Sustainable transport initiatives – 'must go faster'

A few months into the Department for Transport funded project I have been working on over the last year or so I met with a senior business figure from the Solent region who has worked for some big companies on the UK south coast.

When I explained what the Hampshire councils were doing to encourage transport related behaviour change and achieve a targeted shift away from car usage within the next three years he was surprisingly skeptical and believed the campaigns would go the way of previous such efforts and focus far too much on cycling as the main answer to the issues.

Now that I have an insight into what’s happening in Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) projects around the UK, one thing has become very clear. A lot of taxpayer’s money is being pumped into these initiatives with an emphasis on them being measurable and ultimately self-sustaining but, as far as I have seen so far, there are no real big or radical ideas being implemented now or in the foreseeable future and I’m really not convinced the activities will make much difference in the larger scheme of things.

Am I surprised? Not really. Does it matter? I think it does. Any answers? I can think of a few …

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Warning: Physical Memory Dump – WCMS conflicts detected

Image blatantly nicked from Columbia Pictures to illustrate a point

There have been times over the last 18 months while working on projects associated with my fledgling consultancy business when the input of new information has conflicted badly with stuff I know from experience, particularly concerning web content management systems.

In some cases a physical memory dump and reboot or a quick zap from an MiB style memory eraser would have been welcome in order to take fresh look at things and experience that buzz of discovering something new and exciting.

In a post titled ‘Ten hopes for the Tens’ back at the end of 2009 I expressed a ‘hope’ that “Web Content Management continues to thrive and prosper and evolve in many exciting new directions”

Four years into the decade I am still trying out new breeds of WCMS on a regular basis and cross referencing them with evaluations and results from previous projects to see if, how and where they could have been a better fit.

Some of the solutions that have come onto my radar over the last 12 months are Apostrophe, Concrete5, Pyro, Weebly and Squarespace and testing them out has raised these main conflicts …

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Imagining the World my children will inherit

This phrase has sat as the strapline to my blog since its inception back in 2008.

My baby girl has grown up

The first of my children was born in a different century, before the World changed.

The second was born early in the 21st Century after the catastrophic events of 9/11.

Compared to the generally impoverished and challenging upbringings my wife and I had, with her losing her father at the age of four and both my parents being badly disabled, my children have led a relatively charmed existence so far. It was always our goal as parents to give them the happiest childhoods possible and we will remain focused on that.

We have recently returned from a lovely relaxing family break at our faithful Spanish bolthole. The sun is shining for a change in the UK, the girls are busy preparing for the long holidays and my wife and I are encouraged by the progress of our respective small businesses, with signs that the economy is starting to recover a bit from the grind of the last few years. All things considered, life is good.