The need for people to travel and the way in which they can travel has changed dramatically in a short period of time and, early on during the Coronavirus crisis especially, there was a sense that this change had the potential to be more permanent than temporary and contribute to the ‘Building Back Better’ agenda. As lockdown starts to ease though and traffic starts to flow again, or rather to not flow again, what is the sense of that change now? Is the window for a fundamental modal shift from car to two wheels and two legs closing? Has the planning system, or at least the regulatory regime, helped or hindered that? What might the lasting impact of the pandemic be on travel patterns and how will the planning system have to respond to that?

Sam Stafford puts these questions to Brian Deegan (Design Engineer at Urban Movement), Vanessa Eggleston (Partner at i-Transport) and Paul Smith (MD of Strategic Land Group and a person who rides a bike).

Twitter handles: @samuel_stafford, @bricycle and @paul_slg. Vanessa is on LinkedIn.

Some accompanying reading.

The latest on the cycle lane at the end of Paul’s street.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/support-a56-cycle-lanes-grows-18596708

Manchester’s Cyclops Junction.

https://news.tfgm.com/news/manchester-opens-uks-first-cyclops-junction

The Urban Design Group’s survey on street design practice.

http://www.udg.org.uk/content/street-design-uk-pilot-survey-2018

‘The end of the rush hour?’ Vanessa’s blog.

https://strategiclandgroup.co.uk/2020/06/09/the-end-of-the-rush-hour-guest-post-by-i-transport/

Robin Lovelace’s Rapid Cycleway Prioritisation Tool.

https://theconversation.com/cities-must-act-to-secure-the-future-of-urban-cycling-our-research-shows-how-138156

The International Transport Forum’s Decarbonising Transport initiative.

https://www.itf-oecd.org/decarbonising-transport

Some accompanying listening.

Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-xyGFI_Nq8