Good day my good friend.

Something that has struck home to me over the last few months is the importance of what we measure as transport professionals. We are great at counting cars and passengers, but rarely at judging the impact of what we do. Mainly, because we are just so focussed on what we are doing. So I ask, how are you judging the impact of what you do, and how can you demonstrate it? It is these sorts of questions I am thinking about as I try and recreate Mobility Lab into something more meaningful.

If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.

James

Do our streets need to be soft and green? Well, not all the time

If you are thinking about redesigning streets, one of the things you are no doubt considering is planting and trees. Because who doesn’t like trees, right? Plus they have loads of benefits, like reducing air temperatures in cities, and reducing levels of air pollution. Plus, they look nice, don’t they? Well, it turns out that hard surfaces have their benefits too.

But recent research from London into how people perceive both hard and soft public space points at something more nuanced. While soft space is generally favoured, its not as if hard space is bad especially. As is so often the case, it depends…

Hard space was significantly positively correlated to well-being in high-safety neighbourhoods, yet this relationship was inversed in low-safety areas. This interaction effect was especially large and significant for social housing residents, who seem to reap the greatest benefits from, but are also most susceptible to the dangers of, hard-surfaced space.

Turns out that high speed rail may reduce regional inequalities

In news that will likely further frustrate some readers who are located in distinctly non-London regions of the UK, evidence from Japan has shown that if trying to reduce inequalities between regions is what you are after, high speed rail is pretty good at it. The paper looks at income per capita and the amount of patent applications per employee (the latter as an indicator of innovation activity). Although this impact depends on how developed the industrial infrastructure is.

The role of transport in reducing regional is complicated. Historically, new infrastructure has helped to develop more peripheral areas, but it can also lead to increased centralisation as well. The Levelling Up White Paper is right in one respect: levelling up regions isn’t just about infrastructure, but about capacity building across economies and public services.

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.

• No plan yet for bullet train’s soaring price tag (Cal Matters)

• Spelling mistakes and clerical errors could keep many stranded in shelters under city housing program (Gothamist)

• Covid has reset relations between people and robots (The Economist)

• Is fascism the wave of the future? (New Statesman)

• Customers rush to beat deadline on higher tax on ultra-luxury cars (The Straits Times)

Something interesting

The method is…somewhat dubious. But the research behind this graphic is a useful starting point for finding out more.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

If you want some amazing examples of monitoring reports, check out Lambeth’s reports into Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. They are very, very good.