We have to re-wire the systems
Speech to Local Transport Summit 2022. Future Inn, Cardiff Bay, 8th December 2022 15 years ago I was working across the road as a Political Correspondent for ITV when I took a punt and left to join what was a then little known engineering charity called Sustrans. I didn’t own a bike, and my move perplexed by mother! “Does it come with a pay rise?” she innocently asked. “No”; “How about a company car?” When I said I was getting a hand-me down fold-up bike she thought I’d lost hold of my senses. Being new to the world of sustainable transport, and having the perspective of an outsider, it quickly struck me that the challenge is a structural one. Like lots of practical third-sector organisations, the charity was focused on doing good works, and not on re-wring the system. ‘Why should we have to pay to maintain the National Cycle Network when it is a public good’ was the question often posed by John Grimshaw. Why indeed? At the same time the National Assembly for Wales was about