Good day my good friend.
Some days I feel like Doctor Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park. But when I am not philosophising about life, I realise that many people don’t learn from their mistakes, they just make all new ones. Such as this idea for a 100 mile long mirrored city in Saudi Arabia. Come on, people. At least read a bit of Jan Gehl before developing these ideas.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
You should also join a lot of like-minded people at Mobility Camp in Bristol in September. Get your tickets now. Sponsorship slots are also available.
James
Parking rage is a thing
The authors of this article on parking rage at University campuses deserve a medal for its title. Inspired stuff. Frankly, the fact that those on lower incomes, on buses, and residents in areas surrounding the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee get the most annoyed about parking is immaterial. The title conquers all. Okay, to be serious though, is there an explanation as to why people get so annoyed about parking?
Well, to start with we know that it does happen from driver polls, even if they are self-reported. But apart from that, we know extremely little about it. We could make inferences from general reasons for stress reported as part of driving. One of the key findings is whether people actually think that driving generally is stressful. But really, all we know is that stress occurs. We don’t know why yet.
An attempt to redefine active travel that actually does a decent job
I’ve never really been happy with the term active travel. Mainly because its a poor way of describing walking and cycling, not to mention the fact that you are grouping two very different modes of transport together. The likes of Paths 4 All tried to expand the definition further, but this new paper for which my good friends Rachel Aldred and Tom Cohen are co-authors along with others attempts to go further. The result is this:
This is based largely off a literature review, but I like it. Active travel in my mind is a spectrum and not a definition, and this reflects that very well. I’m less convinced about the merit of some modes as ‘active travel’ like paddleboards and pogo sticks. But its a pretty good definition overall. What do you think?
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.
London’s Square Mile Struggles to Find Its Way in Brexit Britain (Bloomberg)
The Earliest Known Cases of COVID-19 Have Finally Been Pinpointed (Science Alert)
Punks vs Posers (Tablet)
Wealth dynamics and wealth inequality (Mainly Macro)
Something interesting
I never thought car parking tickets would ever be interesting. What do I know?
If you do nothing else today, then do this
Yesterday, James Lovelock died. One of the founding fathers of the modern environmental movement with the Gaia hypothesis. The road protest movements and much of sustainable travel owes a lot to this man. This Guardian article has a video where he talks about his hypothesis, and it is worth your time viewing it. A true loss.
Mobility Matters 