Laura Laker interviews Fare City's Charles Critchell, the Active Travel Academy Media Awards' only double winner. In 2019 Charles won our investigations/long-term follow-up category for his piece, Burning Bridges, on the closure of Hammersmith Bridge to motor traffic, and in 2020 won the campaign or research category for a two-parter on non-commercial use of cargo bikes. Judges enjoyed the detail and research that went into Charles' two pieces.
Charles founded Fare City, an urban transport think tank, in October 2019 after quitting his job as an architect. Although not a media organisation the original research and storytelling that went into both pieces won Charles two awards for his work. Charles talks to the Active Travel Podcast just as Fare City is about to become incorporated into a community interest company.
Charles talks to Laura about his Fare City project, about chasing a stern businessman across Hammersmith Bridge in the name of research, and how one of his award-winning pieces is about to become a research paper.
Charles' winning pieces can be found here:
Burning Bridges (2019 winner) https://farecity.org/2019/10/01/84/
Sharing the Load (2020 winner)
Part one: https://farecity.org/2020/01/10/sharing-the-load-part-one/
Part two: https://farecity.org/2020/01/17/sharing-the-load-part-two/
Transcription of interview
Laura Laker 0:02
Hi and welcome back to the active travel podcast, and to the start of our second season. So we had a bit of a break from Autumn in 2020 to fit in the Media Awards and various other things that we were working on but we are now back for 2021 with season two. So, we are kicking off with a look back at those Active Travel Media Awards from November, and interviewing some of the winners. We started the Media Awards in 2019 to recognise the impact that media reporting has on active travel and wanted to recognise in particular, some of the good practice in the field. The second annual awards event was virtual this time, we had nine categories in 2019 with a special award category for Brian Deegan and Bob Davis for ideas with beers. Charles Critchell is the Active Travel Media Awards' only double winner, picking up awards in 2019 and 2020 both in categories recognising in depth research or investigative work. Charles is the founder of fare city, which is a transport Think Tank based in London. Now fare city describes itself as a team of built environment professionals advocating for sustainable transport and empowering individuals to make reasoned travel choices. They say they're embracing the in between: small things which are often overlooked, which collectively can add up to big changes. So welcome Charles.
Charles Critchell 1:27
Hi Laura, thanks for having me.
Laura Laker 1:29
Yeah Nice to have you on. So, you're kind of an unusual, one in terms of media angle because you are an architect. You left your job as an architect in April 2019, and launched Fare City in October that year. A month later you won our first Media Award, your piece titled Burning Bridges, which was published on Fare City's website about the closure of London's Hammersmith Bridge and second, Sharing the Load, is a two parter on non-commercial cargo bike use in London, which was published January 2020 which won our most recent award. And so that was published pre pandemic. Although your site isn't a traditional news site per se, our judges were enamoured with the research you put into the pieces which are journalistic in that you speak to people you tell a story and you do the research to put that story forward so perhaps you can start by telling
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