The need for people to travel and the way in which they can travel has changed dramatically in a short period of time and, early on during the Coronavirus crisis especially, there was a sense that this change had the potential to be more permanent than temporary and contribute to the ‘Building Back Better’ agenda. As lockdown starts to ease though and traffic starts to flow again, or rather to not flow again, what is the sense of that change now? Is the window for a fundamental modal shift from car to two wheels and two legs closing? Has the planning system, or at least the regulatory regime, helped or hindered that? What might the lasting impact of the pandemic be on travel patterns and how will the planning system have to respond to that?
Sam Stafford puts these questions to Brian Deegan (Design Engineer at Urban Movement), Vanessa Eggleston (Partner at i-Transport) and Paul Smith (MD of Strategic Land Group and a person who rides a bike).
Twitter handles: @samuel_stafford, @bricycle and @paul_slg. Vanessa is on LinkedIn.
Some accompanying reading.
The latest on the cycle lane at the end of Paul’s street.
Manchester’s Cyclops Junction.
https://news.tfgm.com/news/manchester-opens-uks-first-cyclops-junction
The Urban Design Group’s survey on street design practice.
http://www.udg.org.uk/content/street-design-uk-pilot-survey-2018
‘The end of the rush hour?’ Vanessa’s blog.
https://strategiclandgroup.co.uk/2020/06/09/the-end-of-the-rush-hour-guest-post-by-i-transport/
Robin Lovelace’s Rapid Cycleway Prioritisation Tool.
The International Transport Forum’s Decarbonising Transport initiative.
https://www.itf-oecd.org/decarbonising-transport
Some accompanying listening.
Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix
50 Shades of Planning
Sam Stafford started posting on the 50 Shades of Planning blog in 2012 and in 2019 turned it into a podcast. 50 Shades of Planning is about the foibles of the English planning system and it's aim is to cover the breadth of the sector both in terms of topics of conversation and in terms of guests with different experiences and perspectives.
50 Shades episodes include 'Hitting The High Notes', which is a series of conversations with leading planning and property figures. The conversations take in the six milestone planning permissions or projects within a contributor’s career and for every project guests are invited to choose a piece of music that they were listening to at that time. Think Desert Island Discs, but for planners. If you would like to feature on 'Hitting The High Notes', or know somebody that would make a great guest, please email [email protected].
If you have listened to Episode 45 of the 50 Shades of Planning Podcast you will have heard Clive Betts say that...
'In the Netherlands planning is seen as part of the solution. In the UK, too often, planning is seen as part of the problem'.
Sam said in reply that that would look good on a t-shirt and it does. Further details can be found here: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2021/07/50-shades-of-planning-t-shirts.html
Sam is on Bluesky (@samuelstafford.bsky.social) and Instagram (@samuel__stafford), and his blogs can be found here: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com.
As with the 50 Shades Blog, the 50 Shades Podcast is a platform for Sam's personal opinions, which may or may not represent the opinions of his past, present or future employers.
50 Shades of Planning is produced in partnership with Cratus Group.
Why Fifty Shades? Well, planning is not a black and white endeavour. There are at least fifty shades in between...
