Policy

Designing Streets as If Children Matter

Our transport systems have a significant, often negative, impact on children's health, education, resilience, ability to play, and safety. Would this be improved if we took a child-centric approach to transport policy and planning? This paper from the UK makes the case.

Key Takeaways

• 10 good reasons for a child lens on streets and transport policy:

1. Children’s health is in crisis, and enabling their everyday mobility and spatial freedom is a significant part of the solution: the foundation for a happy, healthy childhood.
2. Children are the group most impacted by how our streets and cities are planned.
3. Due to cultural norms, they are the group least considered by decision-makers.
4. For children, independent mobility = active travel
5. Child-friendly streets are also adult-friendly streets, but the reverse is not true.
6. Children have specific needs and rights that are often not considered or met by a universalist approach to streets.
7. A child lens supports many other policy drivers, e.g., climate, clean air, public health, social equity, and inclusion.
8. A focus on children could help to build consensus and calm the “culture war” around streets, leading to more rapid and lasting change.
9. Children have been asking for change for decades.
10. Children should be seen and heard in their streets and communities.

• The paper also provides a checklist as a starting point for anyone wanting to put a ‘child lens’ approach into practice.

Comment

Whilst I am supportive of the changes the authors wish to see come about in transport planning and policy, I am not sure that the framing will gain widespread support across the political spectrum.

Let's face it, children have been dying in large numbers on our roads for decades and continue to do so and still we have failed to address the problem adequately.

Instead, parents have responded to the problem by driving their kids to school to try to keep them safe.

Getting parents on board is a good way to start building the support we need for transforming our transport systems.

What Next?

How do you take into account the needs of children in your transport planning and policy development?

Strategy

Hamburg Wants Drones in Its Skies, But at What Cost to Livability?

Many companies are investing in air mobility technologies for urban environments. Hamburg has recently released this strategy (in German) for air mobility.

Key Takeaways

• The aim is to make the Hamburg region a leading location for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) applications by 2030.
• Vision: Drone technologies and applications should be integrated into Hamburg's airspace safely, efficiently and in a socially acceptable manner.
• The city boasts a strong drone ecosystem of operators, manufacturers, software and hardware companies.
• Social acceptance: Public acceptance is a fundamental prerequisite for the successful introduction of drone technologies. Practical demonstrations and integration into urban development promote trust in and acceptance of the new technology.
• Environmental compatibility: Drone applications must be resource-efficient, low-emission, and environmentally friendly throughout their entire life cycle, including noise minimisation.
• The strategy defines six key areas of action:

1. Application areas and value chains: the establishment of a drone hub: a central location that enables drone operations for all municipal organisations.
2. Technology and Industry: The creation of safe test areas for drone flights – both within and beyond the pilot's visual line of sight
3. Infrastructure: The focus is on the safe integration of drones into the airspace, particularly through the introduction of a traffic management system for drone traffic.
4. Financing: The strategy relies on a dynamic financing landscape that mobilises public and private funds.
5. Education and training: Integrating drone-specific topics into the educational landscape is a key objective. From promoting STEM skills in schools to specialised university modules and practical training programs
6. Regulation: The city's active role in shaping the regulatory environment for drone traffic, which operates close to the ground and in urban areas. Hamburg's goal is to integrate drones safely and efficiently into existing air traffic management systems.

Comment

Hamburg's strategy assumes that drones will be desirable in urban areas. Whilst I think there are use cases where drones may provide the best solution, they also have significant drawbacks, particularly noise pollution.

Having drones that are safe and efficient, but significantly reduce the livability of our cities, is not a good outcome.

Other cities will not have the drone ecosystems of Hamburg, and so these parts of the strategy will not apply. However, as with Autonomous Vehicles, we need to put in place regulations that ensure drones deliver benefits to people and minimise their downsides.

What Next?

How are you going to regulate Urban Air Mobility?

Policy

No Magic Bullet: Rethinking Transport in the Suburbs

Converting suburbs to more sustainable forms of transport is a significant challenge, even in cities globally recognised as leaders in walking, cycling and public transport. This report looked at what needs to happen in the UK.

Key Takeaways

Key findings:

• Existing lower-density suburbs in the UK are packing in more and bigger cars, and then paving over gardens to accommodate them.
• Many new suburbs are badly built, poorly designed, and poorly located. They are often designed around the car, lacking public amenities and services.
• Millions of households have no way of charging vehicles on or outside their property.
• Some of the most promising alternatives to single-occupancy car use are the most neglected by policymakers. This includes carpooling and car clubs, as well as new forms of ‘light mobility’ such as E-Bikes.

Key challenges:

• The transport sector likes to have one approach for everywhere; however, a one-size-fits-all transport policy will not work for all suburbs, which vary widely in density and form.
• There are two challenges related to scale: the daunting size of the task and the need for pilot initiatives in lower-density suburbs to be of a sufficient size.
• Suburbs need a wider range of travel options, including new forms of light mobility and access to shared cars. However, alternatives to car dependency are patchy and poorly coordinated.

Lessons from ‘next-level’ cities:

• Pursue the good urban life
• Combine idealism with objective analysis
• Work across professional divides with a focus on placemaking
• Learn by doing: Forward-thinking cities are in a virtuous circle of trying, doing, learning and failing better

Recommendations:

1. Review the Department for Transport policies for impacts on the suburbs.
2. Shift the policy focus on car electrification to tackling residential charging challenges.
3. Establish a dedicated ‘future suburbs’ funding stream for piloting innovative approaches at a meaningful scale.
4. Work with ‘anchor’ institutions (e.g. hospitals, universities), and across Whitehall, to promote a more integrated approach to the decarbonisation of energy, the built environment and transport.
5. Coordinate action on planning processes, engineering standards and procurement to cut the cost and speed up the implementation of new light rail schemes.
6. Shift the balance of national funding for roads from building new highways to greening and reducing flood risk from existing roads.
7. Support the re-greening of the UK's front gardens, for example, through supporting a Dutch-style competition for which area can remove the most paving tiles from their gardens.

Comment

The key message from this report is that there is no magic bullet for decarbonising (UK) suburbs, especially if we want to see a significant mode shift at the same time.

Fundamentally, we need to provide better alternatives to the motor vehicle, including significantly improved public transport and better walking and cycling infrastructure.

What Next?

Do you have a plan for decarbonising your suburbs that goes beyond the electrification of motor vehicles?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​Bus Franchising for the Net Zero Agenda in Wales - A think piece from the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies on how bus franchising needs to adapt to achieve Net Zero.
• ​The ION Effect - Smart Transit for Sustainable Growth - A blog on the wider benefits of the ION light rail transit system in Ontario.
• ​Complete Streets Alone Don’t Make Complete Places - A blog arguing that the Complete Streets' narrow focus on transport is holding back the creation of even better places.

Podcast

What Should We Be Doing In Response To The Oil Crisis?

The latest Transport Leaders podcast discusses how we should respond to the oil crisis.

You can listen here​

You can watch here​

Innovation

A Journey Planner Focused On Comfort

​MOLE helps commuters in London plan their journeys with a focus on comfort, using data analytics to inform their best course of action. Unlike standard routing apps, MOLE is designed for those who value a calmer travel experience.

Tool

Rural Path Campaigns

​Here is a toolkit for rural path campaigns.