It’s a man’s world. Only it isn’t.

If you’re James Brown, of course, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World (at least, that’s the title of his 1966 hit). And, while I wouldn’t want to build a philosophical position on that song’s lyrics, many of its words are pertinent to my theme.

Firstly, as many of you will know, Mr Brown did also point out that this ‘man’s world’ would be ‘nothing without a woman’. Secondly, as hardly anyone knows, the song was jointly written by a woman, Betty Jane Newsome. Thirdly, there’s a strong focus on transport: “Man made the car to take us over the road; Man made the train to carry the heavy load”. (Delete the word ‘us’ from the first line and it works just as well.) And fourthly, perhaps following on from man’s devotion to car travel, the song ends with the words “He’s lost in the wilderness; He’s lost in bitterness”.

Although Rolling Stone magazine described the song as “biblically chauvinistic”, it’s very easy to read the lyrics as a statement that the world is less complete and fulfilling the more that men think it’s theirs alone. Maybe that’s exactly what Betty Jane – who later claimed that song was all her own work and that James short-changed her on royalties – meant us to read into it.

Whatever, my title this time was inspired by my reflection on the facts that the world of transport practice has been – and remains – largely the domain of men, and that this is a problem because it is not representative of the world at large.

This, in turn, stemmed from my having relatively recently come across a 1970 report to the Minister of Transport. This first grabbed my attention because of its title, which is Transport Planning: the Men for the Job, and second grabbed it (if that’s a phrase) because its author was a woman. Indeed, not only was it written by Lady Evelyn Sharp (aka Baroness Sharp of Hornsey) – the first woman to be appointed as a permanent secretary (the highest executive position) of a government ministry – it was commissioned by a female minister of transport, Barbara Castle. The terms of reference for the report begin: “To examine the manpower implications of likely developments in the next 25 years in urban transport planning, including highway planning, traffic management, public transport and allied fields…”

The first (Background) section of the report contains elements that seem backward and others that are forward-looking. Alongside the gendered language there are many progressive statements which, sadly, we still await progress on. The latter include: “Traffic and transport can no longer, in the cities, be dealt with simply by providing more roads and making the best use of them. What is needed is a total transport policy”; and “Land-use planning is not within my terms of reference. But in fact land-use and transport planning are inseparable.”

It’s all too easy to file the “men for the job” and “manpower” references under “that’s just how it was in those days”, to shrug, and to move on. Except, it’s the very fact that we’ve generally both shrugged and moved on about the explicit association of men with transport, and hence the implicit exclusion of women, that the practice of transport planning and engineering has failed to move on anything like as fast as it needs to. This is not about half-baked Mars/Venus musing; it is simply about a profession being much more representative of the diverse population it’s working for.

I was speaking with a friend recently about how to accelerate progress and, ironically, we kept going further backwards in terms of how early in life there might be effective intervention to make becoming a transport practitioner appear an attractive proposition for young women or girls. If it’s too late once people have entered the profession, what about post-graduate courses? If that’s too late, what about undergraduate courses; or the sixth form; or pre-GSCE; or when? As we got as far back as primary school, Louise had a Eureka! moment: “Give every girl a copy of Rosie Revere, Engineer!” 

This is a book written by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts (a team that also produced Iggy Peck, Architect and Ada Twist, Scientist) and a couple of reviews are probably the most effective way of describing how it and similar books could be part of a programme of widening participation in transport practice: “A fun book for girls and boys, but girls especially will find a great role model in smart, industrious, determined Rosie”, and “A wonderful book for little girls with enquiring minds that deserve so much more than a Disney princess for a role model.”

In addition to the original book, Beaty and Roberts have also produced Rosie Revere’s Big Project Book for Bold Engineers. My favourite extract is where it says, “It takes a long time, hard work, and many tries to solve problems. Engineers follow a set of steps called the Engineering Design Process. It helps them figure out what to do next”, following which a series of simple steps are set out: Ask; Imagine; Plan; Create; Improve. Putting aside that some multi-national will probably steal that as its tag-line, what Beaty writes under each of those headings is a lovely summary of what transport engineers and designers should actually do.

The Transport Planning Society is currently building towards the first ever Transport Planning Day – on 13 November 2018. The purpose of the initiative is to engage with real people about the role of transport planners in improving the quality of everyone’s lives. While getting Anna the Transport Planner into primary schools across the land could be a great idea in support of this, it needs to be written and illustrated first! In the meantime, we can all get involved by getting the message out about, and participating in, the inaugural transport planning ‘People’s Award’. The deadline for entries is 3 August and you can find details at https://tps.org.uk/planning-campaign/tp-day

Go on. You know you want to…  

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John Dales is a streets design adviser to local authorities around the UK; a street design trainer and design surgeon for Urban Design London; a past chair of the Transport Planning Society; a trustee of Living Streets; and a Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety committee member. He is director of transport planning and street design consultancy Urban Movement.

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