Mobility Matters Daily #467 - Buggered Buses
Good day my good friend.
In the novel Foundation, Isaac Asminov portrays the decline of the Galactic Empire (not that one), with a key reason being how societies fail in investment and renewal of common infrastructure, and instead coast on past glories and maintaining the status quo. I can’t help but think about this whenever people object to new power lines, or to new cycle tracks. Fiction has a funny way of teaching us lessons.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
Buses are buggered
A few years ago, the Campaign for Better Transport released a report saying how many buses had been lost over the years. It wasn’t pretty reading. Well, the crisis is now getting worse. According to research by The Guardian, 10% of bus services have been lost in the last year (though its variable across the country, and it only counts registrations not actual services). This follows a general trend in the reduction in route-kilometres over the last 10 years.
The reasons for this are not a shock. Fewer passengers post-COVID, combined with significant increases in operating costs (primarily driver wages and fuel). All while the life support of the COVID-19 recovery grant is being switched off. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. Current funding is welcome, but a sticking plaster when wider reform of buses and transport policy is needed to encourage the use of buses. Some places are at least being brave, but this is the exception and not the norm. It needs to become the norm.
Snow - our policies need to reflect our priorities
Forecasting snow in the UK is hard. Mainly due to the fact that weather systems from every possible direction seem to meet over this fair isle, and usually on the same day. And when it does snow, very few places are very good at removing the stuff. Usually relying on running snow ploughs all day, or lots and lots of salt. Apart from Reykjavik, which uses spare geothermal energy to warm pipes under the asphalt, thus melting the snow.
But what about a simple solution: changing how we travel? The research indicates that snow is generally bad for cycling (apart from in this Finnish city), gets more people walking and trip chaining, and there is less travel overall. Interestingly, while the number of collisions increases during times of snow, their severity decreases. So we do this already. Why can’t policy decisions support enabling access for vulnerable people, and not trying to maintain normal travel patterns?
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.
Hikikomori, the Japanese phenomenon of extreme social isolation is going global (ZMEScience)
Exaggerating China’s military spending, St. Louis Fed breaks all statistical rules with misleading graph (Geopolitical Economy)
A Houston-Size Iceberg Just Broke Away From Antarctica (Gizmodo)
1,000,000 stranded Southwest passengers deserved better from Pete Buttigieg (Pluralistic)
Something interesting
London is sometimes thought as a series of towns and villages swallowed up during the 19th and 20th Centuries. While Paris is Paris plus everything else. And this visualisation of the population density of both really strikes this image home.
If you do nothing else today, then do this
The very excellent people at the Urban Transport Group are hiring a Policy and Research Advisor. Its not often I recommend jobs here, but if you are looking for something new, and to work for an organisation doing meaningful work to encourage change, give this a go.