Mobility Matters Daily #396 - Smart Cities and Street Clutter
Good day my good friend.
I’m pretty sure that there is other news apart from that news story from the UK. When I managed to find it, it was all about how the world is at risk of crossing 6 key climate thresholds at the current rate of warming. Oh, isn’t that great. I know that we have to understand the problem in order to face it, but some days you just want to bury your head in the sand, don’t you? Regardless, we fight on.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
For those of you coming to Mobility Camp in Bristol on 29th September, I will see you there. Tickets are sold out, but if you are still interested you can put your name on a reserve list. Or, sponsorship slots are still available.
James
The Smart City isn’t dead. Just one vision of it may be
Much as been made of Sidewalk Labs’ abandoned plans for a smart city in Toronto. And much of the commentary has been somewhat gleeful at its demise. Now don’t get me wrong, there was plenty wrong with the plans. But just as techno-optimism is a lazy position, so is techno-pessimism. And it is really easy to dismiss Smart Cities out of hand without understanding what they could be.
An under-reported quiet technological change has been using technology to establish public trust, and support the development of civic functions. New research shows that the trust relationship depends upon how people position themselves as a citizen. But technology can engender trust from some people. We too often think of it in terms of harvesting traffic data to sell a product. Very little we think of it as using data to enable people to contribute positively to their areas. Time for less cynicism, I think.
Time to cut the cr*p on our streets
Living Streets have long run a campaign called Cut the Clutter, aimed at reducing the amount of pointless clutter on our streets. And street clutter can have a major impact on the lives of people with limited mobility, as this example of a mother and her daughter in Llanelli shows. As does the experience of pretty much everyone with restricted mobility who I have ever spoken to.
There is a significant and direct impact of street clutter and accessibility on people’s quality of life. There is demonstrable evidence that street clutter reduces travel horizons of those with limited mobility even further. Reducing it has long been a policy priority that little is done about. And authorities have the powers to enforce rules that reduce street clutter. They just don’t have the resources to enforce it. Time that changed, I think.
Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
Degrowth and social justice with Matthias Schmelzer (My Climate Journey)
Travelling smart in Genoa: Hitachi Rail's pioneering mobility project (The Engineer)
Brussels State of Mind: An urban development revolution is brewing (The Brussels Times)
Deinterlining and Schedule Robustness (Pedestrian Observations)
Summer CYCLOPS Safaris: Part 1 - Manchester (The Ranty Highwayman)
Something interesting
This is lovely, and something that there should be more of in order to get more people cycling. As for song requests, I’m guessing Slipknot would be a tad too sweary for children (warning: link is sweary and may make you question how my mind works)?
If you do nothing else today, then do this
This article from The Guardian exposes some of the tactics used by housebuilders to get out of their obligations to include electric charging infrastructure in new developments. I’m not shocked. Housebuilders try to get out of doing anything that involves spending money.