Category: Blog

We already know the sustainable transport solutions to climate change, but politicians aren’t listening.

Transport Knowledge Wiki is a proposal to build an easily searchable resource of reports, reasearch and data to help campaigners make the case for positive change.

The wiki will provide instant acccess to our vast body of knowledge and an easy to use way for volunteers to add new information.

Why do this?

Organisations and their outputs are often ephemeral. Links rot and websites get updated with a loss of old but still useful material.

Here is an example of what an entry could look like for a report. The live URL is recorded as well as an archive URL that will still work if that one breaks.

Clicking Walking in keywords takes you to a list of resources with that keyword.

From there you can go to another report tagged with that keyword.

Keywords and categories make it searchable and link to similar reports, no matter who pubished them or when.

We will need volunteers

• Transport, enivironment and poicy news junkies to keep things up to date with the latest material
• People who know how wikis work so we get the best from the technology
• Librarians and archivists to help us organise things
• Historians (our starting point is the 1970s, possibly earlier)
• Later on we can encourage organisations to contribute directly to the wiki

We will need funding

• Small grant bid already submitted for start up costs
• Crowdfund and accept donations for ongoing costs

How can you get involved?

If you are interesting in getting involved use the button below to email.

If you would like to make a donation to the project we have an active GoFundMe.

We have been collecting the views of Londoners about per-mile road pricing. We knew 54% of Londoners support it. What did they tell us?

Who responded

There are people who think road pricing is a good idea in both inner and outer London. Of respondents who gave their location, we had an equal mix from inner and outer boroughs. Our respondents skewed older and we had more non-drivers respond than drivers.

Fairness

We suggested many reasons why per-mile road pricing might be a good idea. Fairness came up again and again as the main benefit highlighted by respondents, with the idea of it being right to pay for how much you use included in several responses.

Discounts and exemptions

We had a number of submissions concerned about discounts and exemptions, in particular for disabled people who rely of private vehicles for mobility.

There was a clear and genuine concern that per-mile road pricing would restrict the mobility of disabled people. Any road pricing scheme must be designed by and for disabled people.

Other groups that it was felt required discounts were people on low incomes that drive, the elderly and people living in the urban/rural fringe.

Congestion and modal shift

Many respondents were concerned about levels of congestion and saw road pricing as a way to ease that.

Some respondents identified reduction in air pollution as a benefit. There was also some support because it was seen as a way to encourage modal shift.

Views against

We received many responses that were against the idea altogether, which was expected given the polling which triggered this work.

Of those that elaborated why, many simply did not believe per-mile pricing would completely replace current charging and it would be applied on top of the existing charging schemes.

Others beleived it formed part of an international conspiracy.

You can still submit your views

If you would like to add your submisison you can do that here and it will be added to the website.

London is always at the forefront of doing things differently. From the now widespread availability of bubble tea to the introduction of the first congestion charge in 2003. But traffic in London, with the resulting congestion and pollution, is a problem that isn’t going away without some more help.

54% of Londoners support per-mile road pricing. Support is higher among drivers than non-drivers.

Source: Pay-as-you-drive: The British public’s views on vehicle taxation reform

In 2022, research revealed that a majority of people in London support replacing the current system of vehicle taxation and tolls. Per-mile road pricing is supported by the majority of respondents as a potential replacement. Interestingly, the policy is more popular with drivers than non-drivers.

These intriguing results sparked questions about who were the voices of Londoners behind the statistics? Since road pricing could work in a number of ways, what were some of the benefits that chimed with people? What were some of the concerns?

The Road Pricing project was devised to find, record and share the views of Londoners about road pricing. You can visit the site now to add your voice.

The project is open to any London resident to make a submission, but before the project is completed we’ll make sure we have collected enough voices to represent the full diversity of Londoners. You can help us do that by sharing the project with your networks.

The submission form asks for a picture or video. This can by anything you like. It could be a nice selfie, a short clip about how road pricing could improve your neighbourhood or journey, a photo of what you’d like to see more or less of on your street as a result of road pricing or something creative.

If per-mile road pricing is new to you and you’d like to learn more, a number of reports are available.

Why only London?

Since Greater London is the only city to be seriously looking at developing a road pricing policy at the moment, it made sense to focus the project on London.

About Transport Good CIC

Transport Good CIC is the environmental justice non-profit. We run events and programmes to make sustainable transport more equitable.

In 2022 we ran the first cohort of Futurechangers, the groundbreaking work experience placement programme that will increase the diversity of environmental activism.

We have been funded by the Foundation for Integrated Transport.

If you like our work, we accept donations.

Here are some useful reports from think tanks, government papers and other resources about per-mile road pricing.

📁 Road pricing keyword on Transport Knowledge Wiki

Government reports and responses

• Government response, February 2023
• Road pricing, Transport Committee, January 2022
• London stalling, London Assembly, January 2017
• Road Pricing, Frank Kelly, Cambridge, 2006
• Feasibility study of road pricing in the UK, 2004

This is a comparison of the number of trains scheduled to be run by rail operator c2c in the December 2019 and May 2023 timetables.

Monday to Friday

Trains arriving at Fenchurch Street

Trains departing from Fenchurch Street

Take action

These cuts to trains have been caused by the cut in funding from the Treasury and Department for Transport to the operator.

Trains have been reinstated elsewhere where passengers have complained. Write to your MP to let them know you want to see the full timetable restored.

Futurechangers is a groundbreaking cohort programme that will run for the first time during 2022 in London. The aim of the programme is to increase the diversity of environmental activism.

Young people who might not otherwise consider a career in campaigning, but are more likely to be impacted by the effects of climate change, are introduced to the subject of car dependency and the costs felt by people, the city and the environment.

The cohort receives training over multiple sessions. They are guided in creating sustainable transport campaigns, culminating in a paid work placement at an environmental charity.

For participants

The Futurechangers programme aims to encourage students to think about pursuing a career in environmental campaigning.

Paid campaigning work is fulfilling and offers a range of good opportunities that young people might not otherwise consider as a career path. In addition you get to change the world for the better.

For employers

Cohort members go through a rigorous selection process with training on car dependency and campaigning techniques across six months.

By the time of the placement in April the cohort will be working on their own campaigns in pairs. It is hoped to match pairs to relevant environmental organisations based on the campaign topics.

We’ll provide support to both employers and the cohort ahead of, during and after the placement to ensure everyone gets the most from it.

The placement lasts six days during the first half of April 2022.

Because unpaid internships have been a barrier to taking up work in this sector in the past, the cohort will be paid London Living Wage for their six day placement. We can help with topping up wages if that is an issue for smaller organisations.

Railway services have been cut throughout the UK in response to the pandemic. Despite rising passenger levels many of these services have not been restored. This is a very quick analysis of the immediate response. If you think a service cut is missing, please add it below.

Results so far

We can be better

The virus pandemic has created new threats and opportunities but also put on hold some important work, including our response to climate change. Before the crisis I began exploring ways to make my environmental activism more inclusive.

From years of work as a campaigner I’d noticed that mainstream environmental activism was visibly white and the discourse it was having often referred to costs of environmental pollution and climate change falling disproportionately amongst BAME communities. But often these conversations sound as if people of colour were not there in the room with us. The reason for this I fear is because they often are not. An example is air pollution in London which affects the poorest and most diverse neighbourhoods more than the others. Repeatedly, and I know I’ve been guilty of this, we’ve failed to amplify the voices of those affected and instead refer to people as if they have no voice.

The Black Lives Matter protests brought all this back to the foreground of my thinking.

A mistake, to my mind, of environmental campaigning and its attempts to become more diverse, has been to tentatively invite black and minority ethnic people into the world of paid campaigning. I say tentatively as barriers to entry remain and the burden of potentially being the only person of colour within an organisation is draining and offputting. Far more work needs to be done to identify, connect with and include campaigners of colour.

But environmental activism has demonstrated it is capable of being inclusive. So much work has been done on gender balance and I’m constantly inspired by the high calabre of women in this sector who now occupy senior roles. This shows we are capable of being better and there is no excuse not to be for people of colour. And before anyone reads this the wrong way, I’m not saying there are no people of colour in mainstream environmental activism. What I’m saying is back when I had a desk to go to when I’d look up and around almost all the people I saw were white. You can’t claim to speak for people you do not include.

As I’ve found in other contexts, when you do not create spaces that are inclusive, the people you claim to want to include will organise without you and have their conversations elsewhere.

Last year I was introduced to The Advocacy Academy, a fellowship organisation for young people in Brixton. I’d hoped I might be able to offer the group some help and guidance on environmental activism. I was naïve and when I found out more about their work I saw that they really didn’t need my help. What I found were bright young activists already acutely aware of the environmental and transport inequality they were living with and taking compelling actions on their own.

I came away from meeting this group inspired and with new ideas in mind. How does mainstream (by which I really mean white) environmental activism connect with, celebrate and find synergy with powerful groups like this? And there will be other groups, I have no doubt about that. Because we incorrectly imagine that people of colour are not campaigning on environmental issues when they do not come forward to join white folks. But the truth is they have created their own spaces where they are unburdened by the limitations of white activism.

Reacting to the virus has diverted me from this, but now I’m ready to make my activism more inclusive and respectful of the work that happens in spaces I’m not part of.