🌟 New and Shiny - MM#577
Good day my good friend.
It feels all new in here, doesn’t it? I hope you like what I’ve done with the place, now that we have gone to 3 newsletters a week (you will get your next newsletter on Wednesday, then another on Friday).
There have also been a few other changes to the newsletter. As well as the new content that you will see below, the focus of the newsletter has shifted somewhat. With a multitude of crises converging on transport - climate, social justice etc. - the focus is on action. Namely, giving you interesting things to think about and ideas for action. This is especially for the frustrated professional!
I am pretty sure you will like the changes. All feedback is very much welcome. And here is to a new era!
Mobility Camp is taking place on 26th September 2023 in Birmingham. It would be great to see you there. Get your tickets now.
If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else who you think will love it. I will love you forever if you do. ☺️
James
🧼 Washed Up
Yesterday (Sunday), I took my car to get its [frequency of car washing redacted to save embarrasment] wash - inside and out. The works. Doing so set me back the better part of £50, and while sat there it got me wondering. How much do we as a society spend on simply making our vehicles look presentable? And what is the impact of this?
Academic studies are hard to find, but I found a few bits in the grey literature. Apparently, one in five Brits clean their cars less than every 6 months, with 29% cleaning it at least monthly or more frequently. The US Census Bureau identifies California as the car wash capital of the US, though car washes in the District of Columbia rake in nearly $900k every year on average.
But car washes have an environmental impact. Anywhere between 10 and 25 gallons for each wash if you use a pressure washer. To put that in perspective, the average Brit uses 32 gallons of water per day. That got me thinking. How much water is used per year washing cars in the UK? I ran some very basic numbers, and plotted a distribution by frequency of washing the car (see below) and came to a number.
2,052,768,075 gallons of water is used every year by Brits washing their cars
To put that in perspective, that is the daily water usage of London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow, Leicester, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Cardiff combined.
But its not just abstraction of water. Wash-off from car washes, especially if straight into water courses, includes oil and biochemicals, with little in the way of active filtering of contaminants. This requires active management both of the outflow from car washes, as well as treating the water as it comes in.
This is certainly one of the number of second order effects that we often don’t pay attention to when it comes to car ownership. We think of the tailpipe, but not what happens when both it and the body are cleaned. This has a significant effect on local aquatic ecosystems, and can lead to a build up of pollutants over time.
What you can do: Right now, look for planning applications in your area for new car washes, and demand to see (and object if there isn’t) their waste water treatment plans, particularly for oil and particulates. Let you local councillor know about it too. But the long term solution is to reduce car ownership. For that, I highly recommend suggesting to your local council setting up a car club.
🚇 Investing in infrastructure is a good thing
We instinctively know that investing in sustainable transport infrastructure is a good thing. The problem is proving it. It is especially hard proving it over the operational life of the infrastructure, which can be in excess of 60 years. While short-term increases in public transport or cycling trips can be noticed and the link with a specific bit of infrastructure proven, that is hard to do over 60 years.
Then this research paper on evidence from the London Underground came along. And it is a thing of beauty. Looking back over 70 years of data, it showed that increasing investment in infrastructure (primarily maintenance) by 10% per annum generates a ridership uplift of around 4%-5%. Its a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant bit of research that I love to an unreasonable degree.
Its probably the first bit of research over a long period of time that shows the value of investment. It shows its a good thing for generating more passengers. So lets do this.
What you can do: Put this research paper in front of decision makers to give them the idea that long term investment generates a return. Then, start thinking about how your organisation can start assessing this value over the long term so you can continue to make the case for investment in sustainable transport.
🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author - they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
TL:DR - Protecting big airlines from bankruptcy may not be good for competition.
New Approach to Determining the Roughness of Bicycle Roads
TL:DR - A new method of measuring how much a road shakes the bones of cyclists shows promise.
TL:DR - Playing Grand Theft Auto may make you a better driver.
A comparative analysis of University Sustainable Travel Plans – Experience from Australia
TL:DR - Comparing Travel Plans is important to identifying best practice, so we can make them better.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
Transport Assessments are the decidedly unsexy part of transport planning. Yet the contents of them determine the designs, and often a car-focussed legacy, of new developments.
The brilliant Nicola Waight and Dominic McGrath of Hampshire County Council have taken it upon themselves to start writing guidance with the aim of Fixing Transport Assessments. Potentially towards a more sustainable future.
You can view their paper from the recent Transport Practitioners Meeting. You can also join the LinkedIn group as well if you want to help out.
Got someone doing something awesome in transport decarbonisation, transport justice, or transport safety who deserves a shout out? Let me know about them.
📼 On the (You)Tube
The always interesting Half as Interesting has published an interesting video on leaves on the line. Namely how they are such a problem (in short: leaves = sliding trains). Why is this important? Because its a preventable delay.
What you can do: Contact your local or national innovation agency (in the UK that’s UKRI) and suggest an innovation competition focussed on tackling leaves on the line.
🖼️ Graphic Design
Over the last 45 years, vehicle production in the US has shifted from cars to SUVs. Its not good news for pedestrians or the planet.
What you can do: Start weighing up the option (literally) of charging parking charges according to weight. Paris are looking at it. Contact them and ask them for more details.
📚 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.
What would the internet of people look like now? (The Verge)
Reaching net zero will cost billions more due to interest rate rises (New Scientist)
Rebuild or renovate: the embodied carbon conundrum (Financial Times)
Cost–Benefit Analysis of Sewered and Non-Sewered Sanitation Interventions in Mahalaxmi Municipality, Nepal (Asian Development Bank)
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