Urban Cycling Institute’s Post

"58% of people in the UK believe cars are essential for a full life, rising to 72% of people in rural areas." This is the equally shocking and not-suprising finding from the excellent IPPR report: Who gets a good deal, released earlier this week. The report also shows how normalised cars have become to our lives, culture and society and how we tend to ignore their negative impact. "73% of people are likely to agree people shouldn’t smoke, and 77% agree we shouldnt play loud music, where it impacts others. However only 12% feel the same about driving in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe the car fumes." The good news is the report found in Greater London only 42% of people feel cars are essential for a full life. How we seek to design places therefore matters. If public transport services are attractive, affordable and reliable people use them, if we build at gentle density as opposed to sprawling neighbourhoods, places don't just become walkable but shops, services and amenities can not only exist but thrive. As a nation we have spent too long designing streets and neighbourhoods as places to drive and park a car. If we are genuine about making transport work for everyone, and contributing to net zero, we need to stop thinking about cars and start thinking about people. https://lnkd.in/eQVJdV_D

Cities should conduct a study to determine their specific transportation needs. This will help decide whether to invest more in bicycle lanes, which promote health and environmental benefits, or bus lanes, which improve public transport efficiency and serve a broader demographic.

Plot twist in #Berlin Urban mobility in jeopardy❓👇 In a context where many major European cities are opting for policies to reduce car traffic in city centers, Berlin surprises by taking a completely different turn... 🇩🇪 Indeed, the German capital is abandoning the 30 km/h speed limit in favor of an urban highway revalued at 50 km/h... 🗣️ This decision raises fundamental questions about urban #mobility policies and the priorities of local authorities. What motivations lie behind this surprising reversal❓ Find out more in this exclusive article 👉 https://lnkd.in/e9JC7mMS

Let's Talk About Money - Pedestrians & Economy 🚶♂️💰 Two weeks ago, the Walkspace Conference took place in Seestadt Aspern, focusing on walking in Austria. Beyond the social & health benefits, walking is also an economic factor. Here are the key insights from the most exciting workshop: Economy and Walking. A. First Study on Walking - Numbers, Numbers, Numbers! 📊  Bernhard Kalteis - Pedestrian Traffic Coordinator from the Austrian Ministry for Climate Action, presented the first Austrian study on the "Economic Factor of Walking". "Everyday Walking" contributed a gross value of €563.7 million in 2019, surpassing gas stations (€429.1 million) and online retail (€534.1 million). Including leisure activities like hiking and strolling, this figure jumps to €3.296,5 million, comparable to the automobile manufacturing sector (€3.468 million) and civil engineering (€2.776,8 million). Astonishing numbers! 🚶♂️📈 B. Economic Benefits 📈  The Wirtschaftskammer Wien’s participation and contributions were particularly exciting. They have made a complete turnaround over the past few years. Once the biggest opponents (e.g., the redesign of the Mariahilferstraße pedestrian zone in 2015), they are now strong advocates. They introduced a tool to evaluate the economic costs and benefits of traffic calming measures. YES, they are beneficial in the long run! This provides a great argument for policymakers. During urban redesigns in Vienna, the Chamber of Commerce handles communication with local businesses, addressing their concerns and increasing support for planned projects. 💬🛠️ C. Where and How Customers Come 🚶♀️🚗  Dominik Bucheli and Pascal Regli from Fussverkehr Schweiz studied six small towns in western Switzerland to see where and how people come to shopping streets. Result: 75% come from nearby and TWICE as often on foot than by car. The argument "no parking, no customers" doesn't hold up - quite the opposite! In this spirit - if pedestrians thrive, the economy thrives. 🌍💪 #EconomyAndWalking #SustainableCities #UrbanDevelopment #PedestrianPower #WalkingEconomy

Looking to reduce your carbon footprint? If biking and public transit aren't feasible options, consider making the switch to an electric car and start saving on gasoline! 🚗💡 Crunch the numbers and uncover the benefits. The time to make a positive change is now! 🌍✅ #SustainableMobility #ElectricCar #EnergySavings

Field Note: On evidence-based vs. post-truth policy making “…this legislative move is not the latest salvo in the so-called “war on the car” (or bike, depending on your perspective). Rather this bill is part of the war on the facts – on evidence and data – that we are witnessing spread across the continent." Source: https://lnkd.in/g-cR7qdG It's all too easy for our biases, first-person experiences, momentum and ease to either perpetuate policies that have never proven their effectiveness or drive the development of new ones without an evidentiary basis. For this reason and others, I'm grateful to be part of a government that has codified people-centered approaches to service design and delivery (https://lnkd.in/gsh5Xfdx) and celebrates teams that model an evidentiary basis to their work. The latter is one of the categories in the annual Premier's Awards for Innovation & Excellence, held earlier this week. All categories and their finalists for these awards are inspiring and worth a watch, which you can do here: https://lnkd.in/gtqS2wXa.

Eurostat, an official European Union website dedicated to statistics from around the continent, shared a dataset detailing the unit of cars per thousand residents in each European country as of 2023. A graphic created by Paula Lago via The European Correspondent, better illustrated these rankings up to the year 2022. The top-ranker being Italy, standing at a whopping 682 cars per 1,000 inhabitants, and the lowest ranking given to Latvia, with only 409 per 1,000

Great news yesterday about the potential extension to the Tyne & Wear Metro through to Washingon ( not the one where Joe Biden has a big house). This builds on the plan to triple the size of the Midland Metro tram system in the West Midlands. To grow and develop our cities and regions we need an excellent and affordable transport system and Metros and Trams have a big role to play in this - its not just about buses important as they are. The UK is lagging behind its European neighbours in this area and I read recently that Leeds is the largest city in Westeen Europe without a Metro or Tram system. With the introduction of mayoral authorities in most areas of England with devolved transport powers then we have a unique opportunity to improve how people travel around our regions and public transport is a huge enabler of productivity and wealth creation. The tram pictured is from Prague which has an excellent transport system including a Metro and a Tram system.

An article that is worth reading. A lesson to learn when we are humble and assume that reality is as it is and not as we want it to be. A few pearls from the article: << Sweden, 1995. Uusmann, the minister for infrastructure, and Tingvall's political boss. At one point she turned to him and asked, simply: "How many deaths should we have as our long-term target in Sweden?" Tingvall replied: "Zero." To his surprise, Uusmann said she was interested and would like to hear more. This was the beginning of an approach to road safety known as "Vision Zero".>> <<(...) officials were no longer allowed to design roads for idealised drivers who never became distracted or exceeded the speed limit. They had to make roads for real people who made mistakes.>> <<The reality is that drivers do speed, and they get distracted by their phones or other passengers in the car. "Don't pretend that there are laws that you know everyone will follow," Tingvall says. "That's very unprofessional. You would never do that in aviation or in other areas where you really care for safety.">> <<(...) at the municipal level Vision Zero has been implemented in dozens of cities around the world, from #Barcelona to #Bogota. In 2011 it was adopted as part of the EU's road safety strategy>> https://lnkd.in/d2CXqZPU

How to resurface a road without stopping traffic