It’s not enough for planners to act now to #BuildBackBetter. Without changes in structures and decision making, this counts for nothing. This takes a long time.

This is another post that I posted on a previous blog, updated to reflect more recent times. The frustrating thing is that it is still as relevant as it ever was. Personal change is good. Systems change is better.

Transport has not had a good COVID-19 crisis. There, I’ve said it.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all been bad. We’ve managed to respond to arguably the biggest supply chain shock we have ever had to face. We’ve helped build new hospitals in record time. We’ve built temporary cycle infrastructure in record time, and are looking to make it permanent. We’ve (largely) given the public good advice on travelling that is scientifically robust, especially when it comes to using public transport.

We’ve acted and reacted. Perhaps that was all that was needed of us during a crisis? But there is a difference between acting and changing. Over the last few weeks, whilst many of my fellow professionals have been congratulating each other on great work done (sometimes justifiably), the core of transport planning remains untouched.

In order for change to be self-sustaining these actions need direction, support, structures, and to be ongoing. It needs transport planning to be radically different in its look and feel.

Over a year ago, I posed a series of questions that transport needs to answer to learn anything about what is happening right now. They are:

• What have we learned from this crisis about our sacred truths?

• How has our perspective on the future of transport changed?

• What does the transport theoretical framework look like?

• Is transport an economic construct first, or a social construct first.

The answers so far are as so: nothing, nope, same as it ever was, and economic construct.

We are still learning some of the lessons of the crisis. But to not even start to fundamentally challenge ourselves and our own thinking as the same time as proclaiming that we will be entering a ‘new normal’ is unforgivable.

So, with a small and hardy band of people, my focus has shifted away from doing something, to thinking about these questions and how we can ensure that transport planning emerges as something that is better. And is acting both on the opportunities that COVID-19 poses, and to ensure that we change for the better.

At the same time, I will use this blog to share my own thoughts on this.

In this post, I will attempt to frame the challenge that is ahead and that has been exposed throughout this crisis. and perhaps more importantly what the challenge is not. In future posts, I will delve some more into the thinking of myself and others on the building blocks of what is needed to make this all happen. Combined, I hope that they build a vision for what transport planning should become, as we look to a normal that is truly new.

I do not need to tell you what the outcomes are of how we plan transport. If any of have been reading my writings, you will know many of them. But for a quick recap:

• Transport is one of the highest sources of CO2 emissions in Europe and globally;

• Over 1 million road deaths per year, with the impacts falling overwhelmingly on the most vulnerable people in the world;

• Incredible personal mobility and autonomy, if you are rich and if you own a car;

• Lack of physical activity — partly due to less walking and cycling — is increasing levels of obesity;

• The way that transport operates poses significant social exclusion issues, which in turn results in poor health and fewer opportunities in life.

You get the picture.

It is also worthwhile stating right now the big issue — COVID-19. It is a huge public health emergency. According to the evidence of the time from the World Health Organisation, public transport is one of the main transmission sources, and where movement is essential then social distancing measures need to be put in place and maintained to contain the spread of the virus. This has been more rigourously questioned in recent research, however.

This public health emergency trumped everything. The spread of the virus needs to be slowed, and the virus contained. In some cases, we should get guidance on how to do this from medical scientists whose job it is to understand how viruses spread and can interpret the evidence accordingly.

But there will be many times where these experts are flying as blind as we are (remember, they are still learning about the virus). They won’t know what operational decisions bus operators should take if the R rate in Leeds is 0.4 but climbing rapidly, and the local economy is tanking. In such instances, it is likely that all they can do is give the facts on the situation, give general guidance that errs on the side of caution, and we will be left to judge the risk accordingly.

We are now not in the same position. We are starting a funny transition out of the COVID crisis, where reluctance to return to normal is there, while at the same time there is a desire to and COVID strains – at least the most recent one – are becoming less lethal.

A constant bug bear of mine, however, is how transport planning makes decisions. It is easy to think that transport decisions — whether they be policy or whether they be scheme specific — are along the following lines:

• We set out what we want to achieve;

• We check the law, check that its compliant (with other policy and best practice), and get it approved;

• Then we do it.

This is a nice way to think about it if all you are interested in is the output. Our requirement says that we must achieve low carbon travel (for example). Therefore we must build this cycle track, and by doing so we will get more people cycling. Anyone who has ever had experience in the design of such schemes will tell you that the reality is far more complex than this, and people know that some sort of process needs to be gone through in order to deliver a scheme or new policy.

But aside from those actually dealing with the process in the heat of a policy change or scheme development, nobody really cares about it. Which is a bit crazy once you think of it. Because the outcome is not defined by the objective only. It is shaped by the process itself. More than that, this is not just about regulations, safety cases, or when you have to submit a report.

A big part of this process is the transport planning norms. Think of these not as set rules or principles by which transport planning should be done (the CIHT and TPS have those), but the ‘unwritten’ rules that shape how transport is done. Like how the PCU is the dominant metric for judging how good a scheme is, or the fact that you do not restrict parking in this location “because that is not the way that things are done around here.”

I have yet to see any substantive research at all on these cultural norms. But considering what we know about how social norms affect how we choose to travel, I would be shocked if these norms do not hugely influence decisions.

This then poses a huge problem to transport planners, for how we deal with the current crisis, and how we transition back to normal (whatever that means). Because changing norms is hard, and cannot just be done by doing more of one type of policy or scheme, there is every chance that we will not learn anything from this time of crisis.

Or, as is just as likely, others will make us learn, and demand change or force it on us, and we will not be able to deliver it.

I initially shared some of my concerns some time back in a LinkedIn post, which got a few excellent responses. All of these responses are below, and I thank Kit Allwinter, Emma Cockburn, Pawel Bugajski, Tom Van Vuren, Sandra Witzel, Peter McBeath, and Tim Gent for sharing your views!

I will leave you to make your own conclusions. But to me a couple of things jump out from these comments that partially confirm some of the experiences that I have had over the last couple of months. Most notably:

• Transport planners are still somewhat conservative in their nature. Since I last complained about transport planning a few years ago, things have got better. But when you don’t even posit an idea because the client won’t like it, because they think that politicians won’t like it, because they think the public will be in uproar, we have a problem.

• Our institutions are not up to the task other than acting in ‘business as usual’ manner. Many talk a truly excellent game, and have been publishing some excellent thought leadership into what transport could be in the future. But they have a crippling inability to act on it.

Let’s unpack both of those issues in more detail.

You’ve probably been in that situation. You are working on a street design project. This street has truly amazing potential — lots of shops make a pedestrian area a distinct possibility, or there is loads of room to put in a cycle lane. You can even do it without reducing the amount of parking. What’s more, the Local Transport Plan states that you should be prioritising active travel and public transport. Wow, your scheme idea stands a chance.

You then talk it over with your supervisor. That’s when the first sign of trouble starts. You explain your idea. But the comment comes back “Yeah, that seems like a lot of space for a cycle lane. Maybe its better to paint some cycle symbols on the road? The traffic data says that only 16 cyclists use the road. Besides, the councillors won’t like it, you know what they are like.”

You think, ok, bit of a wasted opportunity. But hey, the pedestrian area will make it look nice and give room for local businesses to set up outside. Then comes the meeting with the councillors: “If we put this plan to the businesses, they will be up in arms. And why are we moving the parking? Nope, we can’t present the plans like this. We will get cruxified.”

You then go back to the drawing board again. You come up with a plan to repave the pavement, put down some surface treatment on the crossings, and repaint the highway lines. It gets voted through. You learn your lesson: don’t try that again.

Sound familiar?

Its an entirely natural reaction. Don’t rock the boat. Just do what the client asks, and no more. The last time we went outside of scope we got all sorts of hell, so let’s not go there again. Just do your job, and go home.

All too familiar, and all too frustrating. This norm is part of the reason why change is so hard..

At present, there are only 3 ways to get through this mailaise. The first is to “brute force” it. To stick to your guns and get the scheme through the approvals process and built, albeit with a few concessions that don’t undermine the scheme entirely. Whilst you get it done, it is completely and utterly draining on the planner or engingeer spearheading the charge. It’s an experience that you never want to go through again because you had to fight for the scheme every step of the way, and every step was a war of attrition.

The result is that you emerge from it exhausted and broken, a husk of your former self. And you promise to yourself that you will never do that again.

The second option is to sit down at the start, and identify the parts you are willing to compromise on. Not compromise a little, but identify the bits that you will cave in completely on if there is a bit of push back. Hey, you never know, they may not notice and it will sneak through. Here’s hoping eh?

The problem with this is that schemes and policies are intricate webs. You compromise on one part, and the whole thing starts to fall apart. When your buses fly past the queue in your new bus lane, only to get held up at the junction because ‘providing priority up to the junction will reduce its capacity,’ then the pointlessness of your compromises becomes clearer.

Whats more, this sets a trend for you. You then start to compromise in similar ways on future schemes. Worse, you then start to do this subconciously in future schemes by conceding ground from the outset. Your own standards start to lower, as the only standard is getting the scheme built.

Isn’t it fun seeing how bad norms can be set? So can we set a good norm? Yes.

The third approach is to build a community, and expand it over time. This is beyond a single scheme, it is playing the long game where, through building schemes and providing mutual support and recognition, you build a community around a common purpose — more people walking and cycling being a good example.

The community can be committed locals, professionals, enthusiasts, and even the odd crazy person (every community has them). You work in genuine partnership with them to create, to innovate, and most importantly to do things. You do have some sort of process, but it shouldn’t stifle ideas or inspiration because “the design manual says we can’t do that” or because “we don’t do things that way.”

Transport planners are not community builders. We never have been.

But it is a skill that we have to learn, and quickly. Because our current decision making structures and even professional bodies are not set up for community. It is set up for decision, for control, and for certainty.

One of my biggest concerns about the actions being taken in the current crisis is how transport planning is falling into the “doing something” trap. This trap, which I must admit I have fallen into more than once, is the one where because you are “doing something,” you are taking meaningful action on an issue. And because you are taking action on that issue, you are not only dealing with the issues, but you are successfully tackling a whole load of other issues as well.

Take the work on temporary cycle infrastructure and closing streets to enable social distancing as an example. There is a lot being done right now to deliver these schemes across the UK. Just a quick glance at Twitter shows this. And I hope these schemes do lead to a permanent increase in the number of people walking and cycling in our towns and cities.

But this good feeling can be deceptive. It establishes a norm that just doing things, and feeling good because of it, is all that matters. So long as the desired outcome is achieved, that is all we need, right?

Wrong. Yes, you are doing good things right now. But institutional barriers that regularly stop walking and cycling schemes are still there. TAG is still a complete pain for favouring road schemes, and the long standing inertia against cycling schemes has not gone away.

I myself have experienced this in my own back yard. Whilst spearheading some work to suggest areas in my village which could benefit from work to enable social distancing for pedestrians, common recommendations included one way footways for pedestrians, and cutting back hedgerows. Lest the priority of cars be questioned.

Don’t get me wrong. Delivering such schemes is better than doing nothing. But just doing things doesn’t stick. Once the energy flames out (and it will), the old norms and old habits creep back in. If you don’t give the time to working on changing norms and power structures, they will simply come back again, and plough on.

Let us take this exact moment. The renewed interest in walking and cycling has largely come about in the UK because of one organisation and its decisions the Department for Transport.

It is frankly insane that for improvements that us transport planners know will make a huge impact on our streets and for the better, we still have to wait for the Department for Transport to pull its finger out. Without their funding, their statutory and non-statutory guidance, and even formal appraisal, we cannot do these things. With the exception of locations where there is substantial devolved authority (i’m looking at you, Manchester, Scotland, and London), most wait for the DfT to move before doing anything.

This manifests in the everyday work of transport planners in numerous ways. Funding, statutory guidance, appraisal mechanisms, bidding for major schemes. Frankly, its insane. Transport planning is operating with the handbrake on, and the potential of transport planners is being back because some powers really are outside of their control.

It is very easy for transport planners to simply blame political leaders, and perhaps there is some justification for that. Transport is a public service, overseen by politicians who are accountable to the people who voted them in. And with streets being the biggest public asset, it is only right that the people and their representatives have their say over its future.

But how have we got to the point where good transport planning being delivered in practice is reliant on having a good Cabinet member or Transport Minister? Where doing a good job is not meeting the basic principles of transport planning, but getting the scheme or policy past the politicians?

Again, this gives rise to a false solution. If only we had politicians who understood the value people-centred transport planning, or supporting public transport, then our problems would be solved. The fact that we have to do this is the problem.

To do so requires radical action. And whilst institutions support radical thought, providing the capacity, ability, and support to deliver radical action to change practice and decision making for the better.

This is partly a capacity issue. I have seen first hand the dedication and excellence of the people who are part of our professional institutions, but who are just completely swamped with the work of keeping the existing organisation going. People working long hours, and freely giving up their time because they really do care about their profession, and they want it to be the best that it can be.

But despite these efforts. Despite the reams of guidance and reports produced that shows what good transport planning is. Despite the professional training standards and requirements to be a transport planner. And despite the evidence that shows the impacts of good transport planning, bad transport planning is still largely the normal.

The knowledge of our institutions is not lacking. Whether it be a government department of a professional body, we know the evidence. But they justify poor transport planning by citing other reasons (“oh, building roads is bad i agree, but this road will provide access to the economy for this area…”) or the practice of other people (“yes we should push for better buses, but developers will push back”). As if the way things are done have been set in stone and can never be moved.

We lack the capacity and capability to disrupt ourselves and to change our whole way of doing, even slowly. While having people capacity is a part of it, the fact that we do not work openly and across disciplines is a big reason for this. We share ideas, and we share best practice, but we never act together to change ourselves.

Take traffic modelling as an example. Despite the presence of MATSim as an open source framework for transport modelling for over 15 years, the fact that the nearest thing we have to an open source modelling package is the Propensity to Cycle Tool is incredible. Efforts are made to improve the quality of propriartary software, which are then accessed either through a licence, or commissioning modelling work.

But this goes further than this. In order to get any sort of insight into how local networks operate, the solutions and datasets are siloised. Locked away unless you pay a price. Even to publish transport data openly has been a long struggle, and almost non-existent at the local level. Again, reliant on the Department for Transport to do anything about it.

This is not to say that commercialisation of products or services is a bad thing. But when even access to entry level tools, techniques, and methods relies on you having to pay for them, and you fight every step of the way to stop them from being made available, then something is really wrong.

Transport planning can be better. It must be better. COVID-19 has rocked it to its core, and challenged basic assumptions about how we get around. Doing things right now in the name of good transport planning and sustainability is good, but its not enough.

Good transport planning is the exception, and bad transport planning is shrugged off as one of those things. But overcoming this means acting slow, as it means acting to change our very approach to how transport is planned.

The outcomes that we want to achieve are a result of our processes, decision making structures, and professional practice. Changing the outcome doesn’t just mean changing what is there or the principles by which it works. It means fundamentally reimagining it.

It means being open, supportive of those who take risks, frequently challenging and disrupting ourselves, and representing the perspectives of all. Our COVID-19 legacy is not bike lanes or rising levels of traffic. It is how we do things from now on.