other’s market in a city, when the same operator could run e-bikes and e-scooters? If the ultimate aim is less cars, perhaps further consolidation of micromobility companies should be welcomed?
Comparing apples and pears
An interesting article on Urban Wire touches upon how cities and states in the USA are planning to use COVID-19 recovery funds for housing support. In short, its mainly for short term fixes to immediate problems, rather than fixing supply issues with affordable housing. But it raises a question experienced through the Levelling Up Fund here in the UK - if a fund is flexible and you are trying to fund different types of projects, how do you judge the case of what is good or not?
Its a challenge when funding a placemaking approach to developing a town or city. Can you compare investing in highway improvements with investing in a new art gallery? Assuming funding is finite and the pots are constrained, how do you choose? Is it even possible? Or do we continue to employ the classic policy maker trick of fitting a square funding peg in a round funding hole?
Random things
The internet and randomness go together like peas and carrots.
You Told Us Where To Point A Satellite. Here Are The Results (Bellingcat)
We Need Far More Radical Thinking Than Any COP26 Deal To Save the Planet (Naked Capitalism)
Why the chip shortage drags on and on… and on (Ars Technica)
Vietnam-China Trade: Transport Ministry Proposes Update to Railway Link (Vietnam Briefing)
Interesting things
How do you apply an abstract concept like wellbeing to transport? Let the OECD tell you how.
If you do nothing else today, do this…
Read this CityFix article on lessons from lockdown.