Good day my good friend.
Yesterday, I came across this video by Hank Green on the US’s Inflation Reduction Act. If you are feeling down about the state of the world and action when it comes to climate change (and with Hawaii as well as most of the rest of the world seemingly on fire, who wouldn’t?), this is a must-watch. There is hope.
If the recent announcement by the Prime Minister still has you hot under the collar, we are talking ‘changing the narrative’ on sustainable transport at Mobility Camp 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
😊 The weekend the vision became a reality (mostly)
Occasionally, I like to delve into the UK Department for Transport’s Daily Transport Use By Mode statistics. Just to see how the UK transport network is faring following COVID-19. It gives a useful barometer (but not the whole truth) on the recovery of the transport network following the pandemic. Here it is in all of its glory.
Ok, now that is an extremely confusing graph. For the purposes of this post you don’t need to know it all. But if you wanted a TL:DR:
Car use crashed during COVID-19 and has recovered to pre-COVID levels
All forms of public transport essentially carried fresh air during COVID. Buses have never fully recovered. Trains have recovered. London Underground is also struggling, but seemed to have a crazy day on Christmas Day 2022 (i’m willing to bet that’s due to the Night Tube running on Christmas Eve)
There are more freight vehicles of all types on the roads
Cycling is about where it was before COVID
But what I focus on especially is a special weekend in the first lockdown. That is the weekend of April 10th, 2020. That weekend, the vision of a low car future became a reality in this country. That weekend, this happened.
Car use in the UK reached a level last seen in the 1950s. It was similar for all types of good vehicles. And cycling achieved nearly 300% of its equivalent use. Public transport really suffered that weekend also, so the vision was far from perfect. Not to mention the fact that there was a pandemic on. But apart from that, what happened that weekend?
Naturally, the weather played a role. For most of the weekend, it was sunny and warm with tempuratures in London reaching 22C on Friday (10th), and 25C on Saturday and Sunday (11th and 12th) before dropping to 14C on the Monday (13th). It was also the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend, with public holidays on Friday (Good Friday) and Monday (Easter Monday).
The UK was also in lockdown restrictions. But there was a notable exception at the time. That of exercise, where you were allowed out for up to an hour. And so with the traffic on the roads low, with some temporary bike lanes in, and the weather nice, the British public took to the streets.
No doubt you have your own memory of that time, for better or for worse. I remember spending much of my time worried for my dad who was subject to 12 weeks of isolation. But apart from that, my abiding memory was that of quiet roads and people out on bikes. And even many people saying how much they enjoyed it.
I wonder if that collective experience is one we could harness in some way. Visions of a low traffic future are hard to articulate. And while COVID-19 is hard to replicate again, the experience of the look and feel of that time could be utilised to sell a low traffic future. Ok, you can’t imagine a low traffic future? Well, for a while, we lived it.
Despite its hardships, that time gave me a lot of hope. It quite literally showed what the future could be like on our streets, and what we could achieve if we fight for it. I want to experience that again. And no doubt you do too.
What you can do: Selling a low carbon future as part of your transport strategy? Work with marketing and comms specialists to explore how you can use the experiences of lockdown and images of people cycling on streets during that time to show people what the future could be. Remind people that for a time, they experienced the future you are selling.
🦔 Killing off Roadkill
Here in the UK, there is somewhat of an annual campaign (in that its not exactly official) for places to become Hedgehog Friendly Towns. Started in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the purpose is to help people understand how they can help our lovable endangered friends, who are very active at this time of year. Much of the advice is on land management and creating wild areas in your garden, which is all great. But it misses a big cause of why hedgehog numbers have dropped by a third since 2000 - traffic. Up to 335,000 are killed on UK roads every year.
Road traffic kills a lot of people each year - 1.3 million globally. There are no accurate numbers for wildlife, but I am willing to bet its a heck of a lot more than 1.3 million. Cars can kill the human world, but they decimate the natural one. There are solutions to this problem, as you will see in the call to action. But there is no policy incentive to do so. The responsibility to reversing species decline often sits with government departments responsible for the natural world, who deploy natural world solutions like land management. For us transport people, however much we love their cute button noses, animals play next to no role in our decision making. That needs to change.
What you can do: First, citizen science time. Collect the data on the number of any one or more species you are interested in with a week long survey. There are loads of great examples here on how to do this. You need to know what you are working with.
Next, come up with an action plan for biodiversity with a major local wildlife organisation in your area (in the UK, that is usually Natural England or Scotland or Wales, and the Wildlife Trusts) as well as the local highway authority. Invite them to come and talk to you and your group about what they can do, and explore options for weaving it into what they do regularly. SUDs is a really good route in.
Finally, think about what transport options can be used to reduce roadkill. The first is obvious - lower speed limits, which helps a bit but is far from a panacea. But the ultimate solution is to insist on green crossings for wildlife (and people) based on a good quality wildlife survey.
🎓 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.
Accessibility of social housing by sustainable transport modes: A study in Poznań, Poland
TL:DR - Social housing is much more poorly accessible to key services than market rate housing, even though their occupants use them more.
Interactive bundle pricing strategy for online pharmacies
TL:DR - As shipping is free, why not minimise shipping costs by grouping people according to their willingness to pay?
A data fusion approach with mobile phone data for updating travel survey-based mode split estimates
TL:DR - Integrating official data sources with mobile phone data to understand travel patterns may be possible.
TL:DR - An attempt to use Virtual Reality to stop kids performing wheelies on bicycles doesn’t work.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
The
📼 On the (You)Tube
A bit of light comedic relief for you today, with the classic Yes Minister on why there has never been an integrated transport policy in the UK. Its still as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.
What you can do: Sit back and laugh. Or bang your head in frustration. I wouldn’t blame you if you did either of them.
🖼️ Graphic Design
Frustratingly, you will need to click through to the original graphic to see all the small details. But I am amazed that nearly 25% of global emissions are now covered by carbon pricing schemes. And if you want to know why a well-designed carbon pricing scheme is a very good thing indeed for reducing emissions, check out this blog by the London School of Economics.
📚 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.
Why air-conditioning is a climate antihero (MIT Technology Review)
The Invention of Time (History Today)
Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty (Quarterly Journal of Economics)
Why we should worry less about ‘sentient’ AIs and more about what we’re teaching them (aeon)
Gender and International Relations (Annual Reviews of Political Science)
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