The TPS invited members to start 2018 with New Year’s Drinks on Thursday 11^th January 2018. Former TPS chair Richard Walker asked the question: Transport Planners: where are we all coming from? In this light-hearted yet insightful talk, Richard reflected on the ‘culture wars’ within our profession. UK transport planning has seen a form of cohabitation of two paradigms since the 1970’s – ‘predict and provide’ versus ‘traffic restraint’. Individual transport planners may identify with one of these transport planning traditions, alternatively with the climate politics advocating stronger demand management or with a purely supply-driven growth agenda. Looking back to the 1963 Buchanan report, we observe that he predicted the traffic volumes that subsequently materialised yet the visions of full-scale adaptation to the motor car or complete gridlock have not materialised - the ‘Buchanan conundrum’. This can be explained by a mixture of a mixture of urban sprawl and ‘muddling through’. Transport sometimes struggle to engage with politicians and civil servants on long-term strategic transport and spatial planning issues, and we should not forget that national and local governments also face a hots of short-term operational and regulatory delivery challenges vying for attention.

 To view his presentation click here