Back in sunny Cambridge for the @darehub.bsky.social full team meeting, hearing about the great work our researchers are doing on transport resilience and decarbonisation. Also living the sustainable transport dream to get here. The multi-storey cycle parking at the railway station is immense!

You might have formed the impression that Paul Johnson, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, knows what he's talking about. The media treats him like the voice of God. But here he is - and not for the first time - talking out of his hat. Let's break it down in a short thread. 🧵

😬UK gas prices just hit highest level since 2022😬 At current prices… * New wind & solar from latest "AR7" auction would cut the bill for UK gas imports by £5.5bn/y * A single (1) home heat pump would cut bill for gas imports by more than £600/y www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why...

"This is not an inevitable feature of energy systems. It is a policy choice, [one] based on the inappropriate application of a piece of microeconomic theory to a market that does not satisfy the assumptions on which that theory depends." And *not changing* this mechanism is also a policy choice.

Fantastic to see this go ahead with support from across the region and parties. This is an important step towards bus services that work for people, not private profit, and integration between buses, Metro, and local rail in the North East. www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

🌱 The Big Newcastle Crowdfunder is here! We’ve secured £10,500 in matched funding - so donations are DOUBLED up to that amount. 🎯 Goal: £35,000 to reach 28,000 voters. Help fund the largest Green campaign Newcastle has ever seen! 👉 Donate: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/turn-newca...

✨It’s time to make hope normal again in Newcastle. We’re out in communities across Newcastle every week - standing up for residents, listening, and taking action where it matters most. 🗳️ With the May 7th local elections fast-approaching, we need YOU to get involved in your area.

A great couple of days in London, first as part of a delegation of academics heading to parliament to meet with members of the Transport Select Committee and then at our regular @darehub.bsky.social meet-up with Department for Transport colleagues. Resilience to extreme weather very apt right now.

When direct connections between the mouth of Tyne and London and Norway were just part of the fabric of our ordinary transport infrastructures.

Lovely to be at Pathways to Net Zero in Birmingham, hearing from a great panel on the challenge of decarbonisation and climate resilience in transport. Claire Haigh set the scene with a focus on Avoid-Shift-Improve and we've heard about vision-led planning and the need for positive stories.

Off to Manchester to examine a @tyndallcentre.bsky.social PhD on climate risks to transport. My train is slowly trundling at 20mph via Todmorden in the rain after a fire in Standegde Tunnel. It shows the importance of redundancy in the network for resilience but also the need for big investment.

Meanwhile

Thanks to our North East bus operators, Nexus, and NECA for joining us to talk about the resilience of bus services to disruptive events. It was great to get their insight into how they keep the buses on the road and the challenges of keeping people moving.

“Journeys are safer & smoother when we all work together” Lovely common sense road rules ad from Wokingham Borough Council.

I cannot think of any other area of public policy where you could get away with something so gobsmackingly idiotic.

“These new powers do not go far enough to protect pedestrians. It’s disappointing not to see a nationwide prohibition.” Our @charitycat.bsky.social responds to the news that local authorities will receive legal powers to restrict pavement parking. https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/pavement-parking

This advert is hilarious!

After five years of contemplation, it seems the solution to the blight of pavement parking is a fudged halfway house that doesn't address the actual problem. Having tried to get police action on pavement obstruction, I know how hard it is. 71% of consultees favoured an outright ban (like in London).

No mention of pavement parking in the new Road Safety Strategy 😞 This is a key safety issue for many yet there has been no government response since the consultation on it closed in November 2020!! transportactionnetwork.org.uk/road-safety-...

The new UK Road Safety Strategy with its target of a 65% reduction in casualties and mandating of a Safe System approach, marks the beginning of the end for the national 30mph speed limit. It's no longer credible when its been rejected by all Welsh and Scottish and 55% of English authorities.

A fun game for you all to play, but also a useful tool in the ongoing battle to remove traffic from Blackett Street and turn it into a safe space for people.

We've been building an agent-based transport model to try and quantify exactly these things, to explore change to transport mode and distance driven due to interventions like LTNs. Paper will hopefully be out this year! Headline: "it's not as simple as that" is a good summary.

Same the country over, if you’re not in a car, your safety doesn’t matter

International law won't constrain Trump's thirst for oil. But every solar panel that goes up makes crude reserves that much less valuable billmckibben.substack.com/p/just-possi...

📽️Donald Trump wants you to know he's targeting Venezuela because of illegal drugs. But what if this were really about something else altogether...? Dig into the murky world of crude oil refining and you find another, even more intriguing explanation... Full primer 👇 youtu.be/Pgwny1BiCYk?...

It's strange to think that in 10 years time this beaut could be carrying Metro trains across the Wear. It's still looking in good nick, 30 years after I used to cycle across it. A bonus on yesterday's walk was my first ever sighting of otters, frolicking and fishing in the still waters.

A model that Newcastle could follow with the Forth Yards redevelopment?

This month we’ve been at Hotspur Primary School delivering our award-winning Climate Change Catastrophe! 🌍 Through creative theatre, pupils explored climate change (including heatwave-busting hovercrafts!). Thanks to @alistaircford.bsky.social for joining us from @newcastleuni.bsky.social

Cycling and walking could help deliver almost everything Brits say they want to achieve in 2026 — if we design streets to support them. Getting fitter, losing weight, being healthier, saving money; enabling active travel quietly does all of it. With no gym contracts.

In our latest Climate Conversations, Clare Nasir hears how a new Met Office partnership with @neso-energy.bsky.social will help shape our future energy provision. 👀 Watch the full episode ⤵️ youtu.be/Qsfj4iWZYrI?...

The latest IAM RoadSmart survey finds that more drivers support (42%) a "20mph speed limit like Wales" than oppose (39%) one. England needs to align with Wales and Scotland by setting 20mph as an urban/village norm. See page 95 of their report at www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/iam-roads...

An absolute privilege to be in a packed room for Prof Jaime Amezaga's "inaugural" lecture today. Full of warmth, humour, sadness, and humanity. Cementing the vital importance of interdisciplinarity between engineers and everyone else. You're an inspiration, Jaime. @nclengineering.bsky.social

It's not too late to raise funds for Campaign for Better Transport while you do your online Christmas shopping! Just sign up for easyfundraising: it's free and easy to do. Thanks! www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/campa...

Nice piece from @johnharris1969.bsky.social about the return to the real world. As someone who has managed to avoid having a smartphone until the age of 45, I spend a lot of my time looking around me at people staring at their little rectangles and missing life going on around them. Hope indeed!

Smart way to compare multiple entities in regards of the different aspects. #dataviz #dataanalysis #data #visualization #visual #visualanalytics

Since 2000, London has added more than 1.9 million residents (+26%), but the number of vehicle miles driven has declined by 10%; it's declined most spectacularly in the center. Outside of London, vehicle miles traveled have increased rapidly over the same period. content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-lo...

20 years after last seeing them upstairs in the Carling Academy in front of about 35 people, it was fun to see how far Caribou have come tonight. And I was definitely in the 95th percentile of age... Great fun though! www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI2E...

Which will win: the individual capitalist consumer's instinctive desire to move through public space protected by the most luxurious & biggest possible suit of armor, or society's collective interest in managing public spaces to the benefit of the most people? [finger to ear] ... oh.

Would be great to see*any* progress on this in Newcastle, eh @newcycling.bsky.social ? Lack of storage space in Tyneside flats is a particular problem and a real barrier to more urban cycling.

Here is an excellent summary of last week's National Emergency Briefing in London. Well worth a watch and please sign the letter to the Prime Minister linked at the end. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sa7... #climatechange #impacts #energy #health #tippingpoints #nationalsecurity #foodsecurity

If you’re thinking about swapping flights for trains next year, Interrail’s 25% off deal is actually decent. Makes planning way less painful. www.interrail.eu/en #BudgetTravel
#Wanderlust #GreenTravel

Hearty congratulations to @mikecookson.bsky.social for finally managing to get work done to make the Mike Cookson Puddle of Doom a thing of the past. Finally we can cycle safely from Heaton to town in cold weather! Can @newcycling.bsky.social social pay a visit on Friday?! Well done, Cllr Mike!

Do new light rail lines improve the attractiveness of an area? We looked at UK property price data from 1995-2020 and found that LRT can lead to a 4.44% to 8.29% increase in nearby property values and is higher in areas with good bus networks and lower incomes. Paper: www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17...

At today’s National Emergency Briefing, Chris Packham delivered a clear message: act now. Decision-makers must step up and tackle the climate crisis before it’s too late. Add your signature to the open letter to Keir Starmer. #climatecrisis #neb2025 #netzero www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-keir

Still reeling from the Stanford report on Brexit. Reduced GDP by up to 8% and investment by as much as 18%. The UK Treasury would have £40 billion more each year if Britain had remained in the EU. Devastating self-immolation.

"It’s ludicrous that aviation doesn’t pay fuel tax, especially now that Rachel Reeves is making noises about a tax on electric vehicles. If we’re looking for easy wins for revenue, just look to the skies." ~ Flight Free UK Director Anna Hughes in the Guardian today 👇

On a chilly (and now very grey!) day, I'm very much enjoying the sunshine this little beauty from Bongo Joe Records is bringing into my office. There are some great releases on their Bandcamp page if you fancy paying for some lovely and uplifting music. madalitsoband.bandcamp.com/album/ma-git...

New paper alert! Our paper coupling together urban flood modelling and agent-based transport modelling to explore the impacts of flooding on road transport in Beijing is now published. Next we'll be testing adaptation responses (hard/soft/green)... Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Attn Newcastle City Council!

With the world heating up [and more pedestrians being killed], why are more SUVs being sold? “It’s the industry that has driven the demand through huge marketing & advertising campaigns in recent years. SUVs offered the industry a simple way of charging more for a vehicle that does the same thing.”