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GB News presenters laugh at the climate crisis
This drivel is probably best left in ‘Olds’ rather than ‘News’ but it seems to have raised its head on this platform. Why not join 3.5 million other people who each month apparently on average consume a massive one minute of what GB News serves up? I mean what could be a better use of Read more
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Place your bets on the future of transport decarbonisation
The Parliamentary Transport Committee’s report on strategic road investment published today recognises that the Government is gambling with our future when it comes to decarbonisation. Having led the Road Investment Scrutiny Panel (RISP) with Professor Steve Gooding which reported earlier this year (with Professors Jillian Anable, Nicola Christie, Zoe Davies, Stephen Glaister, Phil Goodwin, & Karen Lucas, supported by Andrew Crudgington) Read more
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The Pentagram of Influence
What a devilishly wicked problem getting the world mobilised on climate action is. So devilish that I think we are at the mercy of an inverted pentagram of influence that holds everthing in tension rather than enabling all factions to pull together to create concerted climate action of the intensity required. In the pentagram five Read more
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Team spirit
There is something beautiful and powerful about being part of a team with shared purpose, emotional intelligence, creativity and a wealth of experience. These are some of the wonderful humans I work with in Mott MacDonald making magic when it comes to vision-led planning and robust decision making in the face of uncertainty. Our collective skills help Read more
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The perplexing future of road investment
Try starting a sentence about road investment with ‘Why don’t we just…’. The problem is finishing such a sentence. Steve Gooding & I have been chewing this over. Steve’s career history is steeped in dealing with road investment, notably as former Director General (Roads) at the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom. I had the privilege of Read more
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How do you complete post-it notes in workshops?
How do you complete post-it notes in workshops? I’ve facilitated lots of workshops online and offline and a point I make to participants more and more often is this. Please remember that while you may have a rich discussion in your group, what gets taken away afterwards is the (virtual) flipchart page with the post-it Read more
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A psalm by Rosie Lyons (aged 11)
‘A call for change’– a psalm by Rosie Lyons God, why oh why is the world warming up? Why are there bike paths but there are no bikes? Lord, please I need your help. Is it true that our oceans are filled with plastic? I need your guidance. Show people there is a more sustainable Read more
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Engaging citizens in exploring the future of transport
30 citizens of Bristol have a taste of FUTURES – a six stage vision-led approach to strategic planning for an uncertain world (which applies Triple Access Planning to how to shape the future using Decide and Provide). Within the project ‘Triple Access Planning for Uncertain Futures‘, Mott MacDonald has been helping us explore with academics and practitioners Read more
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Who cares about provenance these days? Decide and Provide
A decade ago John Dales coined ‘Decide and Provide’ in an LTT article. Hot on the heels of that we found ourselves at the New Zealand Ministry of Transport coming up with the same term to describe a new approach to transport planning (contrasted with Predict and Provide) emerging from strategic work I’d led (https://lnkd.in/eGzvnikr). With Cody Read more
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Intergenerational insights on the future of transport
On 8 June 2023 the 16th event in the PTRC Fireside Chat series took place. You can watch it here. You can download the writeup below. What follows are 16 intergenerational insights on the future of transport & the transport profession: 💡 Gloria Steinem said “We need to remember across generations that there is as Read more
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Planning your travel to avoid flying – the twists, turns and costs
The cost of my travel for the family holiday just went up by £270. This is part 1 of the story about this year’s Lyons family holiday to Spain. It was meant to happen in 2020. All booked & paid for. Then pandemic + uncertain quarantine arrangements meant holiday was postponed & then lost with Read more
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Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common
You’re you, unique. “Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day” (Winston Churchill). Some 14,000 transport professionals who are members of the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) will recently have received their copy of Transportation Professional – and this issue is focused on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). Read more
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Public service announcement – a polite reminder to all concerned about ‘The Seven Principles of Public Life’. I appreciate that they were published nearly 30 years ago but it appears they are still meant to be in effect. I wonder whether in hindsight these should have been called ‘The Seven Practices of Public Life’ as…
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I didn’t sleep well last night. Bad news day yesterday and a chance to talk about it on BBC Radio Bristol this morning. Media interviews tend to be short lived and you don’t quite know the angle that the interviewer will take. I was on the John Darvall show an hour ago. The motivation for…
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Scenario planning is now entering the mainstream of transport planning – great! But hang on, now people are discovering that scenarios are not so easy-peasy when you try and develop and use them. You say ‘scenario’, but I say ‘scenario’. Oh dear, confusion is starting to creep in. What a mess! Last week at the…
What the hell is going on? 