As the year draws to a close, Transform’s Policy and Communications Officer, Laura Hyde-White, takes the opportunity to look back on Transform’s achievements in 2022.
Our work throughout this eventful year has been shaped by the following:
- Bringing people together
- Supporting buses in Scotland
- Celebrating our 25th anniversary
- Switching spending from new roads to sustainable transport
- Cutting traffic by 20% by 2030
- Making public transport more affordable than driving
Read on to hear about this year’s highlights.
Bringing people together
To kick off 2022, we piloted our first online member networking session in which our members and supporters could meet and chat freely. This was the first in a series of four successful events.
Join us for the first session of 2023 by booking a space here.
September saw the return of our first in-person event post-pandemic. We were delighted to meet with our members to tour Glasgow’s Riverside Museum and hear the museum curators talk about the city’s transport past, present and future.
Supporting buses in Scotland
In May, our #lovemybus campaign launched the first-ever Scottish Bus Week, centred around the celebration of bus and the role that buses can play as a solution to the country’s transport challenges. The initiative, delivered in partnership with CPT Scotland, saw the #lovemybus team engaging with communities in various towns and cities across Scotland.
The team were also delighted to gain support from Members of the Scottish Parliament, who came out in force to help strengthen the message: that buses are a key actor in creating a fairer, safer, stronger and greener Scotland.
Celebrating our 25th anniversary
This year marked Transform’s silver anniversary, a milestone celebrated with an in-person gathering in Edinburgh, alongside the launch of our new website, new marketing materials, and new organisational priorities.
We were delighted to announce these new priorities in the good company of our members and supporters and we look forward to working on bringing these into fruition in the coming years.
Read more about the event, explore our archives and see how we have shaped the sustainable transport landscape in Scotland over the past 25 years here.
Switching spending from new roads to sustainable transport
In May, we were pleased by the support we received for our Roads to Ruin campaign, which, amongst other things, urges the Scottish Government to prioritise climate-friendly infrastructure and investment over building carbon-intensive roads. In total, we raised almost £7,000 via the Big Give’s Green Match Fund – thank you to all who donated and to the Big Give’s Champions who matched the donations!
In September, we also published our ‘Stuck in Traffic’ report which revealed that whilst the Government’s progress on some of its sustainable transport commitments are on track, progress on others has been slow, and in a few cases there has been no progress at all.
Read more about ‘Stuck in Traffic’ here.
Cutting traffic by 20% by 2030
This year we continued our role as secretariat for the CPG on Sustainable Transport. This November, Transform published the ‘Targeting Traffic’ report on behalf of the group. The report responds to the Scottish Government’s plan to cut road traffic levels by 20% by 2030 and highlights the need for the cost of bus and rail travel to be cut in real terms in order to respond to the cost-of-living crisis and provide affordable alternatives to car use.
We’ve also brought Scotland’s business community into the conversation about traffic demand management. Our business engagement work, supported by academic research from Edinburgh Napier, is summarised in our ‘Tackling Traffic’ report which shows that there are policies available which both cut congestion and support economic growth, and that business leaders do want to help drive this change. The findings were then presented at a Traffic Summit, held in November and attended by Minister for Transport Jenny Gilruth MSP and Scotland’s business leaders.
Read more about our work on cutting traffic in Scotland here.
Making public transport more affordable than driving
Ahead of the Scottish Budget announcement this December, we published our final report of 2022: ‘Fair Fares’. This report seeks to inform the Government’s Fair Fares Review and calls for Scotland to adopt a European-style integrated ticketing system to tackle long-standing inequalities, accessibility and affordability concerns, cost-of-living, and the climate emergency.
Find out more about Fair Fares on our project page here.
Thank you to all those who have supported our work this year. We look forward to seeing you in 2023!
