Good day my good friend.

Night trains. Not just an excellent Guns N Roses song, but the thing that is making a come back. And for good reason. A chance to travel and stay overnight rather than having to spend half a day running to and from airports? Personally, I can’t wait for my trip on the Caledonian Sleeper to SRITC’s The Gathering in May – the whiskey on board is amazing!

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

James

Hunting down savings

Here in the UK, the annual political tradition of convincing the nation that the gruel about to be served is fine dining, otherwise known as The Budget, took place this week. And whilst this phrase is very much over-used, it very much is a case of the good, the bad, and the ugly for transport. But when the economic outlook for the nation is as poor as it is, maybe that is not a shock.

The good? Some major road projects that would have not done anything for climate goals have been deferred or axed. The notable being the Lower Thames Crossing, which has been delayed until at least 2026. The £200 million taken from road maintenance has been put back, and there are some good levelling up projects in the Budget. But the game changer is the radical devolution of transport powers and funding to the West Midlands and Greater Manchester. Devolving such power away from Whitehall is very much welcomed, and could be a step change in making local transport improvements.

The bad? Fuel Duty frozen again. Good for motorists who are struggling, but not so good for the Treasury and the environment. The Active Travel Budget has been slashed by two-thirds. Again, not good news for the environment. While not contained in the detail, I understand that the rail industry is being asked to ‘sweat the asset’ much harder than normal as well.

The ugly is HS2. Not that it is an ugly project (I leave you to judge that), but its death by a billion cuts. The section between Birmingham and Crewe is delayed, and there are more than strong rumours that the London section will only go as far as Old Oak Common until 2041. For once I agree with Simon Jenkins. If you are going to kill the project, kill it. Right now, its being set up to fail.

So what to take away from this for transport? Not much to be honest. This is a budget of short term politics and not long term vision. There is more uncertainty when certainty is needed, and dithering on decisions when decisions need making. Typified by the lack of something really basic that is sorely needed – a projects pipeline. So yet another disappointment, where the politics matters more than the substance.

CityMapper finally gets a buyer

I thought this would never happen. But CityMapper has finally found a buyer. They have been purchased by Via, who some of you may know as the tech behind ViaVan. Whilst I love CityMapper and use the app every time I go to a major city, you cannot hide the fact that it has struggled to make money ever since it was founded. Including unsuccessful ventures in offering passes, and running buses.

For what its worth, I feel this is a much better deal for CityMapper than it is for Via. Following recent troubles that have spooked investor funding, getting bought out is a shrewd move by CityMapper. But unless Via have looked under the hood and have seen something in the tech that we don’t know about, I’m not sure CityMapper holds much value to them. I may be wrong, and I certainly don’t want CityMapper to disappear, but I do question Via’s decision on this one.

Turn that speed down!

Long time subscribers will know that I have had a bit of a thing for reducing noise from the transport system. Don’t believe me on how important this is. When the World Health Organization has your back and the data to support you, you know that you are in a good place. Very simply put, the transport network creates a lot of noise, and its important we reduce it. And an easy way to do that, is to reduce traffic speeds.

Yet again, a study backs this up. Using the example of Łódź, Poland (who have an amazing story concerning how one of their football teams refuses to die), researchers found that while reducing traffic speeds does not tip the balance in favour of walking and cycling (no shock), but that there is a major link between traffic speeds and noise levels. Or, reduce the speed, and theoretically the noise gets better. Again, no shock. So lets do it!

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. Thank you to the always-excellent Naked Capitalism for these links.

• Fire the Fed (Matt Stoller)

• Brazilian researchers find ‘terrifying’ plastic rocks on remote island (Reuters)

• Unprecedented levels of institutional capital making its way into maritime services (Splash 24/7)

• The Fishing Revolution and the Origins of Capitalism (Monthly Review)

• Rebuilding US chip industry won’t be cheap (Asia Times)

Something interesting

Rivers are a pain for transport engineers. They tend to do river things like meander and flood. And this great video by Practical Engineering explains why.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

This is a great primer on 15 minute cities from the Woke Globalist Lizard People seeking to control everyone through Net Zero and mass surveillance. Sorry, I meant DW.