Good day my good friend.
Nope. Nothing to see here. As you were.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
E-scooters are going to be legal in the UK
They have finally moved from interesting novelty to a part of the transport mix. The UK Government has confirmed plans that it wants to legalise the use of e-scooters on public roads. This will involve giving e-scooters their own legal class. Whilst apparently its been met with FURY by road users, this has been some time in coming. Despite the results of the trials not yet in or reported on yet.
The impacts of e-scooters in UK are hard to quantify. There is some evidence that shows e-scooters could reduce carbon emissions through modal shift. There have been over 18 million trips in the trial areas to date. More generally, young white men tend to use them, so the impacts on equity are uncertain. So the jury is still out on what impact they will have on improving transport in our cities. But regardless, the government has taken the decision that it is better to regulate than to hold things back. Let’s see how things go.
Urban Greening and Twitter
Time for a confession. I really, really don’t like Twitter as a tool to analyse sentiment towards anything. This is mainly from experience of using any Internet forum since the mid-1990s that, in my experience, shows that people act completely differently online than they do in person (though there is evidence that this is less the case now). But researchers still use it, and this article in Cities uses it to analyse sentiment towards green spaces in urban areas during COVID-19 lockdowns. Turns out, people miss them. More green spaces please!
Results revealed that people felt a strong deprivation feeling in relation to the restrictions imposed on [urban green space] access, which limited the number of spaces for supporting mental and physical wellbeing of citizens. Users from urban areas were more affected by the lockdowns and more willing to share thoughts on social media, demonstrating a strong emotionality.
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.
Evolution Didn’t Wire Us for Eight Hours of Sleep (The Atlantic)
Powerful ‘Machine Scientists’ Distill the Laws of Physics From Raw Data (Quanta)
The Brain Searches for the Best Way to Move the Body (Neuroscience News)
This Crisis Requires Genuine Social Change (Heisenberg Report)
Something interesting
Some environmental good news. The rate of loss of tropical forests has been declining since the 1970s. And the world’s temperate forests have been expanding since the 1990s.
If you do nothing else today, then do this
Yes, Elon has been talking about induced demand again. Luckily, Jarrett Walker puts it succinctly.
Mobility Matters 