Looking Backward to Move Forward
Written by Martin Parkes, Urban Transport Specialist
Having worked in the local government transport field for nearly 40 years, I’ve written a huge number of formal council reports about transport but never penned an article that simply reflects my own personal views about the subject and how it shapes people’s lives without them really knowing it.
I’ve thought long and hard about what people want from a transport system. I have concluded the answer is relatively simple: people want to go about their everyday lives as easily as possible; they want to connect conveniently and safely with the things they want to do in life, be it for work, education, or leisure. Hopefully you agree. To the end user, an effective transport network should be simple to understand and easy to navigate. It should provide people with a menu of choices that are well integrated. ‘Choices’ is an important word in transport and is what I will focus on in this article, however I first want to briefly touch on how my passion for transport sustainability and the environment came about.
It’s my belief your formative years shape you in many ways, and that was the case for me. Growing up, my experiences and thoughts about life were heavily influenced by my family and where I lived. For the first 18 years of my life, I was fortunate to live in rural Hertfordshire (UK) on the outskirts of a place called Welwyn Garden City, approximately 27 miles from the centre of London. It was an idyllic place to live as a child. Welwyn Garden was built on the principles of the Garden City Movement. It’s a town designed for healthy living. It’s a fusion of a garden city and a new town, and a good example of the planning ideals of the period.
Growing up, I had the freedom of being able to safely walk and cycle wherever I wanted. I could catch a bus or train with ease. As a young lad I just wanted to have fun with my friends, and from a transport perspective everything seemed to be integrated and accessible. These happy carefree days have had a lasting impact on me and continue to fuel my passion for the environment and sustainable transport. Sustainable, mixed-mode transport does exist and has done for a very long time.
As we head into the second quarter of the 21st Century the challenges facing society are intensifying, and the transport sector is no exception. This brings me back to that word choices. The dictionary states choice is ‘an act of choosing between two or more possibilities’. From a transport point of view, choice means people having ready access to a variety of options to move around – this may be by car, bus, train, bike, scooter, skateboard, carpooling, ride-sharing, or the often-forgotten option…..walking.
Sadly, in many cities across the world, there are limited transportation choices available to people that live, work, and visit these places. There’s little choice but to use a private car to meet transportation needs. So why is this a problem? Well to many, on the face of it, it’s not. But when we see fully what it’s doing to people’s everyday lives, we should pause, look backward and reflect, before moving forward again.
Cities that are car dominated and congested have fundamentally missed out the purpose of a transport network. A transport network is a connected infrastructure that enables the movement of people and goods through a system of locations and connecting infrastructure. A high performing network should be easy and safe to use and provide people with a selection of transport options. Cities that focus, in the main, on a one-mode approach will ultimately fail – I speak from experience having worked in large cities with this methodology.
Places where the use of the private motor car is the dominant mode will regularly suffer from congestion. Most of us who have lived in a car-dominant city can attest to the hours of lost time spent in stop-and-go traffic. Not only does this lead to lost productivity and increased stress and frustration, but car-centricity also impacts safety, air quality, people’s health, and the economy.
Creating more space to try to reduce congestion levels is a fool’s game. It’s an expensive practice, particularly in urban environments. Road widening erodes valuable green space, impacts the environment and water quality, often requires purchasing of private property, impacts people’s ability to access local services, and creates barriers to using other more climate-friendly transport modes such as public transport, walking, and cycling.
Globally, the transport sector is responsible for large scale air pollution, as well as being a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. I work in the 4th largest city in New Zealand where transport makes up about 64% of total CO2 emissions. Across the world, it’s suggested that urban areas are responsible for 70% of total CO2 emissions. These are unacceptable levels which are having a huge impact on the climate and our everyday lives.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates 4.2 million premature deaths are attributed to air pollution, with transport a significant contributor to this. WHO also states that across the world approximately 1.19 million people die every year from road trauma, with some of our most vulnerable road users (people on bikes and those walking) being unnecessarily overrepresented in these statistics. If you’ve ever had to deal with the impacts of a road fatally on a personal level it stays with you for the rest of your life – sadly I speak from experience here as well.
So, if the answer isn’t more space for more cars, then what’s the way forward? There’s no doubt the private car will play a part in society for many more decades, but reducing reliance on them needs to be tackled now. Cities should be focusing on developing safe and balanced transport systems that provide people with choices to support their everyday needs without them having to be solely reliant on the use of a private motor vehicle. Reversing our dependence on cars would bring benefits for our health and well-being, the economy, and the climate. It would drastically cut the costs of congestion, air pollution, noise, road casualties and health issues that arise from inactivity. There are plenty of studies and articles online on all these matters which detail the social and economic impacts that we’re all paying for (see below for links to some examples).
In the first instance, those in charge of planning, designing, and managing transport systems should be concentrating on promoting the use of public transport and getting more people on bikes and walking. The benefits of providing transport choices are well documented. From my experience, there’s huge public support for more transport options. People want to be able to move around in ways that are safe, convenient, affordable, healthy and environmentally friendly.
Every one of us who takes a bus or train, walks or bikes, skates or scoots, or carpools to the office is helping reduce carbon emissions and congestion. For cities, investing in public transport, walking, and cycling means fewer cars on the road, leading to cleaner air, lower noise levels, better water quality, and more green spaces for everyone to enjoy. Think about how easy it is to travel around your city or town when it’s school holidays and there’s much less traffic on the roads. Wouldn’t it be great if the traffic every day was school holiday traffic?
Our children and grandchildren are unconsciously looking to us to protect and shape the places they live in in a positive way. One day they will inherit what we’ve created. By embracing a balanced transport system, we’re setting a standard for a healthier and more resilient planet for future generations. What’s the legacy we want to leave for future generations? I want my grandchildren to have the freedom I had, to be able to safely walk and cycle wherever they want. Is that too much to ask? I don’t think so.
Martin Parkes is a public transport and urban mobility specialist. He has spent nearly 40 years working in transportation with various local authorities both in the UK and New Zealand. He started his career in London before moving to the south coast of England, and for the last 20 years has lived and worked in New Zealand. He has experience in numerous fields of transportation, including traffic engineering, road safety, network management, crash investigation, parking management, and urban mobility.
He is the Urban Mobility Manager at Hamilton City Council. He heads up a team delivering infrastructure projects and educational programmes which support and encourage more people to walk, bike, scooter, and use public transport. He also spent 17 years in the UK fire service as a crew manager, so has seen first-hand the aftermath when things go wrong on transport networks. Outside of work Martin is a keen cyclist, an armchair sports enthusiast, and a Lego nerd.
Reference documents & interesting reading :
1. NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi Urban Street Guide
2. Hamilton Government Strategies and Plans
3. WHO Transport Health Risks
4. Garden City Principles
5. Healthy Streets
6. Dutch Cycling
7. Gear Change
8. Biking and Micro-mobility Business Case