Transport for all

When a friend put out a tweet suggesting their home city get real about e-scooters, I replied it’s tough citing a Guardian story on 19 June 2021 about two e-scooter riders who killed a pedestrian.

This death has rekindled, according to the story, the controversy about the place of e-scooters in Paris. Hailed by some as an ecological means of urban transport and a welcome alternative to motor vehicles, others have claimed they pose a risk to pedestrians. Both sides find it convenient to gaslight each other.

Same paper, the Guardian, in February 2020, published a piece on how Pedestrians ‘will face danger if e‑scooters get road approval’. This piece cited the road safety charity Brake, who noted that although car alternatives were vital, “the safety of e-scooters and their impact on all road users must be assured before they are permitted on our roads”.

In Brighton and Hove, barriers at the Aldrington tunnel in Hove fell without proper consultation last month. While the cycling lobby celebrated (mobility scooter users, cargo bike users, disabled cyclists), pedestrians and vulnerable residents in the vicinity complained that the barriers were removed by the city council without notice or consultation.

The council’s political leadership and officers have defended their decision to fell the barriers. Not only was this change vital for disabled people on bikes, they said, it also made it much easier for people with wheelchairs & buggies. Nothing about pedestrians and no debate similar to that on the safety of e-scooters.

The political leadership admitted to political representatives for this part of Hove that they should have been consulted beforehand and duly apologised. Highways officers, for their part, noted that ‘it was agreed’ (by whom?) that the barriers would be removed and bollards installed in their stead to give room for larger cycles claiming that this was done with the ‘best intentions given the feedback had received from disabled cyclists’. Nothing on pedestrians this time either.

What does this anecdote tell us about how we organise our streetscape? It tells us that when local authorities listen to those who shout loudest, they end up paying little or no regard for equalities.

Of course, we all have to work hard to pave the way for inclusive streetspace but, a local authority, a municipality, has a duty of care to look at the impact of their actions on people, ALL people. The local authority or municipality should identify the pros and cons of their actions for different members of society. The onus is, after all, on the city or municipality as the service provider to mitigate against negative impacts. 

Transport for All has recently published a report that identified fundamental problems with the ways decisions are made and communicated to the local residents they affect. Transport for All is a pan-impairment organisation, guided by the passionate belief that all disabled and older people have the right to travel with freedom and independence.

Transport for All highlights the importance of Equality and Impact Assessments, a document that allows someone who has decided to do something, such as a local council, to look at the impact that what they are proposing will have on people.

Like the decisions on e-scooters or the felling or barriers at the Aldrington tunnel in Hove, officers and political leaders have to look at the impact of their proposals. A good consultancy process should tell these officers and politicians things they did not already know, from the people they need to hear it from. It is not acceptable to bring people on board at a late stage to confirm a decision that has already been made or, even worse, tell them after the decision has been taken.

Failures of leadership aside, highways engineers are not generally highly skilled at public consultation. It is not in their DNA. Although this has been picked up in some quarters, highways engineers have not been able to grasp how important (to politicians) the issue of mobility is and they (highways) have to get better at looking at open spaces and how they make sure they offer something to all of us. Engineers should be challenged, yes, but so should the politicians and the lobbyists.

If COVID is an urban problem, where are the urbanists?

We are stuck in our old ways and most of our ancient institutions and organisations are not fit for the 21^st century. If this is the case, as the constant messaging seems to be telling us, where can we find the innovation to unlock the future?

Simply put, as an organisation, you cannot and will not be able to innovate if you don’t have the people to innovate. It’s logical.

Let’s unpack this a little bit more. What am I talking about?

It appears that everyone is now an expert on innovation and thought leadership. Carbon budgeting? Sure, anyone can cover that. Up the tempo a little bit, perhaps change the question to ‘Should the carbon budgeting system be integrated into local economic plans by LEPs, combined authorities etc with a system of negotiated hard targets?’ and you’ll find plenty of ‘experts’ will be stumped out. They should be called out!

What the so-called experts do not understand is that the risks we face in the post COVID world, in the new normal (I am sure I was the first to use this term back in March), are systemic risks. This means that they require a systemic response.

Back in the old normal, 2015, when people heard the word ‘resilience’ and shrugged their silo-busting & checking for vulnerabilities, were the stress test to check for resilience. Business continuity was important. Resilience was not an urban risk a mayor or a city leader needed to understand. Resilience was, in the UK, a civil contingencies matter.

Fast forward five years, we have a crowded space in the space of resilience, energy transition, net zero, retrofits, financial disclosure, decarbonisation, etc. These are all urban problems.

Where are the urbanists though?

Seems like, from the webinars I sit on during a given week, and I sit on loads (my CPD is going through the roof!), you do not need planners to talk about planning. You don’t need architects to talk about retrofit. You don’t need thought leaders to talk about thought leadership.

Back in the day, even before the old normal, Ivan Illich wrote about the disabling professions. 1977 was a good year. But it was not until 1989 at the Bartlett that I came across the book. It then resonated as I was reading the late Edward Said’s work on freewheeling generalists.

I guess the message for today is: Beware of generalists bearing gifts!

You might think that the finance industry is about to save the planet. Spoiler: they’re not. Maybe.

This blog was going to be about one thing but given the rapid pace of events, I have decided to pick something else up. WEF’s great big reset can wait.

I started looking into responsible investments before I came across the piece in the Economist, ‘The trouble with green (climate) finance’.

We have all been brain washed during lockdown into believing that big investors will rush to our rescue and save the economy and save the climate. We have also been told that every clued-up company on earth has been doing scenario planning for the past few weeks in the absence of clarity on the crystal ball.

So, private capital might still deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, advance net-zero, deliver equality, align investment outcomes with the SDGs, etc. This might still happen. After all, the Economist said that ‘judged by today’s fundraising bonanza and the solemn pronouncements by institutional investors, bankers and regulators, you might think that the industry is about to save the planet’.

After all, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has recently released a Sustainable Development Goals five-step framework to support investors in creating investment outcomes that are aligned with the UN goals.

This should come as little or no surprise to those who know the investor organisation. PRI has $89trn (€78trn) in assets managed by its signatories, who have registered an increase mentioning the SDGs in their reporting, with 650 in 2020, compared to 418 in 2019.

Investors have come to realise that supporting the SDGs, will increase the positive outcomes and decrease the negative outcomes of their actions.

Focusing on SDG outcomes will also help investors. It will help them prepare for and respond to legal and regulatory developments, including those that may lead to asset stranding.

This is because older assets face more complex interventions in reducing carbon emission intensity and will require more invasive retrofit. It is often the case that these older assets are less efficient and logistically and economically challenging to replace or revamp.

In addition to asset age, asset footprint is also a factor for global investors. Investors will have to start examining geography, geopolitics, and as we have witnessed recently, health pandemic footprints, to reduce exposure to potentially stranded assets.

The Economist reported this week that green finance suffers from ‘woolly thinking, marketing guff and bad data’. We are here to help. We offer systems thinking, credible engagement and unparalleled data capabilities. Time for the two industries, finance and built environment to play more together. Let’s open the schools!

We do not change the world when we whisper. We change it when we roar.

Digital spaces are where young people can explore what it means to be digital citizens online as well as being engaged and responsible citizens.

We know this: navigating the recovery is tough for everyone involved. It’s a juggling act of public health considerations with the need to revive the economy. We must not abuse the freedoms we have all worked hard for when we flattened the curve.

Artificial Intelligence is providing some guidance: take a look at this COVID-19 Risk, Readiness and Recovery Dashboard from Wunderman Thompson.

US based, the AI powered Predictive Recovery Index uses Machine Learning to see, understand and predict county level economic recovery based on consumer spending velocity gleaned from our view into consumer purchase behaviour across 41 categories.

Understanding people and connecting that understanding to business strategy and solutions must become part of every company’s DNA instead of shuffling in the dark worrying about the cash flow position. We must look forward. We must roar!

We must also eliminate data silos. In the UK, the COVID19 response was hampered by data silos across all of the public health and social care organisations. We blame infections in care homes on unsafe discharges from hospitals, yet we cannot say how many patients went through the unfortunately called ‘Integrated Discharge Hubs’ on route from hospitals to care homes!

And it isn’t only health… There are huge challenges around the decarbonisation of transport.

We all believe that investment in a green economy should be the post COVID future.

If we have the technology to decarbonise transport, why has more transport not been decarbonised?

There have been 12 hydrogen buses running in London for 12 years!

It’s taken a decade to have usable electric vehicle charging stations. How can we overcome the infrastructure hurdle to roll out hydrogen cell fuel charging?

There are several areas where AI can make huge advances.

One category includes things that cannot be done by a human: cyber security.

A second one is transport: Traffic problems managed by an all-seeing AI.

A third is around repetitive tasks: Some parts of the legal profession & urban planning & valuation where the ability to take the vast flow of information and surface what humans need to know is important. Can also include diagnosis in the medical profession & invoicing.

What else can YOU think of?

Next week, I’ll look at the Great Reset from our friends at the World Economic Forum. Stay Safe!