We have to come off the car for many reasons. It’s a perfect situation for politics to act and direct society. For politics can be described as [a]ny desired source that is not totally abundant – be it money, social prestige, recognition, research grants, or whatever – must be divided up through a political process… Read More DfT’s anti peak-car rhetoric: narrative analysis of DfT statements

Peak Car is a the theory or projection that car use has reached its climax and is now declining. In our car-permeated society we find it hard to believe, especially as we have invested so much time and energy into provision for the car. We have put a strong bet on its prevailing in many… Read More More Peak Car

Various feminist geographers-planners-researchers have pointed it out before, but it still warrants repeating. Looking at the commute alone is discriminating against women. Of course it is much easier to look at the commute. The census data contain that question “how do you usually travel to work?” and the census provides near-full coverage. Yet looking at… Read More Let’s design for women too – beyond the commute

This week it’s mileage time! Annually, women travel 5,951 miles and men 7,237 miles, on average. When last week I looked at trips in the National Travel Survey 2013, this week it’s correspondingly the travel distance I will take a look at. And, to cut a long story short, we see similar graph shapes emerging (see bottom of post). Ageless average… Read More Work for miles and miles

Nothing ground breaking this week (was it ever that?), just a bit of fun number crunching. In previous posts I had checked with the Census 2011 data just how gender relates to the commute and more specifically the cycle-commute. Findings were – for a quick recap – that women commute by public transport and walking more than men; and certainly not… Read More Gender tripping including just walk