Season 3, Episode 4 – Paul Walsh

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Season 3, Episode 4

New European Cycling Industries CEO Gets Proactive on Advocacy

Squeaky Wheel S3E4 Paul Walsh - Paul Walsh Portrait

Our guest this month is Paul Walsh.

Paul is originally from Ireland, has lived in Brussels for over 20 years and brings more than 12 years of experience working in Brussels-based industry associations.

He holds a master’s degree in Association Management and has worked across a wide range of sectors, including aviation, research and innovation, tourism, and medical devices.

Exactly one year prior to our conversation, Paul took on the CEO role of Cycling Industries Europe, which since then has merged with Europe’s oldest industry group, CONEBI, to form European Cycling Industries (ECI).

Paul was appointed CEO of the new group and has bold ambitions for this new, larger, united organisation.

Multiple times throughout our conversation, Paul mentions the European Cyclist Federation (ECF) which is an advocacy group that Paul’s industry association not only works closely with, but also donates significant funds towards.

We previously interviewed Jill Warren the former CEO of the ECF and if you’re interested in in learning more about that organisation you can find that interview here.

Cycling faces an opportunity for increased government support and growth thanks to the current “oil crisis” In our conversation Paul refers to the 10 point plan to help reduce oil dependency, recently released by the ECF which Paul’s organisation and others have endorsed. Here is the ECF Manifesto

He also outlined ECI’s Strategic Priorities:

  1. To create regulatory certainty for e-bikes.
  2. To do a better job on data, including bicycle sales.
  3. Infrastructure for cycling.
  4. Leasing – favourable for bicycle purchases. Reproducing existing successful German and Belgium schemes Europe-wide.
  5. Developing a Bicycle Industry Strategy that is adopted by the European Commission.
Squeaky Wheel S3E4 Paul Walsh - Chart of impact of Arab Oil Embargo on 1970's USA Bike Sales

We asked Paul about any recent increases in bike sales in Europe do to the current “oil crisis”. He said it was too early to have data about this. But here is a chart of what happened to bicycle sales in the USA as a result of the “Arab Oil Embargo” of the early 1970’s. It will be interesting to see what happens to bicycle demand over the coming months.

Paul described a new “I cycle to work” campaign that the ECI will be launching soon. You’ll be able to see it via their website here: European Cycling Industries

What’s Up?

Sara mentions the new Oxford St protected cycleway, which is newly opened on a six lane arterial road into the heart of Syndey’s city centre, that’s getting thousands of rides per day. Here’s a photo, courtesy of Nick Langley, City of Sydney:

Squeaky Wheel S3E4 Paul Walsh - Oxford St cycleway

Sara also mentions the huge growth in share bike ridership.

Here is a chart, first published in The Guardian, that illustrates her claim:

Squeaky Wheel S3E4 Paul Walsh - Shared ebike trips boom in NSW chart

Phil mentions Lime and thought that they have exceeded US$1 billion in annual revenue. This may be true now due to their massive recent growth, but the latest published data shows US$646 revenue for calendar year 2024. In October 2025 Lime announced that they had seen 1 billion total rides since their launch in 2017.

Clarification

Towards the start of our conversation with Paul, Sara says that there are more bicycle sales than car sales in Australia. That’s only partly correct… although it was true in the decade prior to covid and during the two covid years, since then car sales have slightly exceeded bicycle sales, even when combining analogue and e-bike sales.

Until next month, keep squeaking!

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Season 3, Episode 3 – Jullietta Jung & Jennifer Kent

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Season 3, Episode 3

Why It’s Time for 30 Now!

Squeaky Wheel S3E3 Jullietta Jung and Jennifer Kent - Jennifer Kent Portrait

Jullietta Jung and Jennifer Kent are launching a new campaign in Australia that is equally relevant around the world. 

30Now will be calling for the speed limit on all local streets to be lowered to 30 kilometres per hour (20 miles per hour).

Jennifer Kent (pictured above) is Associate Professor, Urbanism at the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. She’s also Honorary Associate Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS).

Her research interests are at the intersections between urban planning, transport and human health.

Squeaky Wheel S3E3 Jullietta Jung and Jennifer Kent - Jullietta Jung Portrait

Jullietta Jung (pictured above) has been President of the Australia-wide grass roots group Better Streets since November 2025.

Prior to that she was a Program Manager at the Global Designing Streets Initiative and has worked in various active transport roles in the New South Wales state government.

Jullietta founded Sydney Night Rides in 2015 as a safe way for people, particularly women to ride together at night.

During our conversation, Jennifer mentions the Global Road Safety Partnership. You can find out more about it here

You can find out more about Better Streets, the organisation that Jullietta leads, here.

At the time of producing this podcast, the 30Now website was not yet live, but there is a Position Paper about the topic here.

During our conversation we refer to an episode that we previously recorded with Lee Waters, who was the driving force behind the country of Wales adopting 20 mile per hour speed limits nationwide. You can listen to that podcast here.

There have been several reports that document the reduction in road deaths and serious injuries in Wales since the speed limit was reduced.

This report is from the Welsh Government, who also produced this slightly more summarised report.

This report by the BBC says there have been 900 fewer injuries and few Councils have applied for higher speed limits but that the change is still not universally popular.

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Meanwhile, Jullietta talked about the Safe Active Streets program in Perth, Western Australia.

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Squeaky Wheel S3E3 Jullietta Jung and Jennifer Kent - 5

Jullietta also talked about evidence that many in the community want slower speed limits. In particular home owners have put stickers on their rubbish bins to ask motorists to slow down.

What’s Up?

In our “What’s Up” section at the end of each podcast we share what we’ve been doing or about to do.

This episode was recorded with guest co-host Sara Stace. Sara is Director of Cities at Vivendi Consulting

Sara is part of a team embarking on a three year project to look at how cycling infrastructure can be delivered more effectively. They’re running a one hour online workshop with the Liveable Cities Collective on 30th April 2026. You can find out more about the Liveable Cities Collective here or register for the “Let’s Accelerate Cycleway Delivery!” workshop via Humanitix here.

Phil talked about his recent visit to Taipei, Taiwan including both good and bad aspects of their transport system in this incredibly densely populated city of about seven million people across its greater urban area.

Here as some of his photos from his visit in late March 2026:

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This is a “suburban” area of Taipei, not the city centre.
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Taipei’s U-Bike system is very heavily used day and night. The orange bike in the foreground is their new e-bike version which can be rented at slightly higher cost than the super-cheap to rent yellow analogue bikes.
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This is a roadside Gogoro battery swapping station for motor scooter riders. There are over 12,500 of these stations across Taiwan.
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This is one of two adjacent expo buildings that host the annual Taipei Cycle show. The driverless above ground metro line in the foreground is actually one of the oldest lines in Taipei. This venue is also served by a second, larger, faster metro line with a station underground.
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It’s common to see one, two or three young children being transported on motor scooters in Taipei. These scooters outnumber cars. The white scooter in the background is an electric Gogoro model, but most scooters are still noisy petrol models like the one in foreground.
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Parking fines are cheap in Taipei, so people with money often park in intersections or other illegal places, like this unattended Porsche.

As always, we’d love to hear from you with guest suggestions or any other feedback. Please use the Contact Us page on this website.

Until next month, keep squeaking!

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Season 3, Episode 2 – Skye Duncan

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Season 3, Episode 2

How Skye Duncan is Globally Multiplying Lessons She Learned in NYC

Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Portrait

Our guest this month is Skye Duncan, a brilliant communicator who is Executive Director of the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI).

This innovative and impactful organisation is primarily funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies with a worldwide team of over 45 expert staff. It has its roots in New York City, stemming from the era when Mike Bloomberg was mayor and oversaw huge advances in active transportation and liveable street design.

Skye was “inside the tent” holding a key design role within the NYC administration for much of this time. After Bloomberg’s term in office ended, Skye moved to NACTO (the National Association of City Transportation Officials) from which the GDCI was eventually spun off as a stand-alone entity.

Throughout all three of these organisations, a common thread has been Skye working with Janette Sadik-Khan, who was NYC Transportation Commissioner and is now Board Chair at GDCI.

Skye’s life has been full of adventure from day one, having been born in Papua New Guinea. This very poor developing South East Asian island nation would have only had a population of about 3 million at that time, of which a fraction of 1% at any time were “expats” from other countries and a much smaller subset again would have their children there.

After being raised in New Zealand, graduating in architecture and winning a major design competition, Skye successfully applied for a Fulbright Scholarship.

Sponsored by US government since 1946, only about 4,000 foreign students per year win Fullbright scholarships to attend some of the most prestigious USA universities. So the competition is intense and only about 20 New Zealanders are successful each year.

After graduating with master’s degree from Columbia University in New York City, Skye joined the NYC administration during the Mike Bloomberg mayoral era when dramatic changes were made, often using a “quick, light, cheap” strategy to prove their concept, such as most famously depicted here in Times Square.

After Bloomberg finished his final term, Skye moved to NACTO, then to head up the Global Designing Cities Initiative that has published three major global guides: the Global Street Design Guide, the Designing Streets for Kids Guide and the Designing for Safe Speeds.

Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Skye presenting at TPA
Skye giving a keynote presentation at the Transport Professionals Association conference in Adelaide, South Australia in September 2025.

In our interview, Skye gives unique perspectives on what we need to do to make our cities work better for everyone. As Skye’s presentation slide above so graphically illustrates, different members of our communities have widely varying needs from our city designs and transportation options. After graduating with master’s degree from Columbia University in New York City, Skye joined the NYC administration during the Mike Bloomberg mayoral era when dramatic changes were made, often using a “quick, light, cheap” strategy to prove their concept, such as most famously depicted here in Times Square.

Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Times Square

What’s Up?

In our “What’s Up” section at the end of this podcast, Phil talks about riding the newly opened Iris Dixon Veloway, that includes this dramatic bright green curving bridge. Not surprisingly, it has been unofficially named “The Caterpillar”.

Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Caterpillar 1
Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Caterpillar 2
Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Caterpillar 3
Squeaky Wheel S3E2 Skye Duncan - Caterpillar 4

As always, we’d love to hear from you with guest suggestions or any other feedback. Please use the Contact Us page on this website.

Until next month, keep squeaking!

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Season 3, Episode 1 – Grant Ennis

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Season 3, Episode 1

Grant Ennis Explains the Dangers of Corporate Disinformation

Squeaky Wheel S3E1 Grant Ennis - Portrait

Welcome to season three of The Squeaky Wheel Podcast!

We’re starting the year with an amazing guest who’s from San Francisco, USA, but lives in Paris, France and lectures for a university based in Melbourne, Australia!

Grant also speaks five languages and has previously worked for international aid agencies in a wide range of countries around the world including Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras, Kenya and Syria.

Since 2020 Grant has been an adjunct Lecturer at Monash University. Grant’s teaching and research focuses on the political and commercial determinants of health, primarily exploring the political influence of the sugar, road, and fossil fuel lobbies. 

Grant has written the acclaimed book Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the Environment. His work has been referenced in the Journal of Transport & Health, Traffic Safety Research, Alcohol Clinical & Experimental Research, The Australian, Michael West, the Australian Financial Review, the Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, the Irish Independent, among others. 

Grant’s scholarship has had international reach and has contributed to parliamentary discussions related to nutrition and transport in Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

Squeaky Wheel S3E1 Grant Ennis - Dark PR

Dark PR includes details of “Nine devious frames” used by corporations and in particular their highly paid public relations consultants to effectively fight back against members of the public who are advocating for positive change, for example to make our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

In our conversation we deliberately don’t go into these in detail, because there has already been an excellent interview recorded with Grant, that does unpack each frame in order, one by one. It was done by The War on Cars, a podcast that we highly recommend and are Patreon supporters of. You can listen to that podcast episode here.

In our conversation, Grant fires off many references to earlier research and reports. Here are the relevant links:

F Nuance https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf

Twitter and Tear Gas https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_online_social_change_easy_to_organize_hard_to_win

If We Burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_We_Burn

Renationalisation of British Rail https://www.lemonde.fr/en/transport/article/2024/12/04/uk-set-to-nationalize-train-operators-from-may_6735167_216.html

President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez https://latinolens.tonolatino.com/p/a-message-to-the-far-right-from-spain

IMF Report on US$7 Trillion in Fossil Fuel Subsidies  https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies

Chartists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism

Hands off our charities alliance https://unitingcare.org.au/submission/hands-off-our-charities-alliance-australian-charities-and-not-for-profits-commission-amendment-2021-measures-no-2-regulations-2021/

Sharon Beder – https://youtu.be/gAQKXmUnc4Y Alliance for a Paving Moratorium  / Jan Lundberg https://www.culturechange.org/apm_page.htm

Reactionary Centrism https://www.volts.wtf/p/all-about-reactionary-centrism

What’s Up?

Unfortunately Squeaky Wheel Podcast co-host Irene McAleese is stepping away for a little while to deal with some personal commitments. The show will carry on with just Phil Latz for the moment, which means a much shorter What’s Up section. 

Phil mentions World Bicycle Relief has just passed an amazing milestone of building and delivering over one million bicycles into the field. Here’s a great video that shows what this means to the one million recipients.

Look out for our next episode, due out on the third Thursday of March.

Until then, keep squeaking!

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Season 2, Episode 11 – Peter Norton

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Season 2, Episode 11

Peter Norton Warns – Don’t be Dazzled by the “Magic” of Automated Vehicles

Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Portrait

This month we’re very excited to be speaking with Associate Professor Peter Norton who is a historian at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

Peter has authored two highly successful and thought-provoking books, “Fighting Traffic, The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City” and “Autonorama, The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.”

Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Book Covers

Peter is a sought after keynote speaker who has given his unique perspective and insights on how we got to where we are today at many conferences around the world.

As he reveals in our conversation, even Waymo, the multi-billion automated vehicle operator owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, has had Peter share his perspectives about automated vehicles with them.

Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - 1906 Screenshot

During our conversation, we refer to this amazing video showing everyday life on Market Street, the main street in San Francisco in 1906. In addition to showing how very different street scapes and traffic looked at the dawn of the automobile era compared to today, it’s also poignant in that it was filmed just days before the vibrant city was largely destroyed by a devastating earthquake and subsequent fires.

Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Waymo Screenshot

Later in our conversation we talk about “autonomous vehicles” that as Peter thoughtfully points out, are anything but autonomous and instead should be called “automated vehicles”, we refer to this safety report from Waymo.

What’s Up?

In our “What’s Up” section at the end of the episode, Irene refers to the new Kangaroo Point Bridge that, less than a year after opening has already had over three million wheeling and walking trips, averaging about 10,000 people per day, with zero cars. Here’s a link to the Brisbane City Council’s announcement of this milestone.

And here are some progress photos of construction that Squeaky Wheel’s Phil, (ever the active travel infrastructure nerd!) took each time he visited Brisbane, culminating in his first ride across the newly opened bridge.

This is yet another great example of “Build it and they will come.” There certainly weren’t 10,000 people swimming across that stretch of the Brisbane River each day before it opened…

Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - March 2023
March 2023
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - March 2023
March 2023
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - July 2023
July 2023
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - July 2023
July 2023
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - April 2024
April 2024
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - April 2024
April 2024
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - April 2025
April 2025
Squeaky Wheel S2E11 Peter Norton - Kangaroo Point Bridge - April 2025
April 2025

We’ll be taking a Christmas break and wish all of our listeners a merry Christmas and happy new year! Look out for our first podcast of 2026 on Thursday 19th February and then on the third Thursday of each subsequent month. 

Until then, keep squeaking!

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Season 2, Episode 10 – Wes Marshall

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Season 2, Episode 10

Are we being killed by traffic engineers? Shocking revelations from Wes Marshall!

Squeaky Wheel S2E10 Wes Marshall - 1

Our guest this month is Wes Marshall, Author of the thought provoking book, “Killed by a Traffic Engineer.” This book has certainly ruffled feathers amongst some elements of the traffic engineer “establishment.” So much so that some state DOT’s (Departments of Transport) in the USA have banned the book from their libraries.

But that hasn’t stopped staff from those DOT’s creating unsanctioned discussion groups to study the book’s many revelations.

Irene talked with Wes in Perth just after he’d given his keynote address to the 2025 Australian Road Safety Conference in late October.

Wes Marshall, PhD, is a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Denver, where he holds a joint appointment in urban planning. 

He plays a pivotal role as director of the university of Colorado’s Human-Centered Transportation program and their Transportation Research Center. Wes is a licensed Professional Engineer and focuses on transportation teaching and research dedicated to creating safer and more sustainable transportation systems.

Wes, also has a podcast called Look Both Ways that he cohosts with David Zipper. During covid lockdown he wrote “Killed by a Traffic Engineer – Shattering the Delusion that Science Underpins the Transportation System” 

You can find out more about Wes and subscribe to his newsletter via his website.

You can buy his book here.

We’d like to give special thanks to the organisers of the Australasian Road Safety Conference, including Elissa Lulan, who arranged a quiet room for the interview and kindly allowed us to display our Squeaky Wheel Podcast banner at the conference.

What’s Up?

One interesting story that we edited out of our “What’s Up?” segment for the sake of brevity, but you might like to look at, is this very demeaning to cyclists and tone deaf poster that Irene saw on the Transperth train that was taking her back to the airport at the end of the conference. Irene’s post about this literally went viral.

Phil spoke about the new Sea Otter Australia cycling festival that he attended. This is the first annual edition of huge, long-running Sea Otter cycling festivals held each year in the USA and Europe.

He also spoke about receiving and reading “Life After Cars”. If you haven’t yet heard about this excellent book, then please take a look.

Irene attended a webinar sharing the results of the new 2025 National Walking and Cycling Participation Survey.

She was then heading to Barcelona to speak at the Tomorrow Mobility World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Then to Hobart for the 2025 National Parks and Leisure Conference in Hobart, Tasmania before finishing her “conference blitz” at the ITS Australia Summit on the Gold Coast, Queensland. ITS stands for Intelligent Transport Systems.

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Irene alongside author Wes Marshall and his book “Killed by a Traffic Engineer”
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Irene and Phil discussing “Killed by a Traffic Engineer” on the podcast

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Season 2, Episode 9 – Prue Oswin

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Season 2, Episode 9

How Prue Oswin Achieved Better Outcomes for Safe Children’s Travel

After graduating with degrees in Geography and Environmental Engineering, Prue Oswin spent eight years as a water engineer before switching to active transport in 2009.

Ever since then, Prue has been deeply involved in making her home region of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland a better place to walk and ride, especially for children.

Prue began her career working within local government, then for a traffic engineering company. Later Prue set up her own consultancy that she ran for almost a decade.

Recently she’s joined the Planning Institute of Australia as State Manager for Queensland and the Northern Territory. 

Prue wrote this very widely read article about her work, particularly highlighting evidence-based active transport planning and save independent travel for children, that we refer to extensively in our conversation.

Two great quotes from Prue:

“We don’t build our bridges where people are swimming across the river. Where people are too frightened to go, we’re not going to get traffic volumes data that tells us that.”

“Having a road network without safe crossings is like having a Meccano set without the nuts!”

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Here is a link to the website of Carloine Criado Perez, author of the book Invisible Women, that Prue refers to in this episode.

Prue refers to the Ride Score Program that has helped substantially increase the number of children riding to school.

Prue uses CompassIOT data. “Cheaper, faster, evidence-based.”

Prue talks about the ScootSchool program that she created for training young people about safe walking, riding and scooting.

What’s Up?

In our What’s Up Section, Irene spoke about the iMove grant that they’d just been awarded to conduct this important project.

She also mentioned that Ride Score, a project that our guest Prue Oswin has interacted with in Queensland, that is run by We Ride Australia, has just won an iMove grant to expand into Perth, Western Australia.

Irene gave a call to action for anyone wanting to report problems with their local infrastructure to use the See.Sense app and finally, she mentioned the See.Sense newsletter that is called Signals.

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Season 2, Episode 8 – National Transport Conference Special

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Season 2, Episode 8

National Transport Conference Special Edition Featuring Keynotes Lucy Saunders & Giles Perkins

Squeaky Wheel S2E8 - National Transport Conference 1

We recorded this month’s episode at the National Transport Conference, that is run each year by the Transport Professionals Association. Both the conference and association have just been rebranded and relaunched by the organisation formerly known as the AITPM.

Both Irene and Phil headed to Adelaide for this year’s conference that ran from 3rd – 5th September. Phil attended as a guest of the TPA to record this podcast episode. We’d like to thank Kirsty Kelly and Erika Childs from the TPA, not just for their invitation but their wonderful hospitality at the conference.

In this episode, you’ll hear from the first two of the three keynote speakers that opened the conference each day. We’re also very happy to report that the third keynote presenter, Skye Duncan who is Executive Director of the Global Designing Cities Initiative, is also happy to join us on the Squeaky Wheel, but because this is already an extra-long episode, we thought it would be best to speak with Skye at a later date.

Lucy Saunders

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Lucy Saunders
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A lot of careful thought has gone into Lucy’s colourful Healthy Streets Design Check Tool that is now used by cities around the world.

Our first guest, Lucy Saunders is a unique combination of public health specialist, urbanist and transport planner. 

She has created the Healthy Streets Approach, an evidence based- framework for decision making at every level. Lucy works with organisations across the world adapting her approach to each context.

Lucy, who is based in the UK, has advised a wide range of major clients including the World Health Organisation and UK Government Departments for Transport and Health. She is a skilled and engaging presenter and teacher who has inspired and trained hundreds of practitioners, advocates and politicians around the world.

To find out more about Healthy Streets where you can also download their free tools and other excellent resources, please visit their website.

Giles Perkins

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Giles Perkins
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This year’s National Transport Conference was hosted at the Adelaide Convention Centre overlooking the River Torrens and parklands.
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Australian-based relative newcomer to the shared mobility market Ario was exhibiting at the conference and offering test rides of their three wheeled e-scooter that comes in both standing and seated versions. Giles, who has mobility limitations, was keen to test their seated scooter.

Giles Perkins, leads WSP’s Future Mobility team in the UK and has over 34 years’ experience in the futures, transportation planning, digital and intelligent transport sectors. He has worked in the public and private sectors as a senior client and director level consultant and has led major projects across all modes. 

Giles is a recognised expert in the field of Future Mobility / Transport and Zero Emission Mobility He is a strategic thinker with an in-depth appreciation of the challenges facing all modes of transport resulting from disruptors, both within the transportation realm and wider socio-economic changes which influence it. 

Amongst many senior roles, Giles is a Board member of the National Centre for Accessible Transport in the UK.

What’s Up?

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Squeaky Wheel Podcast co-host Irene gave a presentation and took part in a panel discussion in her capacity as co-founder of See.sense. 
She’s seen here answering a question with fellow panel members from left to right: Marko Bogicevic from BDO (obscured),  James Edwards from Arup, John Bennett from Arup, former Squeaky Wheel Podcast guest Kylie Nixon from Arup and Tim Veitch from Veitch Lister Consulting.
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It was lovely to catch up with Squeaky Wheel Podcast listener and longstanding advocate Peter Lumb in Adelaide. Amongst many activities, Peter was a co-founder and long time co-organiser of the Australian Walking and Cycling Conference.

Next month Irene will be heading to Perth, WA for the 2025 Australasian Road Safety Conference.

During the same week Phil will be heading to Batemans Bay, NSW for the first annual Sea Otter Australia that will be including a conference and trade expo.

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Season 2, Episode 7 – Sam Johnson

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Season 2, Episode 7

Sam Johnson Reveals the Amazing Potential of the World Bank

Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - Portrait

The World Bank might not be the first organisation that active travel advocates think of as an important potential partner. But with billions of dollars at their disposal they’ve already been enabling some amazing projects around the world, in part through the work of the highly motivated expert who was our inspiring guest this month.

Sam Johnson is a Sustainable Transport Specialist with the World Bank and Visiting Researcher at the Technical University of Eindhoven, focusing on innovation and urban mobility transitions. He has worked in transport infrastructure advisory for the World Bank with many national governments over the last eight years.

Sam co-leads the World Bank’s Active Mobility Community of Practitioners and is a strong advocate for people-centric urban design and reducing car dependency to foster more vibrant, equitable, affordable, healthy, and green cities.

On UN Sustainable Transport Day (November 26, 2025), he plans to release an independent, ambitious publication arguing why and how to invest up to 10% of Government road budgets in Livable Streets in all 193 UN member states by the end of the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026-2035). The work is tentatively titled ”Investing 10% of Road Budgets in Livable Streets for 2035.

Of course, understanding there’s no guarantee that your idea would be adopted, if you can think of a punchier title, a free limited edition Squeaky Wheel Podcast cap could be winging its way to you!

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Simply write your idea in the contact us form here.

Sam packed a huge amount of exciting information into his chat with us, often about places and projects that most of us will have been until now completely unaware of.

If any of these topics interest you, below are a series of links through which you can find more information.

Relevant Links

Here is a link to the cyclingMAX tool that the World bank Group developed in conjunction with the ITDP (Institute for Transportation & Development Policy) and the GFDT (Global Facility to Decarbonise Transport)

On 3rd June World Bank Group staff members created a “human bicycle” to celebrate World Bicycle Day. Here’s a link to a video and post by Nicolas Peltier, Global Director Transport, World Bank.

During our interview with Sam, he spoke about progress being made with cycling and active travel plans in some unexpected cities around the world.

Here are links that he kindly supplied to four cities and countries that he mentioned.

Abu Dhabi

Singapore

Addis Ababa

Santiago

We’ve also included a link to a detailed power point presentation that Sam gave to the Velo-city 2025 conference in Gdansk, Poland. It includes excellent photos, charts and maps about Tianjin’s vision to transform their city into a vibrant, liveable, active travel friendly destination.

Sam’s project is a work in progress and if people want to know more or offer a constructive critique they should do so via LinkedIn here where Sam outlines his current thinking here. The finalised output will be published on UN World Sustainable Transport Day – November 26, 2025.

What’s Up?

Irene mentions:

ITS Australia announced world-leading research by a multi-party government led team which explored how to better leverage existing data and technology to deliver safer, faster and more efficient road travel, shaping a future of seamless mobility. By incorporating See.Sense data in the project they found that cyclist movement and braking data revealed hidden safety risks and flow inefficiencies, providing actionable insights for intersection and infrastructure design.

Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - Stats

Helsinki went a full year without a traffic death and they do not rest on their laurels and are now working with See.Sense to further improve e-scooter safety.

Irene also mentioned that Active Travel England have published a new report on ‘Estimating the benefits of Active Travel’.

Irene will be presenting and exhibiting at the upcoming AITPM National Transport Conference.

Phil mentions two major projects underway in Sydney, Australia.

Here are photos of the opening day of the new Oxford St protected cycle lane in Sydney, followed by photos of the new ramp currently under construction at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, including one showing the five flights of stairs that it will be replacing.

Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - 3
Photo credit: Nick Langley
Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - 4
Photo credit: Nick Langley
Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - 5
Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - 6
Squeaky Wheel S2E7 Sam Johnson - 7

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Season 2, Episode 6 – Voices of Velo-city

The Squeaky Wheel Podcast - Text only logo

Season 2, Episode 6

Voices of Velo-city: Wins, Challenges and the Future of Active Mobility

Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Velo-city logo

Welcome to a completely different format for this month’s Squeaky Wheel Podcast!

We recorded at the Velo-city conference 2025 in Gdansk, Poland, held from 10th-13th June 2025.

Gdansk might not be as large or highly visited as some of the cities previously hosting Velo-city, but it’s a unique city with a powerful recent history. This northern Polish portside city was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement whose long struggle and hard-won victories over oppression and tyranny ultimately sparked the collapse of the Soviet Union and changed world history forever.

Here are four scenes from Velo-city 2025’s host city.

Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Gdansk Bike Parade
Thousands of Gdansk locals and Velo-citizens (as conference delegates are called) joined a wonderful Bike Parade that included this scene in the main street (usually a pedestrian mall) of the old city of Gdansk.
Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Gdansk Crane
The huge, remarkable looking Gdansk shipyard cranes have become symbols both of the city and of Velo-city 2025.
Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Solidarity Museum
If you ever get the opportunity to visit the outstandingly well-presented Solidarity Museum, you won’t regret it. It’s a powerful experience! The memorial in the foreground commemorates innocent protesting Gdansk citizens who were murdered by the communist regime.
Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Solidarity Logo
The famous Solidarity logo (Solidarnosc in Polish) made up of many thousands of museum visitors’ goodwill messages.

Phil recorded a “vox pops”. He asked the same four questions in the same order to seven different conference presenters, who came from a wide range of locations around the world.

Unfortunately, the sound quality of the recording of one of the guests was too poor to use, so you will only see six guests below. Apologies to Murat Suyabatmaz, Co-founder and Director of the Turkish Cyclists Association – hopefully we can chat at a future Velo-city!

Our guests in order of appearance are:

Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Aangi Shah

Aangi Shah

Senior Associate, Institute of Transportation and Development Policy, Mumbai, India


Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Amanda Ngabirano

Amanda Ngabirano

Chairperson, The National Physical Planning Board, Kampala, Uganda


Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Chris Bruntlett

Chris Bruntlett

International Relations Manager – Dutch Cycling Embassy, Utrecht, Netherlands


Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Karen Vancluysen

Karen Vancluysen

Secretary General, Polis (Cities and Regions for Transport Innovation), Brussels, Belgium


Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Philippe Crist

Philippe Crist

Senior Advisor at the International Transport Forum (ITF) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Philippe emphasised that he was speaking in a personal capacity and not as a representative of these organisations. From Paris, France via Nashville Tennessee.


Squeaky Wheel S2E6 - Elanor McMahon

Eleanor McMahon

Former politician and cabinet minister, CEO & Founder of Share the Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada


The four questions asked for their personal perspectives on what the scene was like in their home city – the biggest recent wins, main challenges and their hopes for the future.

You’ll hear a lot of vision and passion in this unique global snapshot from an inspiring host city and conference.

In her comments, our guest Karen Vancluysen repeatedly talks about Elke Van den Brandt who is Brussels’ Minister of Mobility, Public Works and Road Safety. Because she sounded like such an influential person, I found this link to a great article about her published by Zag Daily.

Enjoy!

What’s Up?

In our “What’s Up?” section we mention the leading NYC Mayoral candidate Zorahn Mamdani and his radical policies of cycling and public transport. Here’s a link to his survey responses supplied to Streetsblog.org.

It’s Tour de France time. Here’s a very nicely made advertisement that will hopefully put a smile on your face.

Finally, in her “What’s Up” comments, Irene refers to a new video showcasing the impact of the Extended Light Insights Trial (LIT) — a collaboration between the Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Surf Coast Shire Council (SCS) and See.Sense.

By combining anonymised See.Sense sensor data collected on bikes with local community feedback, the project identified safety challenges along Fischer Street, Torquay – a high-risk corridor for people on bikes. The insights gathered helped shape targeted safety upgrades now making a real difference for riders connecting the north and south of the town.

This is a great example of how data and engagement can work hand in hand to create safer, more connected cycling routes.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7346486618716835841

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