Last week the Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, announced a number of initiatives designed to support drivers. The slogan is "slamming the brakes on anti-motorist measures" and you can find more information about it, over here.

Naturally this is sparking the usual debate about driving vs. all the other forms of mobility. But it also seems to be part of some sort of broader political strategy intended to distance his party from things like environmental sustainability, net zero targets, and 15-minute city design.

If you're looking for a way to process the above announcement, this recent FT article by John Burn-Murdoch is an excellent place to start. Firstly, the UK (outside of London) is generally poorly served by public transport. This is an important thing to know. By the below measure -- percentage of large cities that have trams, a metro, or urban light rail -- it is even worse than the US:

In fact, one way to think about and measure mobility in the UK is to think in terms of the following geographic categories: there's US cities, European cities (including London), and then there's the rest of the UK. In the case of US cities, they have very clearly optimized around road infrastructure. Meaning, the vast majority of people don't take transit to work, but the area (km2) you can cover by car (in 30 mins) is high.

Look at Houston and Dallas on the left side of this graph:

On the other hand, European cities (again, including London) have optimized in the opposite direction. A lot more people walk, cycle, and take transit to work. In the case of cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, Bilbao, Prague, and others, the number is greater than 60%! However, they're sucky places to drive, as I learned this past summer. The area you can cover by car within 30 mins, is relatively low (bottom right of the above graph).

The challenge for British cities (excluding London), is that they seem to be right in the middle (burgundy dots above). Poor public transport (low percentage of trips to work). And poor road infrastructure (limited area accessible by car within 30 mins). So it is perhaps no surprise that Sunak is honing in on this issue. London is not representative of Britain. And based on the above data, the majority of people living in British cities are almost certainly mobility frustrated.

Of course, to correct this issue you have two options. You can move toward the left (in the above chart) and optimize for road infrastructure. Or you can move to the right and optimize for public transport and other forms of mobility. Based on last week's announcement, Sunak has chosen the left.

Charts: FT

Last week the Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, announced a number of initiatives designed to support drivers. The slogan is "slamming the brakes on anti-motorist measures" and you can find more information about it, over here.

Naturally this is sparking the usual debate about driving vs. all the other forms of mobility. But it also seems to be part of some sort of broader political strategy intended to distance his party from things like environmental sustainability, net zero targets, and 15-minute city design.

If you're looking for a way to process the above announcement, this recent FT article by John Burn-Murdoch is an excellent place to start. Firstly, the UK (outside of London) is generally poorly served by public transport. This is an important thing to know. By the below measure -- percentage of large cities that have trams, a metro, or urban light rail -- it is even worse than the US:

In fact, one way to think about and measure mobility in the UK is to think in terms of the following geographic categories: there's US cities, European cities (including London), and then there's the rest of the UK. In the case of US cities, they have very clearly optimized around road infrastructure. Meaning, the vast majority of people don't take transit to work, but the area (km2) you can cover by car (in 30 mins) is high.

Look at Houston and Dallas on the left side of this graph:

On the other hand, European cities (again, including London) have optimized in the opposite direction. A lot more people walk, cycle, and take transit to work. In the case of cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, Bilbao, Prague, and others, the number is greater than 60%! However, they're sucky places to drive, as I learned this past summer. The area you can cover by car within 30 mins, is relatively low (bottom right of the above graph).

The challenge for British cities (excluding London), is that they seem to be right in the middle (burgundy dots above). Poor public transport (low percentage of trips to work). And poor road infrastructure (limited area accessible by car within 30 mins). So it is perhaps no surprise that Sunak is honing in on this issue. London is not representative of Britain. And based on the above data, the majority of people living in British cities are almost certainly mobility frustrated.

Of course, to correct this issue you have two options. You can move toward the left (in the above chart) and optimize for road infrastructure. Or you can move to the right and optimize for public transport and other forms of mobility. Based on last week's announcement, Sunak has chosen the left.

Charts: FT