The Freewheeling Podcast

Every European city that has taken space back from cars seems to follow the same script: a political leader announces a scheme, all hell breaks loose, the leader receives death threats, and then when the scheme is built everyone loves it and the leader is re-elected with an increased majority.Milan is trying a different script.My guest this week is Demetrio Scopelliti, who leads Piazze Aperte (Open Squares) for the City of Milan. Rather than announcing schemes, the city runs open calls asking communities which streets and squares they would like reclaimed. Projects are chosen for local consensus, ambition and feasibility, co-designed with residents, and implemented in weeks using traffic paint, planters, benches and ping pong tables. Demetrio describes himself as like Robin Hood: taking space from cars to give back to people. In today’s episode we discuss why tactical urbanism enables a city to be more radical, the fact that he welcomes conflict as an essential part of change and his advice to a city that thinks it might work in Milan but would never work here…

It sounds impossibly ambitious: a team of volunteers is seeking to build a brand new, million-person city on farmland in Suffolk. The scale of what they have in mind is breathtaking, but they’re deadly serious.Britain’s failed to hit its housing targets for decades, with the result that young people are not just priced out of home-ownership but even home-occupation.Something must be done, so why not do something common in many other countries (and, once upon a time, here) and just… build a new city.Steve McAdam is the Chief Masterplanner for Forest City 1. Given he’s my guest on the Freewheeling Podcast, you won’t be surprised to learn that the city he has in mind is anchored in sustainable transport: walkable, bikeable, with a rail spine and mass transit throughout. And, as you can tell from the name, lots of trees and nature.Take a listen to the extraordinary story of how you build a brand new city.

One in five Swiss journeys are made using Digital Pay-As-You-Go, a system that uses your phone location to track your journeys and automatically charge you the cheapest fare for the journeys you make.This offers the benefits of Contactless - plus many more. Yet in the UK, we’re obsessed with “London-style” ticketing.In today’s podcast episode, I’m interviewed by my co-host Katie-Lee English on why it’s time to move beyond Contactless cards.

Transport finds innovation hard. It is fiendishly complex, but the. Connected Places Catapult is trying to help people navigate their way through it. In this Interchat, Erika Lewis, the Catapult’s CEO, tells me how they try to connect an incredibly challenging sector - and how her career history in complex sectors has helped her do that. Oh, and she tells me precisely what a Catapult is as well!Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

Andrew Browning is the founder and CEO of Schemeflow, an AI startup. Last week, we spoke about Combined Authorities; this week it’s AI.He created his business just weeks before the launch of ChatGPT, so has been at the heart of the AI revolution, working both in London and Silicon Valley.We discuss the willingness of the transport sector to adopt AI, what the AI tech bros are actually like from someone who knows them personally, and whether or not AI is going to create a jobs apocalypse. Spoiler on the last point: neither of us this think it will, net - but there’ll be big change.

Andrew Browning was the first Chief of Staff to the first Mayor of the West Midlands.As a result, he had the unique experience of being at ground zero for the creation of the regional government for Britain’s second city.He both witnessed and influenced the creation of West Midlands Combined Authority, and is here to share what went well, what didn’t and what lessons can be learned.Given that many more Combined Authorities are likely to be created in the next few years, this is a very timely episode of The Freewheeling Podcast.

We measure fares, frequency and reliability, so why not fear?Jocelyn Elleby is just two years into her career and already an expert in the safety of women and girls on public transport. In this episode, she explains why so little of what women experience is ever reported, how AI could make CCTV useful before an incident instead of after it and the limits of relying on bystanders.We also talk about male allies, what TfL taught me and why an argument is better than silence.This is a topic that wasn’t be talked about when I started out in my career, and I’ve learned a lot in the last decade.If, like me, you’re a man still learning how our service is experienced by half our customers, I highly recommend listening to this episode.

How much of the Bee Network's success is franchising, and how much is just money?In today's Interchat with Vernon Everett, Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester and chair of Transport for Wales, we get his answer, along with the numbers behind it: reliability up from 65% to over 80%, ridership up 30% in the first franchised area, and eight commuter rail lines joining the network from the end of 2026.Vernon is candid that franchising is probably not for everybody. But if you want genuine integration across every mode, he argues, you cannot do it without control of the buses and the fare revenue.This is the first Interchat recorded by Katie English, my Freewheeling associate. Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

What has to change inside government before anything changes on the street?In today's Interchat with Ben Plowden, Chief Executive of Campaign for Better Transport, we discuss the machinery of government, why combined authorities should never be treated as a single category and the local transport authorities now spending 70% of their budgets on social care.We also discuss my own despair about the climate crisis - and Ben's rather more useful answer to it.Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

David Skaith, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, joins me to discuss the transformative impact of devolution on local governance.He emphasises the critical role of transport in enabling economic growth, health, and skills of a region with distinct challenges.In our conversation, Skaith highlights the need for significant investment in bus services and active travel, noting a 50% decline in bus miles over 10 years.I always enjoy talking to this generation of Mayors, as - far more than central Government - they understand that transport is not a ‘thing’ on its own: it is an essential enabler of a healthy, prosperous society.This Interchat is a great example. Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.