Good day my good friend.

To start with, I must say hello – again – to those of you joining this newsletter after my recent webinar on How to Make Friends and Influence Councillors with the excellent Mark Ames. Turns out than when I said hello two weeks ago, none of you got the message because WordPress failed to import your contacts. Sorry about that. You missed some rather good newsletters on new railways and Mobility Camp. But its good to have you on board!

This week I ran out of time to write this due to some things going on at home that I won’t bore you with. So this week’s newsletter is full of random things. I am also writing this as Manchester United are losing to Grimsby Town, so I am not best pleased (as I write that, Harry Maguire has just equalised – I always liked him).

🙋‍♂️ Some things I have been up to

Time to blow my own trumpet for a bit. My report on How to Make Friends and Influence Councillors is online and free to download. You can also view the webinar that I did with Mark Ames on YouTube. Its even embedded below, in case you have a spare 30 minutes.

I will also be appearing in an upcoming PTRC Fireside Chat on 25th September (12:30pm UK time) with a stellar panel of Azzees Minott, Nicola Blaney, Adil Chaudhrey, Professor Rachel Aldred, and Professor Glenn Lyons. We will be talking about the need to speak on where things are wrong in the transport world, and the implications of doing so. You can sign up for free here.

I have also written a blog for the Campaign for Better Transport on Mobility Camp. You can read it here. I also have blogs that will shortly be published on the TAPAS network and Sarah Barnes’ Along for the Ride Substack. You should read this anyway, but keep a special eye out for my work!

Finally, with Scottish Rural and Islands Transport Community I am working on a project on ferries. We are asking for people to share their experiences of using ferries, more information on which you can find on this LinkedIn post. I am currently delving through local authority spending data to understand how much is being spent on ferry services by local councils.

📖 Light Reading

The House of Commons Transport Committee has recently published a report on Buses connecting communities. Its worth a read, even if some of the recommendations are a bit cookie-cutter (who would have thought long term funding might be a good thing?).

After being delayed since forever, the Department for Transport has published its Draft Road Investment Strategy (RIS) 3. A good time to invest in companies who repair infrastructure, I would say. I will go into it in more detail when I get the chance.

Meanwhile. the IPPR have published another good report on decarbonising transport. In short, if you provide low carbon alternatives to those on lower incomes, you might achieve the carbon reduction goals faster.

💷 Charge!

I’ve recently got stuck into reading about Oxfordshire’s planned temporary congestion charge in Oxford. This is quite an interesting scheme. Where it has stemmed from is the current closure of Botley Road as Network Rail replace the railway bridge – a project overrunning by 3 years. This has severely disrupted buses and travel throughout the city, and has delayed the implementation of traffic filters in Oxford.

But the problem of traffic congestion and air pollution still remains. So Oxfordshire have been creative in going for a temporary congestion charge in the city to tackle these problems. Whilst leaving it open to making it permanent. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

🎈You Can’t Park There, Mate

Its not often Bedfordshire makes the news. But this week it did, when someone was forced to land their hot air balloon in a middle of a street, somehow missing homes, telegraph poles, and cars. Kudos to the people at the end of the guide rope who were the real heroes here.

Its just as well I reminded myself of that story, as Manchester United have just missed their 13th penalty of the penalty shootout, so we have lost to Grimsby Town. FFS.

⚫ The Shadow Passes

This week’s video is of a song that I have listened to a lot this week – Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park.

This song is from their slightly “pop-y” era when they released Minutes to Midnight. Its a song about moving on from painful times, with the realisation that sometimes the kindest thing to do is to say goodbye. Words that have struck true to me this week.

😀 Come to Mobility Camp

In just over a month, I will be helping to run the excellent annual Mobility Camp transport unconference. On 29th September in Cardiff. If you think that transport needs to be done differently, you need to be there. Get your tickets before they sell out!

If you want to know why you should be there, I wrote a newsletter on this.