😊 Not All Bad - MM#610
Believe it or not, on cycling, the UK is (slowly) going in the right direction
Good day my good friend.
In a time of constant news, reaction to news, reactions to reactions to news, and the general hellscape that can be the discourse online, I find it helpful to occasionally switch off. Block all internet, keep the laptop locked up in the shed at the bottom of the garden, and just enjoy being not connected. I have done that during this last weekend, and I highly, highly recommend it.
I should also thank my wife Karen, my dogs, back issues of Private Eye and When Saturday Comes, and my hiking boots for making it so. That habit of wanting to keep busy constantly is hard to break.
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
🚲 Cycling - where are we at?
The last few weeks has seen a lot in the way of pro-motorist sentiment from many an elected leader. As I have covered before in this newsletter, and won’t repeat again in this one. Some of this is not-unrelated to plenty of anti-cycling rhetoric, that many consider is contributing to increasingly aggressive behaviour from motorists. Not that the latter is more of a view, as opposed to something that is based in evidence, but it is not to be taken lightly regardless.
But I think it is worthwhile considering where exactly we are at with cycling in the UK, England specifically. The last 3 years has certainly been a roller-coaster. With the establishment of Active Travel England and hundreds of millions of pounds being allocated through the Active Travel Fund before the recent rhetoric both by our politicans and online. So has this impacted the actual numbers?
The first thing to remember is that cycling levels generally are up over the last 5 years. The Department for Transport in its Cycling Traffic Index estimates that compared to June 2018, cycling levels are 6.2% higher. However, these levels are much lower than during COVID-19. To contrast that (with a not-quite-equivalent dataset), road traffic levels are still below what they were before COVID-19.
This is kind of proven by the National Travel Survey. While the average number of cycling trips per person is roughly the same as what it was 5 years ago, as is the average number of miles per person, over the last 10 years the average number of miles has increased. In contrast - while still accounting for more trips overall - the average number of car trips per person and the average distance travelled by car per person has dropped over the same period.
As you may expect, there is significant variation by regions, according tho data from the Active Lives Survey. Cambridge and Oxford have high rates of weekly cycling (42% of Cambridge residents cycle weekly, compared to 33% of residents of Oxford). The North East…not so much.
So the overall data shows a bit of a mixed picture. In that cycling rates are down compared to their COVID-19 highs, but the overall direction of travel for the last 10 years has been generally positive. Despite the increasingly hostile rhetoric and the more challenging funding environment.
If I am going to be honest, getting an overall picture of cycling in England outside of these statistical sources is really challenging. In my own professional life, monitoring the impact of cycling schemes and of overall cycling levels in an area has been very hard to do for a number of reasons.
The most common way to monitor impact is through counts - increasingly automatic counts but manual counts over the course of a day or week are still used - and surveys. The former are more challenging that you think. For instance, while an automatic counter allows you to constantly count cycles over an extended period, it depends on good equipment calibration and you positioning the counts correctly. And if you are monitoring over an area, how can you be sure the results are representative of cycling levels across an area? Surveys, including the best-in-class standard of the National Travel Survey, have their own, well-known issues.
In reality, we have an understanding of the general direction which cycling levels are going in the UK - and it is generally positive - but understanding performance at a local level is highly variable. Some areas like London do excellent work on cycle monitoring, and Active Travel England has given some good guidance on monitoring and evaluating schemes. Even then, it is tricky to tell how well cycling is doing across England.
The next time someone says how England is doing nothing on cycling, remember this. We are going in the right direction, but otherwise, we don’t know much. So lets monitor it well!
What you can do: If you are monitoring changes as part of transport strategies or to assess scheme delivery, I highly recommend Active Travel England’s guidance on monitoring and evaluation. It gives you the lowdown on the relative merits of different methods, and how they can be deliver effectively.
Remember, use a control group or area if you can, so you can tell if changes are a result of your policies or schemes, or due to other background factors.
Also, think about publishing your data openly. Data Mill North has some of the best practice for local authorities when it comes to publishing transport data. So check it out.
🎓 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.
Demand-responsive transport for students in rural areas: A case study in Vulkaneifel, Germany
TL:DR - Feasibility study says it will cost 1600 Euros a year to provide DRT to rural student.
Impact of railways on land use and land cover change: Evidence from India
TL:DR - The Metro-land phenomenon doesn’t just happen outside of London.
TL:DR - Testing economic theory in ride sharing is…messy.
TL:DR - Flexible working hours may result in more congestion in the peak hours.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
We all know that cycling has a number of physical and mental health benefits, and now doctors are beginning to prescribe cycling as a form of treatment on the NHS in a few trial areas. One example of this is Colne Valley Therapy CIC. They help people through led rides and offering cycle training and even bike maintenance basics.
They offer loads of free events and rides (including a ‘Ride Along the Towpath’ from Slaithwaite (Sla-wit for those who are not local) to either Marsden or Milnsbridge in Yorkshire if you available tomorrow!). And their work has real impact on people. As Patrice knows. We should do more of this kind of thing.
📼 On the (You)Tube
This great video by RM Transit on the Manchester Metrolink does an excellent job in showing the good and the bad of the system.
From a personal point of view, its an amazing system - certainly the best in the UK - but when going to watch Manchester United at Old Trafford its inability to flex services to deal with peaks in demands is notable. Including me having to walk to Victoria from Piccadilly to stand a chance of getting on board when heading to a match.
What you can do: I’ve said this plenty of times, but we need to effectively make the case for more tram systems across the UK. Systems that have made the case well include Midlands Metro and the second phase of the Edinburgh Tram (yes, really).
Similarly, we should learn lessons from previous projects. Such as this paper from the first phase of the Edinburgh Tram. Also, contact the operators of the Manchester Metrolink and Nottingham Trams, who are more than happy to tell you their experience of delivery.
🖼️ Graphic Design
Yes, we need to decarbonise everything. But as this data shows, as well as other sources, decarbonising energy, materials, transport, and agriculture gets us most of the way there.
📚 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.
Fast Times on America’s Slowest Train (Longreads)
Policy responsiveness and media attention (Policy & Politics Journal)
Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from same data sets (Nature)
Degrowth – How Anti-Worker Would It Be? (Green Social Thought)
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