Had the FOI back. They can only articulate how much the service costs to run but can’t articulate why or provide any information on future improvements to the service to account for extra cost.

Great reporting from @lauralaker.bsky.social. This incident shows a clear need for West Midlands Police to urgently review how they test e-bikes for legality, as well as paying for a new bike and issuing an apology to the rider.

Funding levers please! 😅

AI posters should come with the prompt used to make them. What was the intended meaning behind AI’s hallucination?

In the West Midlands, 59% of all Op Snap reports come from drivers, 16% from cyclists and 25% from pedestrians.

If only there was dedicated space for parking that the Aldi is almost parked within...

Heavy traffic around Selly Oak on my way home earlier, resulting in really shitty behaviours from drivers and a horrific near miss on a parallel crossing.

Lots of reporting about a proposed pay rise for Birmingham's councillors. The framing of the headline has now put it in the public's heads that councillors are asking for a pay rise rather than it being recommended by an independent panel. Shouldn't we just empower that panel to implement it?

At the Delivering Vision Zero conference in Birmingham. Aria Rattan, active travel ambassador: “Somewhere along the way, we’ve decided that the safest place for a child is inside the back of car.” “How can we have a childhood if we can’t walk through it” #PitchPerfect 🌱

Curiously, Waymo haven’t turned up to their stand at the Delivering Vision Zero conference in Birmingham. I wonder why.

Ever read a headline & thought “Is this true?” Come unpack Birmingham’s biggest stories with us! We'll explore how local media report on the rise of the far right. 12-3pm Sun 5th July at @inthewarehouse.bsky.social Free coffee & lunch! ☕️ Everyone welcome, no expertise needed, just curiosity!

The usable width of a highway for pedestrians and those wheeling is already disproportionately small. Especially in streets where half-on and obstructive pavement parking is rife. To then remove even more usable space while attempting to dodge private robots is obscene.

For the fourth time this year, there's been a crash into a bridge that carries one of the busiest commuter rail lines outside of London. And yep, there are markings and signs galore.

Having a *need* to travel day and ohhhh boy has it been tricky.

Stephenson Street, Birmingham.

“We found there’s this perfect one-to-one relationship. If a city increased its road capacity by 10% then driving in that city went up by 10%.” Still one of the best articles on why building wider roads leads to more cars stuck in the same congestion. Understanding #InducedDemand Via @wired.com

The background papers suggest that they've landed on two possible tram route options and the contractor couldn't recommend one or the other. If it's that similar, could this be an opportunity to give the choice to the public? 👀

Enjoying that by taking the piss out of this, we're collectively holding our hands up to being quite boring. 😃

Love the guerrilla signage. We have many small green metal signs that read "The parking or driving of vehicles on this grass reservation is prohibited" across the city but many have been knocked down, damaged or removed and their enforceability is questionable.

Parents: is YOUR child staying up late at night arguing about the costs of HS2?

It’s sad that this is a good day for the marooned A45 Cycleway - an eventual key cycleway out to the airport. We really need to sort out its connection through the ring road and to the Sports Quarter™️.

This case study from Active Travel England (ATE) working with West of England Combined Authority (WECA) was in ATE's 2026-30 delivery plan. Do we have any details of what they found and lessons learned?

These are good intentions, however a few questions and concerns remain: 💰 Active travel fights for local funding pots against expensive things like tramway. 🗓️ There’s a lot of revising policy, statutory documents and new mapping, leaving little time to implement signage & simple crossings by 2030.

I shall watch this with interest. There's no way to get 60% of kids actively travelling to school without disrupting current patterns of car-based mobility. This includes making all urban streets safer, not just those right outside schools www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Does this service really cost £4 per transaction to run!?

Reflection on Tip Toe after a few days: I feel the jump between episode four and five was too great and could have benefited from one more episode before the finale to show more radicalisation of Clive. It went from saving someone from being queer bashed to *those* final moments incredibly quickly.

Perfect 💖

It’s disappointing that the MA Design Management course at Birmingham City University has been cut. I’m course alumni - I did it work-based - and the skills taught are incredibly useful to transition from a design degree to the workplace.

Interested to see how this progresses, especially if there are any engagement projects around mobility/transport. 👀

I wonder how much money this service processes to still look like this.

What went on at 3am? 🤔

One problem with this is that we're not very good at taking routes we have and lifting them into a network. The only good example is probably Northbrook Street where there's a sort-of cycle lane junction. 🔗 maps.app.goo.gl/d121uDddPYfx...

Could a third change be forthcoming this week?

I would say this as I co-wrote the letter, but it's so important that the new cabinet member is able to articulate, promote, approve and stand by bold transport policy. Otherwise the road safety emergency will perpetuate and everyone will remain miserable as they try to get around the city.

“It’s a tragic tale- a once-confident nation making such a fearful, self-harming decision. Our economy…politics… daily lives in 2026 – all of it bears the imprint of that calamitous error” Brexit 10yrs on. Nothing to celebrate. Except the likelihood we’ll rejoin. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Reform councillor that voted for the Lib Dem-Green-Indy coalition last night happens to be the one opposing the extension of @a38cycleway.bsky.social. She'll be furious when she realises both of their manifestos committed to protected cycle routes. 🙈

What a charade at full council to vote in a leader. The coalition have put forward a candidate. Now the Tories and Reform have. Neither of the latter have any prospect of being voted in.

The ex-cabinet member for council transformation is now pontificating that Birmingham ought to be broken up using "more radical options" than parish/town council models. However, this is incognisant of wider local government reorganisation. Also, what would you localise cost effectively?

My contribution to this discourse: 1. Are they customers if they have no choice but to use the service? 2. Is 'Drivers Medical' the internal structure for the service, rather than what people call the service? 3. And is that putting 'Customers' First?

I wonder how many empty PHV miles are racked up around Birmingham New Street.

New turquoise councillor for an adjacent ward to mine has decided he's not going to be offering face-to-face surgeries due to security concerns and he thinks people would usually be up for online meetings instead. The previous councillor held them fortnightly in community locations without issue.

Was excited for Monzo's new MVNO until I discovered it's using VMO2 and not EE. ☹️

What do you notice about the social media preview, article headline, leading sentences and structure of the article here?

I've just read the strategic outline case for mass rapid transit between Birmingham City Centre and Longbridge. 📑 £1.2bn for trams 🚊, £551m for very light rail 🚈 or £113m for bus rapid transit 🚏. The route would be via Smithfield, Pershore Rd to Edgbaston, then across to A38 through to Longbridge.

I find it absolutely mad that the conversation has shifted to the point where it's expected that people will be able to effectively own the bit of public street outside their home to use as a personal fuel station www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A bit more on moving from campaigning into research. 👀

I've just read the strategic outline case for mass rapid transit between Birmingham City Centre and Longbridge. 📑 £1.2bn for trams 🚊, £551m for very light rail 🚈 or £113m for bus rapid transit 🚏. The route would be via Smithfield, Pershore Rd to Edgbaston, then across to A38 through to Longbridge.

Yeah they probably should have a more compliant fleet but they didn't even have good records of what vehicles they owned until they were given a kick up the backside two years ago. At least the charges (doesn't say how much in fines?) will be reinvested in local transport and clean air projects.

Does anyone know of any local or combined authority in the UK that's done a 'Paris' - plot a big network on paper (guess an LCWIP is the equivalent of Plan Vélo 1) and consult on that, then just get on with delivering incrementally?

Interesting post by the Mayor but it talks about transport as if the Rosewell Review will deliver any semblance of systemic change in time for the 2028 mayoral election. It won’t and most of the 2027-32 funding was swallowed by existing piecemeal projects.