ITS Monday: Edition 42, 2020

Blowout in city travel times predicted as lockdown eases

There’s a bit of doom and gloom in this story, which is based on modelling by Movement & Place Consulting. Data has been consulted, but there’s a sprinkling of ‘could’ modality (linguisticaly speaking) throughout the article. It also quotes Monash University’s urban planning expert Dr Elizabeth Taylor, epidemiologist Catherine Bennett, as well as public transport and government officials. Along with the data are ideas for how to lessen the blow, or make things easier for people for returning to a city (Melbourne, as this is a story from The Age) commute.

Let’s talk about infrastructure, not headgear

This is from City Hub, a publication written for ‘young urban dwellers’ in the inner suburbs of Sydney (‘From Bondi in the east to Balmain in the west …’). Right from the get go it’s a strongly worded article: ‘It’s infrastructure, not helmets, that Sydney needs to be talking about to get people on their bikes. And with active transport highlighted as one of the keys to the city’s economic recovery, boosting our embarrassingly low cycling rates is more important than ever.’

Have your say on the Western Sydney Airport Metro Project

The Have your say type of web page is an extremely popular choice of connecting with the community these days, and here’s another one, for what is a big transport project in NSW, the new Metro driverless train line between the Western Sydney Airport and St Marys.

Build slower cities or keep careering towards disaster

The SMH’s Elizabeth Farrelly can be a little, ahhh, polarising with her column’s opinions, and here she is set off by two sources, Sir David Attenborough’s new film A Life on Our Planet, and the book Slow Cities by Paul Tranter and Rodney Tolley. ‘Slow cities foster cafe economies: resilient, small-scale, healthy, with far lower health, land, infrastructure and transport costs. Plus there’s the economic benefit of actually surviving.’

‘Giving back the streets’: The plan to de-pave 800km of Sydney roads

‘The architects behind the redesign of Central Station want to take 100,000 cars off the road by transforming Sydney’s residential streets from asphalt into green space. In an analysis of 11 inner Sydney local government areas, global architecture firm Woods Bagot says up to 800km of lesser-used roads could be replaced with pedestrian networks, community spaces and market gardens.’

A national in-service safety law for automated vehicles

Available for your download pleasure is the NTC’s latest discussion paper, A national in-service safety law for automated vehicles. ‘This discussion paper follows infrastructure and transport ministers’ endorsement of a national regulatory approach to the in-service safety of automated vehicles. Ministers agreed to new national law that will establish a general safety duty on entities responsible for automated driving systems, due diligence obligations on their executive officers and a new national regulator for the in-service safety of automated vehicles. This discussion paper further develops the content of the national law, including proposals for the operation of the duties on regulated parties, the management of market exit of regulated parties and modifications to automated vehicles, the regulator’s compliance and enforcement approach and its interaction with other agencies including information exchange. It also explains how the national law will work under two different legislative implementation options.’

Most e-scooter rider injuries happen on sidewalk, study finds

Now begins a succession of active transport-related stories. First up, this US-based article, based on two studies released by the  Institute for Highway Safety. In essence the question being tackled, is this. Just where should e-scooters be ridden?

Electric scooters banned from being parked on Copenhagen streets

And further on the topic of just where e-scooters should be ridden is this article. Something is rotten in the state of e-scooters in Denmark. Well rotten may be taking it too far, but in addition to one provider being shut down at night-time, but a large swathe of the city of Copenhagen is being made a no-rent zone.

How Oslo achieved zero pedestrian and bicycle fatalities, and how others can apply what worked

Staying in Europe, but shifting over to Norway, and shifting from negative to positive is this tale of cycling success. What’s the data? How did the city do it? Read on!

Australian cities have been snubbed in walkability rankings and experts aren’t surprised

‘The Institute for Transport and Development Policy ranked world cities in three measures: closeness to car-free places, closeness to healthcare and education and the smallness of city blocks.’ As the headline indicates, Down Under has not fared well.

How ‘awe walks’ could do wonders for your wellbeing

Who’s up for learning a new term today? Awe, as in awesome, walking. Is it a new one for you? The article is based on a recent academic paper, Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults.

The business case for cargo bikes

‘As traffic volumes increase in our city centres, partly fuelled by deliveries from a COVID boosted e-commerce sector, organisations are looking for a silver bullet for urban logistics. But has it been sitting right here under our noses all this time?’