Urban designer Brian Deegan in conversation at the Velo-city conference in Dublin.
Carlton Reid
During an evidence gathering session in the Irish Parliament, Dublin, on June 26 British transport planner Brian Deegan explained active travel’s role in combatting climate change. The text of his speech has since become a hit on social media. Deegan works for the London design practice Urban Movement and is an advisor to Chris Boardman, the former Olympic champion turned Greater Manchester cycling and walking commissioner.
Deegan presented his evidence to the Irish Parliament’s climate action committee. Transport academic Rachel Aldred of London’s Westminster University and Fabian Küster, senior policy officer at the European Cyclists’ Federation, also presented evidence at the session.
TV pictures of the evidence session have been archived on the Irish Parliament video channel. The three experts were asked–at short notice–to present to the committee while they were attending the Velo-city cycle advocacy conference staged this week in Dublin.
“It is time to act on climate change,” stressed Deegan.
“Every world government is finding it harder and harder to make excuses as time is running out and the supporting evidence is overwhelming,” he enthused.
Brian Deegan giving evidence to the Irish Parliament’s climate action committee
Irish Parliament
Deegan added: “Active travel offers one of the clearest solutions to tackle climate change, but it is also a health, safety, and social justice issue.”
The sociologist-turned-urban-engineer then entertained the committee with his backstory, emphasizing how motor cars have been allowed to colonize cities with too little attention paid to the social equity consequences of “mass automobility.”
Deegan explained:
In my lifetime, I have experienced these issues first hand. As a child in Moss Side, Manchester, I used to play out in the street, as, I am sure, most of you here did. My street was cobbled and wide. It had curbs to sit on and plenty of space for playing football. In the name of progress, asphalt was applied to my street in the hot summer of 1976, and I watched it bubble and settle. When it did settle, cars started arriving in greater numbers, and at a speed that meant we no longer had the opportunity to pick up our ball and wait for them to pass. My friend Stephen got hit by one of these speeding cars and was changed for life. He couldn’t concentrate anymore and ceased to be my friend. I watched him slowly slip out of society. The other parents became worried and so brought their children inside. Only the bad kids were left. I was one of those kids.”
The transport expert continued:
A few years later, the mere act of being young and on the street was taken as confirmation that you were a troublemaker. The police came around in vans, picked us up, and beat us in the back. Eventually, a child was killed, and the riots began. The street was destroyed. Shops were ransacked and all sense of community was lost. All the time, the cars kept growing in numbers and the severance increased.”
Citing the fact that children in deprived areas are three times as likely to be involved in road traffic accidents as those in affluent areas he added that this “descent has had many other negative consequences, in terms of health, where the levels of inactivity caused by car-centered living have led to a public health crisis.”
Deegan called for the committee to act on the “toxic air produced by cars” which he said was “having the most devastating effect.”
“The planet is suffering death by a thousand small cuts as each unnecessary car journey sends us further into trouble – and shortly to the point from which we can never return,” he said.
He recounted how he uses his academic training to empower others to take control of their streets:
In Greater Manchester, I asked planners, engineers, , and residents to do a workshop with me, based around a blank map. I asked them to tell me the worst streets, the rat runs, the busy roads, and the motor-traffic-dominated one-way systems. We used a red pen and marked them on the map. This forced people to acknowledge the repercussions of their actions and be honest about their situation. I then flipped the conversation by pointing out that most of the streets are ok. Usually, about 20% of streets are colored red so the story is not completely bleak. We have not ruined everywhere yet.”
He went on:
I asked how we could connect the streets that were ok by crossing these difficult roads. We put dots with a green pen where new crossings were possible. We then joined the dots using the most direct street alignment and had a basic network that was practical, achievable, and made strategic sense. I then – dramatically – introduced a black pen and asked: ‘Which one of the red lines shall we tackle first? Which street should we transform?’ These blackline plans can take years to come to fruition and, if they are truly transformational, the opposition will be strong.”
Political courage is needed to counter this opposition, he stated.
“Focus on one route and fight for it,” he advised.
“It makes no difference what any individual says. It is about what we all do together. We must give people an option before we encourage them to take their own first step towards active travel.”
Deegan had a warning for the committee: “Those who believe automobility is the future are only fooling themselves.”
