Good day my good friend.

Many of you will probably know that it is Black History Month at present. Even if you look at things at face value, there is a close connection between black history and transport, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus being the most famous, as well as the slightly-less-famous-but-by-no-means-less-meaningful Bristol Bus Boycott. But there is still much more that we can do as planners to overcome our own biases, and tackle the outcomes from our work that can disproportionately affect those who experience prejudice.

If you want to make a start today, any easy first step is to subscribe to the Black Urbanist newsletter. Kristen Jeffers does an amazing job in articulating the issues, and giving practical advice on what to do.

Finally, no doubt many of you will be shocked at the scenes from yesterday’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Again, if you want to do something meaningful, donate to the Red Cross to help with immediate aid.

Sorry for the lengthy introduction. Now onto the newsletter.

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

James

Outcomes or process – no matter how you look at it, we have a problem

I will admit this. Up until a few years ago, I thought that our processes as planners were (largely) objective in process terms and outcome terms. Not perfect, but they treated people equally. And a big lesson of the likes of Making the Connections was that we just had to do different things, as opposed to changing how we do things. And public consultation? Just do more of it!

But over time, I have learned that prejudice (even if unintended) is a wiley foe. Political decision making is isolated, and takes place at times and in places often exclusionary to minorities. Regulations and practice often making being inclusionary extremely difficult. Exclusionary outcomes are well-known, and while the need for different perspectives is well-known, and we still need to base what we do on what works, we still need to ask: what works for who? We don’t do that enough, and doing it is hard. But even doing a bit changes the world.

Where to go and what to do if you actually want to do stuff for minority groups

We are transport planners! We do things! Lots of people talk about the issues affecting minorities, but give us a model or a scale rule and we will do things better than no others. So, what can we do? For me, here are a few useful tips to get you started:

• Talk to them. Yeah, its said a lot. But just do it. Its not hard.

• Understand how travel patterns differ for those in minority groups. Based on the location data from this Substack, the UK National Travel Survey, the US National Household Travel Survey, and Te karore ā-whānau (for you New Zealanders) contain at least SOME data on travel patterns for minority groups.

• Plan the engagement in schemes with the help of community leaders. In fact, this article by ICMA contains a lot of good, practical examples to improve public engagement with minority communities. While more effort is good, its better to target your effort more effectively.

• Properly weight what the scheme will achieve against social objectives. Sadly, a failure we often have is designing the solution before we understand our options. When every single transport appraisal guidance document says you should assess options against objectives. And if you don’t have a social objective for a scheme? Work on one!

• Build monitoring equitable outcomes into your plan and scheme. Remember, monitor the outcome, not just the output. For example, how has your policy or scheme changed how black people travel, or their access to key services? Many schemes and policies have to have an Equality Impact Assessment associated with them. If monitoring against this assessment is not in your monitoring plan, then why not?

The above is what I consider to be the bare minimum you can do with relatively minimal effort. No doubt many of you will have more, or better, suggestions than me. Which I am more than happy to share.

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.

• Oil’s New Map: How India Turns Russia Crude Into the West’s Fuel (Bloomberg)

• Car carriers booked solid, container ships being considered (Hellenic Shipping News)

• A Fisherman Died in 1952. Could Climate Change Be to Blame? (The Atlantic)

• Football and the climate crisis: does the game really want to tackle it? (The Guardian)

• Troubles in the Skies: Chinese Spy Balloon, Another Runway Close Call (Breaking the News)

Something interesting

Sorry to say it, but planning, and transport planning, has had inherently unequal outcomes. And this video shows the example of the great Motor City. Listen, and learn.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Its great when a website makes you stop and think. And this amazing website by Texas Transportation Institute, the Southwest Transit Association and the Community Transportation Association of America outlines when transport professionals can do to help in the fight against Human Trafficking. Its got an American focus, but I spent the better part of 3 hours on it yesterday. It is so good.