Last week’s speaker was Professor Jon Shaw from Plymouth University in the UK. It was a wonderful address and very useful advice for transport planners, and elected reps.
There were many really good points Jon made and some which I liked included:
- The role of the academic is to minimise unproductive debate or pressing policy issues of the day. [How we could have done with much intervention by academics in Christchurch post-quakes].
When they undertook a study of people’s transport habits in the UK they found:
- 20% of people expressed a willingness to change their travel behaviour, or have already changed, and a further 20 – 40% have some inclination to change.
- Malcontented motorists find that the current conditions on the road, such as congestion and the behaviour of other drivers make driving stressful, would like to reduce their car usage, but cannot see how. They say that being able to reduce their car use would make them feel good, but the feel that there are no practical alternatives for the journey they have to make.
I wonder if the numbers would be the same in NZ as in the UK? If so then the challenge for our politicians and planners is to analyse the group in (3) above and work on answers for that group.
Here is the video of the evening thanks to Aaron Campbell.
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