CHRIS PAUL

MSc ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE

Blood and Treasure GEOGRAPHY | SEED

“The Way We Move Now is Killing Us, and

Costing Us Dear .. It Should be Saving Us”
The essence of Made to Move, Boardman and others, 2017

Global
Reported and Suppression warming
Congestion Air quality unreported casualties of exercise from roads
£1.3 billion £1.1 billion £800 million £300 £250
million million

The estimated annual costs in Greater Manchester of doing nothing about
these five major road harms (above); expressed in financial terms (Boardman
and others, 2017) total £3.75 billion. These harms also exact a huge price in
mortality and morbidity; early deaths and reduced lifelong health and happiness.
While the benefits of automobility appear to accrue disproportionately to the
rich (e.g. Lucas, 2012; Mattioli and others, 2017) the major health harms fall
on the poor and the costs on society and the public purse not on those doing
the harm. There is a relationship with health which seems poorly understood
by health policy gatekeepers (Russell and Sinha, 2016) and little willingness to
match the walk to even the current talk (Cairney, 2018). In Greater Manchester
the GM Population Plan (Meredith, 2016) makes little mention of these
problems as Jon Rouse (2017) has acknowledged. The £6 billion annual budget
continues to be directed primarily to acute and chronic illness. There also
appears to be a gap in research around the probable substantial effects of social
and economic severance, wasted and under-valued land, lost revenues, and
reduced productivity all of which hit economic growth and the tax base.

Mikael Colville Anderson pointed out in a
powerful TED talk (2012) that 6,000 plus
years of having “streets for all” came to a
sticky end when drivers, manufacturers
and big oil buddies glibly took the streets,
othering and blaming pedestrians for
carnage by inventing “jaywalking”.
McConnell (2014) blogs that highways
- roads, streets, footways, cycleways and
corridors - are 80% of London’s public
land. No small thing for drivers to enclose
it, like a new Agrarian Revolution, less
than a century ago.
In ‘The Tragedy of the Commons” Garrett
Hardin (1968) argued that without
reversal in population growth the world
was doomed. Nobel economics laureate
Elinor Ostrom (e.g. 1990) led optimistic
theories of the commons, showing by
experiment that where users of a resource (NACTO, 2017) placing the most vulnerable and efficient at the top. But in most of the
cooperate well all benefit and resources
prosper. Charlotte Hess (2008) includes
both highways and health within a
plethora of “New Commons” which are
jostling for attention alongside more
traditionally recognised commons. Badly shared
and hence degraded highways can be considered
an exhaustible Hardinian commons rather than
infinitely shareable public space. But shared
carefully, as we might like, they could yet be
abundant Ostromian commons, in themselves and
as a font of health and happiness.
There is a vast literature on governance
Methodology:
Case studies will be grounded in Greater Manchester
and use primary and secondary data:
Prioritising Users in Street Designs
1. Pedestrians
2. Cyclists and
Transit Riders
3. People
Doing
Business and
Providing City
Services
4. People in
Personal
Motorised
Vehicles
There is a clear consensus on a hierarchy of highways users, as illustrated in this diagram,
oil-soaked cities in the developed world this is more talked than walked. The global south
seems likely to follow the road of automobility and escalating mobility injustice. A similar
talk over walk delivery gap applies to health investment.
“Show me your budget” said US Vice President Joe Biden “and I’ll tell you your priorities.”
(e.g. Rhodes, 1990; Hooghe and Marks, 2003;
Congleton, 2005; Bevir and Gains, 2011; Evans,
2009). And many and varied policy change theories
may be applied. Kingdon’s policy streams (1984,
2014; Cairney, 2018 upcoming), garbage can
(Cohen et al, 1972), punctuated equilibrium theory
(Baumgartner and Jones, 1993), advocacy coalition
frameworks (Howlett et al, 2016), bricolage (Levi-
Strauss, 1966), Darwinian economics (Frank, 2011).
GM devolution (Sandford, 2016); Local
Democracy Network (2017); and with health focus
Walshe (2017), offers frantic change and
opportunity; whether
windows, interruptions or storms and
there is a clear chance to advance mobility
justice and to finally tackle the costly and
harmful hegemony of the private car.
Research Aims and Questions:
These are broad questions with a huge
scholarly and policy literature across
multiple disciplines. Yet there are gaps
which this work will seek to address.
As Cairney (2018) notes a compelling
narrative is everything for a policy
entrepreneur and placing highways
clearly as a poorly allocated commons
is significant and should be clearly
done. Mobility poverty and justice and
their relation to energy and economic
poverty are emerging fields into which
this work can feed. We need a synthesis
of road harms and health opportunities.
Finally blue skies (or better) thinking
on financing “streets for all” properly
is a worthy challenge making the work
practical and grounded.
Research Question one:
Can we develop a model for multiple Road
Harms and Health Opportunities in a meaningful
geography of Greater Manchester, that is a GM that
coincides with lives, with travel and with economy;
a model driving policy rescuing our highways to
hell from Hardinian tragedy, bringing forward a
just Ostromian abundance of streets for everyone?
Research Question two:
Of 100 potential sources of funding for the
programme outlined in Made to Move (Boardman
and others, 2017; Paul, 2017) can we identify top
tier health related sources and begin Treasury
Green Book (2015) ready business cases for them?

Primary Data: Secondary Data:

I have made notes of 2017 conversations (Rouse; Higgins;
Morgan; Hodder; Friere; Sadik-Khan) - first published in
November 2017 (Paul et al, 2017). As part of the work to
produce Made to Move (Boardman et al, 2017) I was involved
in formative conversations with GM council leaders, senior
professionals in GM partner organisations, and many others).
I will draw on this work and repeat and extend as appropriate.
“Hybrid Data”:
I have helped commission three studies which I will draw
on (Sustrans, 2015; 2017; CLES, 2018 upcoming). Sustrans’
work involves some 5,100 interviews with a structured sample
of the broad population of GM. CLES includes collation of
existing estimates and calculations of health opportunities
from scholarly and policy literature. I call this hybrid data.
I will continue to read round these questions.
Including books and chapters, scholarly papers, working and
policy papers, governmental publications, social media and
websites, quality international journalism and opinion, and
research videos and images to further develop my literature Anticipated Outcomes
review, evidence base and thinking and Real World Impact:
A. A synthesised harms and opportunities narrative model
that has potential to win hearts;
Limitations:
B. A thorough ‘state of the art’ evidence review for harms,
There is a very large and scattered literature relevant to this mobility justice, and health opportunities to win minds; and
study. This could be over-whelming. Cairney (2018) uses a
UK health example to illustrate the gap between talking of C. A start to a Treasury ready business case for at least
prevention and walking the walk in the sector. Landing a one health based funding stream for “healthy streets” with
viable funding model may be elusive. potential to save and gain £ billions in GM.
With thanks for formative input and critique, particularly from Dr Saska Petrova, Professor James Evans, and Dr Mark Usher. And for design elements from Creative Concern and NACTO GSDG.