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Rosie Jones is a national treasure
Rosie Jones IS a national treasure, and – to quote Annie Macmanus – is a f**king legend. Susie and I had the great privilege and belly-laughing experience to see her ‘Triple Threat’ stand-up show last night. “If you’re not disabled or gay you won’t be leaving here tonight until you are” she joked. What an Read more
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Take the risk or lose the chance
Take the risk or lose the chance. Just over six years ago I started my current role with Mott MacDonald. I was stepping into the unknown and leaving a role I was well established in at my university. While weighing up this key decision in my life, my eldest daughter Florrie bought me this sign Read more
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Changemakers – a podcast with the wonderful Annette Smith talking about FUTURES
Annette and I first started working together in the last century! We were once ‘young professionals’ and part of the Transport Visions Network. Years later we’ve found ourselves taking on the future together again. I’m delighted to be part of this new podcast from the University of the West of England in which Annette Smith and I reminisce about Read more
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Happy valentines day, I’d fly anywhere just to be with you
Happy valentines day, I’d fly anywhere just to be with you. Taylor Swift’s private jet use puts carbon credits, personal choice and personal influence under the spotlight. Taylor Swift is making headlines, and not just attracting the attention of swifties. For those in the dark, it seems she now has only one private jet. This Read more
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From ugly to beautiful – the case of Le Plessis-Robinson
Want some hope and inspiration? Wondering if it is possible to change things from awful to beautiful? Then step away from what is at the top of your to-do list and spend 13 mins watching this video. To those who have opportunistically weaponised ’15 minute city’ in pursuit of political populism and profit, stop stealing Read more
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It never ceases to amaze me how Antonio Guterres continues to come out with ‘clarion call’ statements
It never ceases to amaze me how Antonio Guterres continues to come out with ‘clarion call’ statements that you’d hope would galvanise unified and collective action for survival as we stand on the brink, but don’t. Here are some examples: 🔥 “We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing” (COP27) 🔥 Read more
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We are operating here in privatised public space – our ‘club membership’ can be revoked by the club at any time
I’m a metal-loving transport nerd and wondering what the future holds for this platform which is why I set up https://glennlyons.blog/. If you regularly use this platform as your primary means of keeping in touch with your professional network and getting involved in exchange of knowledge and opinion, how would you feel if your account Read more
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10 years ago today I began my secondment as Strategy Director with the New Zealand Ministry of Transport
10 years ago today I began my secondment as Strategy Director with the Te Manatū Waka – Ministry of Transport (New Zealand). I flew over 11,000 miles to get there. I ended up making the NZ trip four times – over 90,000 fossil-fuelled miles. It was one of the great privileges of my career working as Read more
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Please don’t tell the Government that I spent three hours IN my working day in an event on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Please don’t tell the Government that I spent three hours IN my working day in an event on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. For those of you who may be alarmed by this admission, please be assured that no productivity was harmed in my taking part in this event – my first workshop of the day Read more
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Madness lies in doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result – from transport planning to Triple Access Planning
Madness lies in doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. So instead of transport planning in the paradigm of predict and provide, we bring you Triple Access Planning (TAP) in the paradigm of Decide and Provide. While transport planning has continued to evolve, it has remained tethered for too Read more
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Götterdämmerung Syndrome
Götterdämmerung Syndrome – “as death approaches, they [narcissists] do their best to destroy as much of the world as they can”. I’ve just reached the half-way point of The Ministry For The Future and the passage in the image below stands out. A quote from an article on the website Psychology Today called ‘How Narcissism Read more
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Trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation
Thank goodness this at least means he isn’t gunning for being chair of the Climate Change Committee, an appointment that isn’t being rushed following the departure of Lord Deben. It seems he is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. I once listened to one of their webinars just to keep a check on Read more
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10 reasons for the walking renaissance Following some great input from colleagues on Linkedin to my article (https://lnkd.in/e7h_SZ9), I’ve summarised below 10 possible contributing explanations for the 31% increase in walking trip rate in England (for trips under one mile) between 2015 and 2018 as indicated by National Travel Survey data: 1. Misrepresentation of actual…
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As you may know, I am a big fan of ‘Walking as a Service’ (WaaS). Thanks to Silicon Valley harnessing the power of geography in the form of Google Maps Navigation, three key questions that could stand in the way of choosing to walk can now be answered: How do I get there? How far…
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12 years ago the UK Chancellor asked Professor Julia King to “examine the vehicle and fuel technologies that, over the next 25 years, could help to decarbonise road transport, particularly cars”. Her report noted that “The global challenge is to support increases in road transport use, in a sustainable, environmentally-responsible way” [emphasis added]. It considered that…
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Like many, I have felt my awareness and concern over the seriousness of climate change growing in recent times as peaceful protest combines with substantial scientific evidence to strongly suggest we are in big trouble. I awoke this morning to the Tweet below from the BBC which shocked me. I decided today was the day…
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My colleague Paul Hammond asked me to come up with five thoughts for the future of transport planning as part of a gathering this weekend of c100 bright minds from within Mott MacDonald’s growing population of transport planners. I thought I’d share them on Linkedin and see what other people’s thoughts are. 1 Black swans…
What the hell is going on? 