UEL has designed a brochure for the Sustainable Mobilities Group’s upcoming MSc Transport, Sustainability, and Society. One of the MSc’s unique features will be an optional module called Cycling in Society . For more information about the programme, which will start next year, please get in touch.
MSc brochure
Eva’s report on cargo bikes – along with the accompanying poster – is now available via the Sustainable Mobilities website . Thanks to Eva – now studying for a Masters in Social Research – for all her excellent work on this project, and to Alix and Kat for their help.
Katrina and I were invited to speak at the third seminar in the History and Transport Policy series, organised by Colin Divall, Julian Hines, and Colin Pooley. It was a two-day event – I could only participate in the second day, which I very much enjoyed, due to teaching on the first day. It sounded like the first day was great too and Kat’s presentation on ‘Bloomers and Lycra: why cycling wear still matters’ was very well received.
On the second day of the event, I spoke about ‘From mainstream, to marginal, to where? Cycling identities in a changing policy context’. I argued that cycling identities continue to be shaped by a variety of policy discourses around cycling that have developed during the postwar period: for example, in constructions of cycling and childhood, or cycling and risk. How these discourses play out is shaped by different policy contexts: I gave the examples of Hull in the 90s (where child road safety data was used to create widespread 20mph zones, particularly with a concern to reduce inequalities) and London today, where historically levels of cycling have been low, even for the UK, but so have levels of car ownership and use – which matters for cycling identities in a period of growth in cycling.
The talk still represents work in progress, but I found it a really useful opportunity to try and think through a slightly different aspect of the plethora of data and ideas that have come out of Cycling Cultures.
Something else I’ve been working on lately is a WHO/UN publication for THE PEP (Transport, Health and the Environment: Pan-European Programme) on green and healthy jobs in transport , with James Woodcock.
When reviewing the existing literature on green transport jobs, it seemed to me that often cycling (and walking) are bypassed and the focus is on low-carbon motor vehicles and traditional public transport. However, looking at existing and potential jobs in areas such as cycle training, cycle infrastructure, cycle retail, public bike hire schemes, and cycle couriering, cycling should also be seen as having the potential to create a substantial number of green jobs. Many (although not all) of these jobs incorporate physical activity, also valuable in the context of increasingly sedentary work.
Yesterday I installed a selection of Bike Portraits taken in Bristol in the showroom on College Green for the Bristol Cycle Festival . It launches on Friday 16th. More on the Bristol blog .
