Mobility Matters Daily #261 – UBM and transport and health

Good day my good friend.

How do you proceed with an argument that you are pretty sure that you are going to lose, but you make it anyway? As transport professionals we face this all the time. Whether it be new cycle schemes, a planning decision or anything, many of us will have to have fought a lost cause. Maybe, in such cases, we should experiment and learn when it comes to making our case better? Try different arguments or try and test the interests of those who we are trying to convince? I mean, if you will lose, why not learn from it?

Speaking of learning, here is some news for you. And if you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include, email me.

James

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Universal basic mobility: existing ideas about transport rebranded, or something new entirely

If you want the next acronym to look out for, it should be UBM. Or Universal Basic Mobility. Its an idea gaining traction in policy circles as a policy concept as opposed to something hard and real. The idea is simple: everyone should have access to transport that meets your needs, at a minimum service level.

A pilot project on this has been kicked off in Oakland, California. This approach looks remarkably like mobility credits as is being demonstrated elsewhere, such as in the West Midlands in the UK, and in Finland. But it seems to a concept looking for a problem to solve. Its a policy maker idea at present, and one to watch, that needs to be something tangible, as opposed to rebranding what already exists.

People are standing at the corner of an intersection. Three are looking at the camera, while another is crossing the road. There is a queue of cars and buses behind them

Transport and health is a circular relationship

Too often we think of the link between transport and health as a linear relationship. Transport and certain transport choices have certain impacts on our health, and that is important. Rarely do we consider the reverse relationship: health impacts on our transport choices hugely.

Recent research from the USA shows that in those aged over 65 years old, those in poor health drive less and don’t drive as far, with variations by race also noted. Whether or not there are mobility impairments has a significant effect on modal choice, the types of trips people take, and their journey purposes. Sometimes, we just need to remember this fact when considering links between transport and health.

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 they do just that.

Is Europe’s Nuclear Phaseout Starting to Phase Out? (IEEE Spectrum)
The extinction crisis that no one’s talking about (Vox)
The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud (MIT Press Reader)
Shackleton’s Endurance: Modern star maps hint at famous wreck’s location (BBC)
A Practical Proposal on Methane for 2022: From Climate Pledges to Action (Center for Global Development)

Something interesting

An interesting deep dive into a now infamous project.

If you don’t do anything else, then do this

If you are looking for examples of innovation with public purpose, you could do worse than check out StateUp. It’s actually a pretty good overview of current developments and interesting companies. Thank you to Harvey Logan for pointing this out to me.