Mobility

Reliable and accessible transport is an enabler – it allows people to travel for work, brings families closer together and shrinks the geography of land and sea masses. People have always ‘gone where the work is’ but now, with different modes of transport available, that can mean travelling great distances and long commutes. Everyone’s ‘local’ area is now vast thanks to the explosion of better transport links.

Witnessing the wholesale redevelopment taking place at key hub locations in advance of projects like HS2 is eye-opening and the scale of opportunity is still not truly quantified.

It only further serves to illustrate that the future of business and trade in the UK will be ‘interurban’ with people living in one location, working in another and criss crossing across the island. The past notion of living in one place and working there is for many unsustainable.

This undoubtedly has a dramatic effect on how we design our towns and cities. Designated cycle lanes and secure cycle parking, wide pavements, well lit public spaces – all and more need to be considered to design successful places that support the better movement of people.

That all said, the car is still dominant and this is hindering towns and cities realising their full potential. Air pollution and traffic congestion dramatically impact on peoples’ health and wellbeing and negatively affect local environments.

So we can agree that transport is important, and that different modes are vital. But they currently don’t work in harmony with each other, and ultimately this limits the benefits. People are forced to default to using the car as there is not another ‘end to end’ more sustainable transport solution.

If we could create more multi-modal opportunities, with people able to switch seamlessly between train and cycle, for example, this enhances peoples’ mobility substantially and provides a true alternative to the motor vehicle.

We need to bring our design expertise to find solutions here. For example, if we could help to integrate cycle transport across the tram networks of the UK this would make cycling longer distances much more desirable for commuters. 5km of cycling can suddenly transport you 45km.

Simple tweaks are possible to existing tram designs to allow for under chair bike storage and bike hanging, and in the longer term, purpose designed rolling stock will be the way forward.