Good day my good friend.

I will get straight to the point. This will be my last post of the year. From the New Year, things are going to change around here, as I gradually start to cut down my own workload. The newsletter will start going weekly, as I look to make some quite radical changes to my life.

Now that is off my chest, you deserve an explanation for this. In a true breakup fashion, its not you, its me. But this time, I really do mean that – it is me.

🔥 Burning out

Back in the depths of the first COVID-19 lockdown, I thought “won’t it be a good idea if I started posting regular updates and my thoughts on the latest going’s on in transport planning?” I had blogged on and off for the better part of 8 years by that point under my Notes from a Transport Planner Blog (still online, by the way) as well as for work. So why not make something regular?

Mobility Matters was born. Starting off as posting every day, it was a great way for me to share some of my experience with the world. As well as killing some time during lockdown. And people liked it. I may not have the millions of followers of other blogs and newsletters, but there was still a steady stream of comments and visits, as well as good feedback on social media.

So I thought at that point – why not keep it up? Since then its gone down to 3 times a week, and I have had the occasional time off. But I have kept at it for 4 years. Whenever I am asked by readers who I meet in the real world “how long will you keep this up?” I always responded the same: until I no longer love writing it.

You can probably guess where this is going.

This last year has been very challenging for me personally. The loss of my dad really blew me sideways. Losing Jasper was also hard, and I have dealt with a number of personal matters that i have not mentioned that have weighed on my mind all year. The inevitable consequence of all of this is that you ask yourself the question: “What am I doing with my life?” This last year, I have asked myself that many times.

In addition to this, I have also worked insanely hard these last 4 years – and those of you who know me know how hard I work at the best of times. I am starting to feel the effects of it, as well as the cumulative effects of stresses in my life. I feel burnt out, and it’s taking me longer to recover now that I am getting older. Even now, a cold has floored me and where before it took me a few days to recover, it’s now taking several weeks.

What’s more, this year has been a real learning curve for me in what I find worthwhile. I have spent the last 20 years writing strategies and generally doing strategy. But what I value the most is the things I can point to and say that I helped to make happen.

I wish to go back to the projects where I get this sense of pride. Such as Mobility Camp, the Ridgmont Station Heritage Centre and Tea Room, the East West Rail Western Section, the Luton and Dunstable Guided Busway, and countless engagement activities and workshops. Heck, even the lion enclosure at Whipsnade Zoo which I gave planning permission for I am pretty chuffed with. I am proud of all of those things.

I want to do more things that help people, and tackle the climate emergency. Not write strategy all the time.

💼 Things are going to change around here

I still love to write, so the newsletter won’t be going away. But you are going to start seeing changes from the New Year, so I had better explain them.

First, this is my last newsletter of the year. I have a couple of projects to finish and I just about have the energy to do them. But nothing else.

As of the first newsletter of January (10th), I will be going down to one newsletter a week – on a Friday. I will be dropping the dedicated Positive News newsletter, and putting its content in a dedicated Positive News section in each regular newsletter. The reason for this is not only does this give me some precious time, but also the section on people doing great things is always the most time-consuming to research. I am not posting on a Monday for a simple reason – fewer of you read the Monday newsletters!

This frees up precious time for me to do some really exciting projects that I have been developing. Some of them are still early days, so I cannot reveal any more right now. But I can say that I plan to write another book. This one on transport planning, in a style that is yet to be determined – or even picked up by a publisher.

I will still help run Mobility Camp, and I look forward to seeing you all in Cardiff later next year. Some of my other extra curricular activities will be scaled back as well.

I should counter-act this by saying that if you have a cool transport planning project that you need help on, I am more than happy to do so. Let’s have a chat about it!

😃 In the meantime, lets have some fun

Despite all of the issues I set out, announcing this is still sad, to me at least. I will miss the rush of writing this 3 times a week at some point. Over the years I have had some wonderful feedback and correspondence from this newsletter, and had the pleasure of meeting many of you, including at Mobility Camp. Moments I will always treasure.

But, there is plenty more time to have some fun, and hopefully share a bit of insight with you all. I look forward to writing them all.

See you all next year!

James