World Streets Monthly – May 2009This document presents the content of the 37 contributions posted to World Streets over the month of May. It does not contain the comments and discussions, for which you are invited to click to the site. It's easy to do, just click the Read on link at the end of the article you wish to follow up on.

To give you a feel for readership over this period, the following map reports the location of readers who came in on 22 May. A total of 8,824 page loads were registered over the month.

Over the month Streets was called up by users in: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Republic Of, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States,

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Friday, May 29, 2009

Op-Ed: The choice challenge (Try nudging)

‘Nudging’ travel behaviour change through the design of information systems…

- Erel Avineri, University of the West of England

Today’s travellers have a wealth of information at their disposal to help plan and execute their journeys. The availability of travel information to the public has changed dramatically in recent years with the increasing use of the internet and mobile communications. Millions of portable satellite navigation systems are sold every year in the UK and Europe. The number of people using web-based journey planners to inform their journeys is increasing. The rapid technological developments in the field of Advanced Traveller Information Services (ATIS) demand a greater understanding of what part this technology is now playing in relation to travel behaviour, and how such systems can be designed to benefit both individuals and transport systems as a whole.

It has been generally argued that when making choices between alternative transport options, travellers behave in a reasonably rational way, and can be approximated to act according to their interests, as long as they are provided with complete and accurate information on each of the alternatives – they try to minimise money and other costs, and maximise their utilities from the journeys they are making. Due to the size and complexity of the transport system, choosing between alternative routes, alternative modes of transport (car, bus, train, cycling, etc.) or the timing of their journeys is not always an easy task for travellers.

Providing travellers with reliable and updated information on travel options is therefore acknowledged as having the potential to improve travellers’ choices in ways that are beneficial for individuals and society. Stemming from its 1998 Transport White Paper, the Department for Transport has given, and continues to give, notable attention to traveller information systems as part of its approach to transport policy.

Individual travellers are commonly seen as rational human beings who, through choice making, maximise their utilities. However, insights and (theoretical) understandings from psychology and behavioural economics are now emerging through the literature to paint a more complex picture of decision-making processes. Empirical studies provide much evidence that in real life, the behaviour of travellers is typified by bounded rationality. Travellers’ limited cognitive resources have a strong effect on their use of information. Recent evidence showed that even when provided with explicit information on their travel choices, travellers turn out to interpret and value this information in a way that systematically violates the assumptions of rational behaviour. But it is not just the content of information that influences our choices. Inspired by the work of cognitive psychologists, researchers at UWE Bristol found that travellers are heavily influenced by context, i.e. the manner in which travel

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information is being presented.

Thaler and Sunstein ( from the University of Chicago) argue in favour of the so-called Libertarian Paternalism approach, as a way to help people make the ‘right’ choices without restricting their freedom of choice. In their recent book (‘Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness’), they suggest the incorporation of small features in the environment to attract people’s attention and highlight the ‘right’ choices for them and alter their behaviour. The art and science of ‘nudges’ could inspire the further design of ATIS, to help travellers make better choices. The following are a few (out of many) examples that illustrate such nudges.

Defaults: a default is the option that individuals receive if they do not explicitly request something different. Defaults have strong influence on behaviour – and they tend to become a habit. Some journey planners provide travel information on more than one mode of transport. In the design of a journey planner, travellers could be provided by default with information about car transport, even if they are planning to use public transport – this default might increase the attractiveness of car transport.

On the other hand, setting public transport as the default mode could nudge people to consider this as the first option. No matter how defaults are set, it is important not to restrict the choices available for the traveller – making information on all alternatives available.

Framing and ‘loss aversion’: People tend to feel and behave differently when information about their choices is presented (or ‘framed’) as gains or losses. The following illustrates three possible ways of presenting the same information on two commuting choices.

Under the rational choice model, the format of the information should not matter. However, since people are more sensitive to losses, they might find the cycling option specifically attractive in the third alternative. This is a rather simple example of how the designers of travel information systems can help people to make more sustainable travel choices simply by choosing a specific format to present information about time (and other attributes) of the alternative choices.

Salience: A specific challenge ATIS designers are faced with is how to provide travellers with information on the environmental costs of their journeys. A growing number of travellers are already aware of, and have concerns about, the greenhouse emissions they generate. When informed about environmental

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impacts, they might make sustainable choices. However, many of the negative impacts of our travel choices are not salient. For example, it is difficult to the driver to easily imagine the air pollution and climate change caused by carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions are invisible to travellers; it is therefore difficult for them to associate their travel behaviour with environmental costs. Without feedback, a behavioural change is less likely. Providing drivers with daily information on their carbon emissions might make them ‘visible’, and could make it easier for them to do the right thing. Recent research reports on the effect of in-vehicle data recorders on drivers’ behaviour; this on-board technology collects and records information on the movement, control and performance of the vehicle. It was found that drivers, through the provision of daily feedback on their performance, tend to improve their safety behaviour. Using the same technology to provide drivers with environmental costs, against some targets or against previous performance, could provide them with a psychological incentive to change their behaviour.

The effectiveness of travel information systems may be enhanced if more consideration and emphasis is given to the design of the information context.The libertarian paternalism approach is not offered as an alternative to other measures to influence travel choices. In some cases, synergy between the pricing and the soft intervention by nudges could be an effective policy. ‘Getting the prices right’ by taxes and subsidies could be the first step of a transport policy; however, the effect of pricing policies on behavioural change is limited – partly because of individuals’ bounded rationality. Travellers do not always associate their behaviour with the relevant costs and this slows down the process of behavioural change. Nudges can help individuals to overcome cognitive biases, highlight the better choices, and increase the size and the speed of behavioural change – without restricting choices or limiting travellers’ freedom of choice.

In liberal democratic regimes, where the public and political acceptability of regulation and enforcement are low, the libertarian paternalism approach, through the nudging of travellers, could be one of the most promising approaches to deal with the need for a radical and urgent behavioural change. The last 10 years have seen a rapid evolution of the field of travel information provision. The technological level of today’s systems, the widespread availability of travel information services, together with the insights from behavioural sciences, makes the incorporation of nudges into travel information systems more easy and cost-effective than ever. This could be the trigger to achieve the behavioural change we urgently need.

Dr Erel Avineri, Erel.Avineri@uwe.ac.ukReader in Travel Behaviour, Centre for Transport Society,University of the West of England, BristolThis article appears in the current edition of The Science & Technology Review, issue 2, pp. 133-134. Published by PSCA International. www.publicservice.co.uk. World Streets thanks them for permission to reproduce the full text of the article here.Read on:

Posted by Eric Britton at 15:32 4 Comments Links to this post

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Shared space - From Living Streets

“Shared space”: whereby road signs and segregation are minimised

The concept of shared space places importance on how drivers make decisions about their behavior. A shared space can be one in which motor traffic is not physically separated from people or cyclists, and there is an absence, or severe reduction of, traffic signals, signs, road markings, humps and barriers.

When no user has obvious priority, all users look out for each other. Shared space means drivers are forced to pay more attention to their surroundings by looking out for pedestrians and cyclists. It encourages drivers to make eye contact and interact with pedestrians, rather than assuming they have right of way and ignoring life going on around them. It may sound counter-intuitive, but trial schemes have reduced pedestrian casualties by nearly half. Thorough consultation with all user-groups is essential to ensure that schemes meet the needs of everybody.

Background

• Raised pavements have existed since before the Roman times, but only became common in towns and cities in the 19th century. As motor traffic and speed increased it became more common to separate pedestrians and motorcars; • The use of traffic lights, guard railing and road signs have increased, all of which make drivers respond automatically without regard to the world around them. Pedestrians can be viewed as inconvenient barriers to smooth traffic flow, even in streets whose primary function is for shopping, or living in; • Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman observed that traffic efficiency and safety of urban streets improved when redesigned to encourage people to negotiate their movements with others;

• Shared space is used widely in some parts of the Netherlands and Germany, and is becoming more common in the UK with schemes in Southampton, Brighton, Kensington and Ashford.

Benefits

• A pedestrian-friendly environment, with reduced traffic speeds and railing allowing freedom of movement; • Motorists, pedestrians and cyclists are compelled to engage with each other; • Schemes have huge potential to reduce the number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured on our roads. The redesign of Kensington High Street in London, which incorporated shared space concepts, resulted in the number of casualties being reduced by 47%; • Reduction in traffic congestion: A proposed shared space plan for Exhibition Road in London

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is expected to reduce the amount of traffic by 30%.

Further Reading European shared space project site: http://www.shared-space.org/ video demonstrating shared space in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLfasxqhBNU UK’s Manual for Streets town planning guidance: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/manforstreets/pdfmanforstreets.pdf

Rob Cann, Policy Coordinator, robert.cann@livingstreets.org.uk Living Streets, http://www.livingstreets.org.uk London, UK

Read on:

Posted by Eric Britton at 12:20 2 Comments Links to this post

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World Street Weekly Digest - 22-29 May 2009

All entries directly clickable to full article. For previous weeks and months, click to Archives,

1. Op-Ed: The choice challenge (Try nudging)

2. Brainfood: Canned video interviews via Skype 3. Honk! Swine flu increases traffic fatalities in Mexico City

4. Back from Seoul: Denis Baupin on Cities against Climate Change 5. Honk! Veronica Moss, lobbyist

6. Virtuous cycles: It’s all about choice 7. Honk! Help April (help us)

8. Who reads World Streets? And where?

Op-Ed: The choice challenge (Try nudging) ‘Nudging’ travel behaviour change through the design of information systems… - Erel Avineri, University of the West of England Today’s travellers have a wealth of information at their disposal to help plan and execute their journeys. The availability of travel information to the public has changed dramatically in recent years with the increasing use of the internet and mobile communications.

Brainfood: Canned video interviews via SkypeIf you have a minute you may want to have a quick look at this. You may find some use in it. A few weeks ago some friends from The Movement Design Bureau in London (Eyes on the Street), called over to suggest that we might spend a few minutes together to demo a Skype video link they are working with in a program they call Re*Move (forgive them, they're English). To give our video some content

Honk! Swine flu increases traffic fatalities in Mexico CityThis is a very short note, but I thought folks on the World Streets blog might appreciate this traffic factoid from here in Mexico. Apparently the swine flu in Mexico City caused few real deaths but many traffic deaths. The large drop in the volume of cars increased velocities and also increased traffic fatalities. There were 12 traffic fatalities in the 6 days before the government issued their

Back from Seoul: Denis Baupin on Cities against Climate ChangeWe try very hard in World Streets to stick to our topic, which is already broad enough. But from time to time we reach out to give attention to the basic underpinnings of public policy which shape the basic environment of our sector and our ability to do something about it. In this spirit, we are pleased to present here a recent "reflection" made by Denis Baupin, Deputy Mayor of Paris

Honk! Veronica Moss, lobbyistFrom our ever busy friends over at StreetFilms, two and a half minutes with Miss Veronica Moss, convinced SUV-ist, unbending defender of her right to the road, and apparently lobbyist in the corridors of power in Washington DC. Try it with your

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morning tea break. (Only in America, right? Oh? ) * Click here to listen to Miss Moss make her

Virtuous cycles: It’s all about choice- Gordon Price, PriceTags, Vancouver, Canada It has taken a century of building almost exclusively for the car to get us to our current dilemma. It will take some time to achieve long-term solutions. Ultimately, they can only be found in the way we build our cities. We will have to establish virtuous cycles to offset the vicious ones, where success leads to more success. There is no single

Honk! Help April (help us)Dear Photographers, Artists and Eyes on the Street colleagues worldwide, Our friend April Streeter, an environmental journalist, mother of two young cyclists, and Eyes on the Street Sentinel from Gothenburg Sweden is in the process of preparing a book which is focusing on urban women cyclists in all the very different corners of our often hard-to-cycle-in world.-

Who reads World Streets? And where?In the last week close to two thousand thoughtful people from 140 cities and 36 countries of this suddenly quite small planet dropped in to pick up their free copy of the latest edition of World Streets. Looks like you are one of them. You and others joined us from cities in . . . . Australia. Belgium. Brazil. Canada. Colombia. Croatia. Czech Republic. Denmark. France. Germany.

Green Light on World Streets: Next StepsWorld Streets: Insights and discussion points from leading thinkers and practitioners around the world. World Streets, the world's first independent sustainable transportation daily, is about to complete its first trimester of activity, so we thought this would be a good time to address one of the important building blocks of this effort, notably the potential for collaboration and exchange among

Comments:

Most of this I fully agree with. If people are to ...from World Streets Comments by Ian Perry (Cardiff, UK)Most of this I fully agree with If people are to take taxis when it is raining, these taxis and their drivers will be unemployed when it is not raining. Can these taxis and their drivers find alternative employment depending on the weather? If you are to meet peak demand for taxis and car share, then you have to have the capacity, which is, then unemployed when demand is low, but still

I'm working in India as a transport and sustainability ...from World Streets Comments by Simon BishopI'm working in India as a transport and sustainability consultant. I shifted independently with my family from a job as a planner in London Whilst Gandhi can seem a long way from where middle class India is headed right now and he is often not remembered for some of the most far-sighted views that he held, there is one ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL ADDITION to your list of 12 strategic goals

From: Gail Jennings [mailto:gail@mobilitymagazine....

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from World Streets Comments by Gail JenningsFrom: Gail Jennings [mailto:gail@mobilitymagazine.co.za] Hi Eric Just wanted to let you know that New Mobility and World Streets are SUCH excellent resources - there is nowhere better (that I've found, anyway!) to find out what's up and what's not, to get an overview of right-now mobility issues. Even on a Sunday afternoon, the sites are worth visiting!

David Levinger said... Actually, when I read ...from World Streets Comments by David LevingerDavid Levinger said.. Actually, when I read this article, I felt (A) that the commenters appeared not to have understood that the German town is not actually *car-free*, but that residents who own cars simply have to park at the edges of the town (B) perplexed at their choice to feature a commenter who stated that there are only six U.S. cities in

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Brainfood: Canned video interviews via Skype

If you have a minute you may want to have a quick look at this. You may find some

use in it. A few weeks ago some friends from The Movement Design Bureau in London (Eyes on the Street), called over to suggest that we might spend a few minutes together to demo a Skype video link they are working with in a program they call Re*Move (forgive them, they're English).

To give our video some content they invited me to wing it on the subject of a kind of "layered conference" that I have been giving some thought to for the last months, namely to investigate in some depth and from different angles the concept of and potential for sharing (as opposed to old-time ownership) in this strange new world of ours. . . including various aspects of sharing in transportation.

I thought you might possibly want to have a quick look and cogitate a bit about how you might in time want to put this approach to work in some of your own projects? Remember. They are just getting underway with this. It's still brainfood.

From Re*Move, The Movement Design Bureau

Eric Britton's shared vision for future transportation

Eric Britton has a plan. The man behind worldstreets.org, thinks a lot about the future of transport, and its connection to the overheating nature of the planet. His 'Plan B' vision is a radical twelve point blueprint that he thinks needs to be gone through to stop us cooking the planet - and is an interesting read.

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In the green transport field right now, alongside electric cars, high-speed rail, and all the usual stuff that gets tossed around, perhaps the most intriguing idea concerns not the development of new products, but the networking together, and sharing of existing ones. Our cars, bicycles, space - how do we 'use' them more effectively? Take cars. Right now, we're fast-forwarding to a world of hybrids and EVs - but what's the point when we've still got single vehicle occupancy, one-person-to-one-car ownership, and one hour in every 24 utilization rates?

The problem is that at the very heart of the notion of today's car is a concept built around ownership, freedom and the ability to cut yourself off in a little glass and steel box. Your car is a space that, right now, you probably only choose to 'share' with your friends and family. Sharing a car with a complete stranger (even if you're not both in it at the same time) is a relatively big leap to make, but it's something worth thinking about.

That's what Eric wants to look into in more depth. So in the video chat (above) we had with him a few weeks back, he described the idea of a conference - for want of a better word - to draw people together to talk about sharing within the bounds of future transportation. On the first day, Eric suggests transportation-related talk should be banned. Instead, the attendees - linked together with experts and interested parties across the world via video and Internet, would seek to understand the human psychology behind sharing things. Then on the next days, this would be developed into the field of transportation applications. The big news? Eric doesn't think it will work without a woman at the helm...

Can we make this happen? Can you help? Watch the video, let us know what you think, and check out World Streets for more.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 10:47 1 Comments Links to this post

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Honk! Swine flu increases traffic fatalities in Mexico City

This is a very short note, but I thought folks on the World Streets blog might appreciate this traffic factoid from here in Mexico.

Apparently the swine flu in Mexico City caused few real deaths but many traffic deaths. The large drop in the volume of cars increased velocities and also increased traffic fatalities. There were 12 traffic fatalities in the 6 days before the government issued their swine flu alert and 75 traffic fatalities in the 6 days after.

Here is the kicker: the increase in traffic deaths (63) dwarfs the number of swine flu deaths (8) during those six days.

Thought that might be of interest.

Kind regards,Tom BertulisITDP, Mexico City

SOURCE: See Comment below

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 07:37 1 Comments Links to this post

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Back from Seoul: Denis Baupin on Cities against Climate Change

We try very hard in World Streets to stick to our topic, which is already broad enough. But from time to time we reach out to give attention to the basic underpinnings of public policy which shape the basic environment of our sector and our ability to do something about it. In this spirit, we are pleased to present here a recent "reflection" made by Denis Baupin, Deputy Mayor of Paris in change of sustainable development policy, upon his return from the second meeting of the C40 Cities against Climate Change conference which just concluded in Seoul. You will find below the French language original, and after that if you scroll down a loose translation which your editor has roughed out into English.

Les 19 et 20 mai, Denis Baupin a participé, au nom de la Ville de Paris, à la réunion biannuelle du C40, l’alliance des 40 plus grandes villes de la planète contre le dérèglement climatique. Vous trouverez ci-dessous pour information son compte –rendu « personnel », en ligne sur son blog www.denisbaupin.fr.

De retour de Séoul: Les villes contre le dérèglement climatique

- Denis Baupin, le 21 mai 2009

Les 19 et 20 mai, j’ai participé, au nom de Paris, à la réunion biannuelle du C40, l’alliance des 40 plus grandes villes de la planète contre le dérèglement climatique. Après New York, il y a deux ans, et avant Sao Paulo en 2011, elle se tenait cette fois à Séoul. Le moins que je puisse en dire est que j’en reviens avec des sentiments forts, mais contrastés.

Un mouvement en marche…Tout d’abord, et c’est le plus important, cette réunion a fait la preuve que, pas à pas, quelque chose est en train de se passer : une prise de conscience réelle et sérieuse. Prise de conscience des risques considérables que le dérèglement climatique fait peser sur la planète et l’humanité, prise de conscience de l’urgence à agir, prise de conscience de notre responsabilité, nous, notre génération, pour tenter d’enrayer le processus.

Entendre les maires de Toronto (Président du C40), de Londres, de Sao Paulo, de Séoul, de Copenhague, de Sydney, de Rotterdam, le gouverneur de Tokyo, les représentants de Berlin, Milan, Varsovie, Karachi, New Delhi, New York, Los Angeles, Addis Abeba, Johannesburg, Lagos, Stockholm, Melbourne et Paris, mais aussi Bill Clinton (dont la Fondation appuie financièrement le C40) dire les uns après les autres à quel point le dérèglement climatique leur importe, décliner leurs projets, rivaliser d’arguments et de volontarisme, a parfois un côté un peu lancinant et rébarbatif. Mais cela exprime malgré tout une évolution majeure des discours et des

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priorités affichées. Pour nous écologistes, qui avons longtemps été seuls à prêcher dans le désert sur ces questions, c’est indéniablement un pas important qui a été franchi.

Et ce d’autant plus que, réunion après réunion, une communauté humaine s’est constituée : pour tous ces élus, techniciens et associatifs, tous à la fibre plus ou moins militante, engagés dans ce combat, chaque rencontre est non seulement l’occasion d’échanger sur nos projets, sur la meilleure façon d’agir, mais aussi de participer à une aventure humaine incroyable - quelque chose qui nous dépasse -. De tous les continents viennent des personnes d’origines, de cultures, de religions différentes, mais qui partagent toutes le sentiment de vivre quelque chose d’exceptionnel, face à un défi hors norme : c’est la première fois que l’humanité doit gérer une épreuve qui touche tous les terriens.

Au-delà de cette prise de conscience commune, la seconde utilité majeure de cette rencontre est l’échange d’expériences. J’étais pour ma part amené à plancher, sur la base du travail effectué à Paris, sur les politiques de mobilité d’une part et sur les énergies renouvelables en ville d’autre part. Quelle satisfaction de voir combien l’ampleur du travail accompli est reconnu par ses pairs, qui eux-mêmes s’affrontent aux mêmes contraintes politiques et techniques, mais aussi d’échanger sur les bonnes idées, les expériences menées, les innovations (que de questions sur Vélib !)… Quel plaisir aussi – je ne résiste pas à le mentionner – de voir le vice-gouverneur de Tokyo présenter fièrement une plaquette de prototypes de mini-hydroliennes urbaines et de mini-éoliennes, sur la base des mêmes intuitions que nous avons à Paris des potentiels énergétiques sous-exploités, démontrant qu’à Paris comme à Tokyo, on cherche sur les mêmes pistes.

Durant ces deux jours, il n’y avait pas moins de 16 ateliers. Je n’ai évidemment pas pu assister à tous, mais de toute part, la qualité des échanges était au rendez-vous, les progrès perceptibles, année après année. Un exemple parmi d’autres de coopération entre villes que je trouve particulièrement emblématique car portant sur l’une des plus graves menaces à venir : en octobre 2008 nous avions tenu une rencontre à Tokyo sur « l’adaptation » des villes aux conséquences du dérèglement climatique, c'est-à-dire comment faire en sorte que les dégâts soient les moins graves possibles puisqu’on sait qu’il y aura de toutes façons un début de dérèglement climatique. Depuis s’est mis en place un réseau des « villes-deltas » animé par Rotterdam, tant ces villes vont être amenées en tout état de cause à répondre à des problèmes similaires d’une ampleur considérable.

Le troisième point fort de cette rencontre a été la montée en puissance d’un véritable lobby des villes vis-à-vis des Etats. Pour le C40, comme pour d’autres réseaux de villes et de territoires aujourd’hui coalisés, l’objectif est non seulement que la conférence des Etats à Copenhague débouche sur un succès (c'est-à-dire un accord sur les suites de Kyoto) mais qu’y soit également reconnu la part que les villes auront à jouer dans l’application de cet accord. Objectif résumé par trois mots « Engage, Empower, Ressource » : des engagements clairs et chiffrés avec un calendrier ; des pouvoirs et compétences supplémentaires confiés aux villes qui s’engagent pour le climat en matière de réglementation (d’urbanisme, de logement, de transport, etc. permettant de lever des obstacles à l’action) ; des ressources contribuant à financer les villes qui agissent pour le climat (fiscalité sur le CO2, un partage des revenus des ventes aux enchères des quotas de CO2, etc.). Clairement les villes revendiquent de prendre leur part de l’effort, à condition que les Etats « ne se mettent pas dans leur chemin » et au contraire facilitent leur action. C’est en fait la

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généralisation au niveau planétaire de ce que des Etats et villes américaines ont engagé pendant l’ère Bush : agir, ouvrir la voie sans attendre l’Etat fédéral et contribuer ainsi à sa transformation.

Cette « politisation » des villes sur le terrain des Etats qui n’était pas gagnée d’avance, est aujourd’hui un acquis. Et j’aurais l’occasion du 2 au 4 juin prochains d’aggraver encore mon bilan carbone en allant à Copenhague pour une rencontre des villes pour finaliser leurs revendications quelques jours avant de les porter à Bonn où se tiendra l’une des dernières réunions des Etats, préparatoire au sommet de décembre. Surtout, au-delà des revendications, c’est finalement une diplomatie internationale des villes qui est en train de se mettre en place, une sorte de contre-pouvoir des Etats, capable de peser en cas de carence de ces derniers, pour leur forcer la main. Ne serait-ce que parce qu’au niveau des villes, nous sommes bien placés pour savoir qu’il ne suffit pas de voter des textes et d’édicter des lois ; le plus souvent, l’essentiel est dans la mise en œuvre.

… mais aussi de grosses faiblesses

Pour autant, malgré ce bilan très largement positif, je ne peux laisser sous silence des craintes quant aux faiblesses de cette conférence.

La première faiblesse, - et la plus importante- porte sur le poids des mesures prises. Que pèsent tous ces projets d’isolation thermique, d’éco-quartiers, de traitement des déchets, de transports collectifs, de renouvelables, de mobilités douces, d’éclairages plus économes, etc. face aux logiques lourdes d’un mode de développement et de production encore très loin de s’inverser ? Comment ne pas y penser dans une ville comme Séoul où l’automobile est reine, où les autoroutes pullulent, les tours grimpent, et les cheminées d’usines (en banlieue) sont bien plus visibles et nombreuses que les panneaux photovoltaïques ? Derrière ces discours volontaristes, quels moyens sont réellement mis en œuvre ? Quelles ambiguïtés se cachent derrière les termes de « développement soutenable », « d’énergie propre » et de « croissante verte » répétés par les nouveaux convertis, jusqu’à en avoir la nausée ?

Moi-même qui représente Paris, et qui défends devant mes collègues les projets que je porte avec volontarisme, je ne peux m’empêcher de m’interroger : aurais-je vraiment les moyens de les mettre en œuvre ? La volonté politique (pas la mienne, mais celle de la municipalité) sera-t-elle vraiment au rendez-vous ? Comment s’inscrira-t-elle dans le temps, quand on voit comment la politique de mobilité s’est tout à coup affadie, quand on voit surgir les projets de tours, d’équipements énergivores et peu utiles (stades, etc.) aux dépens d’investissement plus urgents ? D’autant plus convaincu de l’importance de la volonté politique pour avancer que j’ai pu en mesurer l’efficacité, je me convaincs qu’un mouvement est malgré tout engagé et qu’il est inéluctable, ne serait-ce que parce que les contraintes écologiques s’imposeront. Les villes ne peuvent agir qu’au rythme des compétences et des moyens qu’elles ont. Tout chemin commence par de petits premiers pas qui, certes, peuvent paraître hésitants, mais au moins indiquent la direction à prendre.

Mais le problème, avec le dérèglement climatique, comme cela fut fortement souligné lors des conclusions de ces deux jours, c’est que le temps joue inéluctablement contre nous. Chaque jour qui passe sans changement, c’est autant de tonnes de CO2, de méthane, etc. parties dans

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l’atmosphère de façon irréversible. La lourdeur de nos procédures, l’inefficacité des prises de décision, au niveau des Etats mais aussi des villes, nous risquons de les payer durement.

La seconde faiblesse touche, pour les villes comme pour les Etats, au profond décalage entre Nord et Sud. Même si le C40 comprend 20 villes du nord et 20 du sud, force est de constater que dans les prises de parole, dans l’organisation même de la conférence (y compris la capacité à se rendre à Séoul). Les plus pauvres sont les plus mal servis, alors qu’ils sont les moins responsables du dérèglement climatique et probablement les plus importantes victimes. Pauvre parmi les pauvres, le continent africain, certes représenté par certaines de ses grandes villes, a ainsi vu sa parole fortement minorée. L’enjeu est pourtant crucial : la conférence de Copenhague risque bien de buter cette fois brutalement sur le refus du sud de la planète (dont l’empreinte écologique par habitant est inférieure à 1) de prendre des engagements si le nord ne reconnaît pas sa lourde responsabilité et n’accepte pas de mieux partager, notamment pour aider les pays du sud à s’adapter aux conséquences du dérèglement climatique. Je suis donc intervenu en ce sens pour que le message que les villes porteront auprès des Etats manifeste cette volonté de solidarité nord-sud.

Ce ne fut pas ma plus lourde tâche. Car un troisième point m’est apparu tout aussi inquiétant, portant sur la place du nucléaire, évoqué à plusieurs reprises par des intervenants, et notamment le gouvernement de Séoul, comme une des « énergies propres ». Il est toujours pénible, dans une assemblée consensuelle, où chacun tente de mettre en évidence les avancées communes, d’apparaître comme le vilain petit canard qui rompt l’unanimisme, même s’il est partiellement artificiel. J’avais déjà dû le faire lors de la réunion de Tokyo quand, pour prévenir les conséquences du dérèglement climatique sur l’agriculture et l’alimentation, des chercheurs japonais préconisés l’utilisation massive d’OGM. J’avais perçu alors dans l’assemblée des regards soulagés que la contradiction ait été apportée. Le scénario fut à peu près le même quand j’ai fait part de mon désaccord pour qu’on puisse classer dans cette enceinte le nucléaire parmi les énergies propres. De la part des quelques Verts présents représentant leurs propres villes, des sourires entendus, ce n’était pas une surprise. Mais aussi nombre de témoignages par la suite me remerciant d’avoir fait cette intervention, ajoutant pour l’un d’entre eux « Surtout venant du seul Français dans la salle » ! La chose m’avait jusque-là échappé : que ce soit le seul représentant du pays le plus nucléarisé du monde qui fasse cette remarque ne lui donnait que plus de poids.

Pour autant, l’alerte est bien présente. Ce n’est pas une découverte. Mais y compris dans de tels rassemblements où les idées écologistes sont de mieux en mieux prises en compte, la vigilance face au « nucléaire contre l’effet de serre » reste de mise.

S’appuyer sur les acquis pour continuer d’avancer

En guise de conclusion très provisoire, je reste pour autant convaincu que l’évolution à laquelle nous assistons ces dernières années est historique. L’avenir dira si elle sera suffisante pour avoir un impact réellement significatif. Rien ne permet aujourd’hui de relâcher la vigilance ; surtout pas les rapports des scientifiques qui décrivent une situation toujours plus alarmante ; ni la menace du retour au gouvernement français de Claude Allègre, le plus célèbre négationniste du dérèglement climatique (après Bush, mais de celui-là on est débarrassé).

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Raison de plus pour poursuivre notre action, ne pas faire la fine bouche sur les acquis, et s’appuyer sur cette prise de conscience planétaire pour accélérer le mouvement. Les six mois qui viennent seront cruciaux : de la mobilisation des peuples du monde, des corps sociaux, des collectivités, de leur pression sur les gouvernements dépendra le résultat de la négociation de Copenhague. Si Copenhague est un échec, les conséquences sur l’évolution du climat dans les années qui viennent, pourraient être bien dramatiques et se compter en centaines de millions de victimes des catastrophes, personnes déplacées et réfugiées. Si Copenhague, au contraire, se conclut sur un succès, sur une capacité de l’humanité à réguler ses gaz à effet de serre, le pire sera peut-être évité. Et sur la base de cette capacité à adopter des compromis planétaires, d’autres grandes négociations pourront peut-être être engagées sur la biodiversité, le partage des matières premières dont les réserves s’épuisent et sur un échange plus équitable.

Une utopie ? Peut-être. Mais il dépend de chacun de nous de ne pas rater cette occasion historique.

________________________________________________________

Rough translation follows: (We invite our bilingual readers to help us improve on this. Please copy your proposed revisions to the editor.)

On 19/20 May Denis Baupin, Deputy Mayor of the City of Paris for Sustainable Development, participated in the name of his city in the biannual meeting of the C40 group, an alliance of 40 of the great cities of the planet against climate modification. You will find here his personal reflections on his trip and findings.

Back from Seoul: Denis Baupin on Cities against Climate Change

- Denis Baupin, 21 May 2009

On 19 and 20 May, I represented the City of Paris in the biannual meeting of the C40 alliance of the 40 largest cities of the planet against climate change. After New York two years ago and before Sao Paulo in 2011, this year we met in Seoul.

The least I can say is that I come back from the meeting with strong feelings, some of which mixed.

A movement in motion...

First and most important, the meeting made it clear that, step by step, something important is going on: a growing awareness . Awareness of the risks that climate change poses to the planet and to humanity. Awareness of the urgency to act. Awareness of our responsibility, that we, our generation, must now step forward to try to halt the appalling process that has been engaged.

I listened to the mayors of Toronto (Chair of C40), London, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Copenhagen, Sydney, Rotterdam, the governor of Tokyo, representatives of Berlin, Milan, Warsaw, Karachi, New Delhi, New York, Los Angeles, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Lagos, Stockholm, Melbourne

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and Paris, and also to Bill Clinton (whose Foundation supports the C40) . . . repeat one after another how climate change is important, and then go on to describe their projects, their arguments and their will to succeed – all this at times a little one-sided and certainly a little daunting. But nevertheless, demonstrating a significant shift in their statements and priorities. For us environmentalists, who have long been the only one preaching in the desert on these issues, it is undeniable that an important step has been taken.

And over the two days, meeting after meeting, a human community was formed: for all these elected officials, technicians and associations, more or less militant, engaged in this fight, each session gave us not only the opportunity to discuss our projects, our ideas on how best to act, but also to participate in an incredible human adventure - something that transcends us. Coming together from all continents and people of different origins, cultures, different religions, but all sharing the feeling of living something exceptional, together in the face of an extraordinary challenge, the first time that humanity must somehow manage an event that affects everyone on Earth.

Beyond this common awareness, the second major high point of the meeting was the opportunity to exchange experiences. I for my part presented a report telling about our work and accomplishments in Paris, on our policies for sustainable mobility on the one hand and on renewable energy throughout the city on the other. What satisfaction it is to see the extent to which our work is recognized by our peers, who similarly have to face the same political and technical constraints, but also to share news on good ideas, experiments, innovations (many questions on Vélib!) ...

What a pleasure, too - I cannot resist to mention it - to see the vice-governor of Tokyo proudly present a plate of mini-prototypes of urban hydroliennes and mini-wind turbines, based on the same intentions that we have in Paris to find and harness underexploited renewable, showing that Paris and Tokyo are on the same tracks.

During these two days, there were no fewer than 16 workshops. I was not able to attend all, but everywhere the quality of the exchanges was notable, perceptibly progressing year after year. One example among others of cooperation between cities that I find particularly symbolic, because it addresses one of the most serious threats still to come. In October 2008 we held a meeting in Tokyo on "adaptation" of cities with the consequences of climate disruption, i.e. , what to do to ensure that the damage that will occur is the least grave possible, given that we at least now aware that this sharp change is indeed going to happen. This led to the creation of a network of “city-deltas "hosted by Rotterdam, in the knowledge that these cities are all going to have to figure out how to respond to similar problems of considerable magnitude.

The third striking occurrence of this meeting was the emergence of a true lobby -- of Cities vis-à-vis States/Nations. For the C40, as with other networks of cities and other political units today, the aim is not only that the conference of States in Copenhagen will succeed in its goals (i.e., an agreement to follow up on Kyoto) but that it is also recognized the cities will play a major role in the implementation of this Agreement.

An objective summed up in three words by "Engage, Empower, Resource": Clear commitments

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and targets with a timetable, with additional powers and responsibilities to be entrusted to the cities who are committed to the climate in terms of policies and regulations (planning, housing, transport, etc.. to remove obstacles to action). As well as the importance of contributing resources to finance the city in its actions on climate (CO2 tax, a revenue sharing auctions of CO2 allowances, etc.).

Clearly cities will have a major role to play, provided that the Nation States "do not get in their way" but rather come in to facilitate their work. What we are now seeing is the global generalization of what a growing number of cities committed to during the Bush era: that is, acting, both individually and collectively and thus showing the way, without waiting for the federal state to decide.

This "politicization" of the cities on the ground previously held at the national level was not won in advance. It is a real achievement.

And I will now have the opportunity from 2 to 4 June to further exacerbate my carbon footprint by going to Copenhagen for a meeting of cities to stake their claims, a few days before taking them to Bonn for one of the last national meetings, preparatory to the December Summit. Above all, it is important that this new role of the city of international diplomacy is put in place, providing a sort of counterweight to national governments, capable of weighing in the balance and, if necessary to force their hand. If only because at the city level, we are well placed to know that it is not enough to pass legislation and enact laws, most often the key is in implementation.

... But also great weaknesses

However, despite this largely positive review, I cannot leave you in silence concerning the some of the weak points of the conference.

The first weakness - and the most important – is the reality of the net impact of the measures taken up to now. What really is the weight of all these projects of thermal insulation, eco-areas, waste treatment, sustainable transport, renewables, of mobility, more efficient lighting, etc. – in the face of the enormous inertial weight of an established pattern of living and development far from being turned around, or even modulated.?

What really to think when face in a city like Seoul where the automobile clearly reigns supreme, where highways abound, towers and factory chimneys climb (including in suburbs) – all of which much more visible and numerous than their photovoltaic panels? Behind all our fine speeches, how are the financial and other resources actually being implemented? What ambiguities behind the terms "sustainable development", "clean energy" and "growing greener" repeated endlessly by bright new converts to the point of nausea?

In my role representing Paris, together with my colleagues defending the projects that I try to carry out with determination, I cannot help but wonder: will we really have the means to implement them? The political will (not mine, but that of the municipality), will it really be there?

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How indeed is this going to work out over time, when we see how our sustainable mobility policy is suddenly fading, when we are witnessing proposals for building more towers, more energy devouring projects of little real usefulness (stadiums, etc.). -- at the expense of far more urgent investments? All the more convinced of the importance of political will to move forward as I could gauge their effectiveness, I am convinced that a movement is still engaged and that it is inevitable, if only because ecological constraints are going to impose it. Cities can move ahead only on the base of the skills and resources they have at their disposal. Every path starts with one small first step which, admittedly, may seem hesitant, but at least it can show the direction to take.

But the problem with climate change, as was strongly emphasized in the conclusions of these two days, is that time is against us, inevitably. Each day that passes without fundamental change on our part, will see many more tons of CO2, methane, etc.. entering the atmosphere with irreversible impacts. And given the cumbersome procedures, inefficient decision-making at the state level but also the cities, we risk to pay a very high price.

The second crucial weakness for the cities as in the States, is the deep gap that exists between North and South. Although the C40 includes 20 cities in the North and 20 from the South, it is clear that in taking the floor, in the organization of the conference (including the ability to travel to Seoul)., that the poorest are the most poorly served -- and while they are least responsible for climate change they are probably the most hard hit victims. The poorest of the poor, the African continent, certainly represented by some of its major cities, has seen their influence greatly reduced.

The issue is crucial: the Copenhagen conference may well face this time the refusal of the South of the planet (including where the ecological footprint per capita is less than 1) to make commitments if the North does not recognize its heavy responsibility and accepts to do its full share, especially to help the southern countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change. I intervened with the message that the Cities must make clear to the States the high importance of North-South solidarity.

But that was not my most difficult task. As a third point and no less worrying series of statement favoring nuclear energy, mentioned several times by speakers, including the government of Seoul, as a "clean energy". It is always painful in a consensus meeting, where everyone tries to highlight the common progress, to appear as the ugly duckling that breaks the unanimity, even if it is partly artificial. I had already done as much at the meeting in Tokyo when, to prevent the consequences of climate change on agriculture and food, Japanese researchers recommended widespread use of GMOs. I had seen in the assembly looks of relief that the contradiction has been publicly stated. The scenario was roughly the same this time when I expressed my disagreement about policies favoring nuclear energy. From the few Greens present representing their own cities, this was met with smiles and came as no surprise to them. But also a number of other representatives came up later to thank me for making this point, one person adding that "It was especially striking coming from the only Frenchman in the room"! Actually this point had escaped me: that coming from the mouth of the only representative of the most “nuclearized” county in the world lends this statement even more weight.

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However, the warning is there. This is no new discovery. But the truth is that even in such gatherings as this where the ideas of environmentalists are increasingly taken into account, continuing vigilance against the "nuclear against the greenhouse effect" polemic is still required.

Building on the gains to continue to advance

As a provisional conclusion, I remain convinced that the trend we have been witnessing in recent years is historic. Time will tell if it will be enough to have a meaningful impact. Nothing should get in the way of our continued vigilance, neither the reports of scientists who describe a situation increasing ever more alarming, nor the threat of return to the French government by one Dr. Claude Allègre, the most famous Holocaust denier of climate change (after Bush that is, but at least we are now free of him).

All the more reason to continue our action, to recognize the achievements and to build on this growing awareness to accelerate the global movement. The six months ahead will be crucial: the mobilization of the peoples of the world, social bodies, communities, pressure their governments depend on the outcome of the negotiations in Copenhagen.

If Copenhagen is a failure, the impact on climate change in coming years will be dramatic and be counted in hundreds of millions of disaster victims, displaced persons and refugees. If Copenhagen, by contrast, ends with a success on the ability of mankind to control its greenhouse gas emissions, the worst may be avoided. And on the basis of this ability to adopt global compromise, other major negotiations may then be initiated on matters such as biodiversity, the sharing of raw material reserves are depleted and a more equitable exchange.

Utopia? Perhaps. But it depends on each of us not miss this historic opportunity.Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 13:06 0 Comments Links to this post

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Honk! Veronica Moss, lobbyist

From our ever busy friends over at StreetFilms, two and a half minutes with Miss Veronica Moss, convinced SUV-ist, unbending defender of her right to the road, and apparently lobbyist in the corridors of power in Washington DC. Try it with your morning tea break. (Only in America, right? Oh? )

* Click here to listen to Miss Moss make her case.

StreetFilms intro:Ever wonder what folks working for sustainable transportation at the federal level are up against on K Street? For this StreetFilms exclusive event, we were granted unfettered access to Veronica Moss, lobbyist for Automobile Users Trade Organization (AUTO). Veronica gave us a few precious moments inside her SUV to talk about roads, traffic, cyclists, and big cities. After instructing us on proper honking techniques for "old people" and children, she also offered up some choice bons mots. Here's a sample:

"People need to be able to drive their cars - that's an American right. Right?"Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 08:26 0 Comments Links to this post

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Virtuous cycles: It’s all about choice

- Gordon Price, PriceTags, Vancouver, Canada

It has taken a century of building almost exclusively for the car to get us to our current dilemma. It will take some time to achieve long-term solutions. Ultimately, they can only be found in the way we build our cities. We will have to establish virtuous cycles to offset the vicious ones, where success leads to more success.

There is no single solution. Top-down planning can never be comprehensive enough or flexible enough. Give people enough transportation options and they can by and large work out their own solutions. That in turn is dependent on the design and integration of land-use and transportation choices.

Ideally, people should have at least five choices - feet, bike, transit, taxi/carsharing and personal vehicle - and the ability to mix and match them appropriate to the kind of trip and the circumstances faced. The combinations and the mix make it all work.

The trip is only a few blocks? Walking is best. It's raining? Grab a taxi. The trip is around five kilometers? Cycling may be the faster alternative. Going to a town centre in the suburbs? Try transit.

Heading out of town? Train, perhaps - or car. Yes, the car is perfectly appropriate for many trips, but not all. Once the car is used less frequently, needs may be met more affordability by a car sharing or the occasional rental, with considerable savings.

Of course, the provision of alternatives assumes a city designed around more than the car - and a citizenry comfortable with the choices. In the end, the answers are found in the plans we have to implement. Concentrate growth. Build complete communities. Provide transportation choice.

But to do so, we will first have to be aware of the impediments to success, rooted in the unrealistic beliefs and assumptions we have associated with the success of the car.

Gordon Price, pricetags@shaw.caDirector of the City Program, Simon Fraser University, http://www.pricetags.ca/Vancouver, CanadaContribution to World Streets and the collaborative project “Messages for America: Worldwide experience, ideas, counsel, proposals and good wishes for transportation reform under the Obama administration”. See www.messages.newmobility.org for latest version of this report of the New Mobility Agenda.

Read on:

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Posted by Eric Britton at 07:33 1 Comments Links to this post

Honk! Help April (help us)

Dear Photographers, Artists and Eyes on the Street colleagues worldwide,

Our friend April Streeter, an environmental journalist, mother of two young cyclists, and Eyes on the Street Sentinel from Gothenburg Sweden is in the process of preparing a book which is focusing on urban women cyclists in all the very different corners of our often hard-to-cycle-in world.

- Photo credit: Eric Tenin, Paris

If women of all ages cannot cycle safely and wearing a minimum of Lycra, then we will have failed out to meet our goals of fair mobility, social justice and quality of life.

She would like to invite you to submit photographs or drawings that you think may be a great addition to this terrific project, and while she is not in a position to pay for your rights would be pleased to provide full acknowledgment as appropriate.

I guess this would work out best if either you send her high-quality digital files, or the URL direct to your Flickr or other photography sites along with a word of permission as is needed and appropriate. Or via Skype.

April’s e-mail address is april.streeter@gmail.com. Skype: april2462 And appreciated if you might copy to us here at editor@Worldstreets.org .

I look forward to this with real interest. Help April help us all.

Eric Britton, Editor

Photo credit (Looking for it. To follow)Read on:

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Posted by Eric Britton at 05:26 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, May 25, 2009

Who reads World Streets? And where?

In the last week close to two thousand thoughtful people from 140 cities and 36 countries of this suddenly quite small planet dropped in to pick up their free copy of the latest edition of World Streets. Looks like you are one of them.

You and others joined us from cities in . . .

1. Australia2. Belgium3. Brazil4. Canada5. Colombia6. Croatia7. Czech Republic8. Denmark9. France10. Germany11. Hungary12. India13. Ireland14. Italy15. Japan16. Korea, Republic Of17. Macedonia18. Mexico19. Netherlands20. New Zealand21. Norway22. Paraguay23. Philippines24. Poland25. Portugal26. Qatar27. Saudi Arabia28. Singapore29. Slovenia30. South Africa31. Spain32. Sweden33. Taiwan34. Turkey

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35. United Kingdom36. United States

World Streets - Collaborative tool for sustainable transport, sustainable cites and sustainable lives. Make it yours. Become a Sentinel - Eyes on the Street. Click here for more.

And to each of you as you come on board we say . . .

في بك مرحبا World StreetsBenvingut a World Streets欢迎光临“ World Streets Velkommen til World StreetsWelkom bij World StreetsTervetuloa World StreetsWelcome to World StreetsBienvenue à World Streets Willkommen bei World Streets

ל הבאים ברוכים World Streets आपका स्वागत है World Streets करने के लि�एSelamat datang World StreetsBenvenuti a World Streetsようこそ" World_Streets "に 에 오신 것을 환영합니다 World Streets Velkommen til World StreetsZapraszamy do World StreetsBem-vindo ao World StreetsДобро пожаловать в World StreetsDobrodošli v World Streets Bienvenido a World StreetsVälkommen till World StreetsHoş Geldiniz World Streets içinChào mừng bạn đến với World StreetsWorld Streets - The killer ap for sustainable transport.

Read on:

Posted by Eric Britton at 08:52 1 Comments Links to this post

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Friday, May 22, 2009

Green Light on World Streets: Next Steps

World Streets: Insights and discussion points from leading thinkers and practitioners around the world.

World Streets, the world's first independent sustainable transportation daily, is about to complete its first trimester of activity, so we thought this would be a good time to address one of the important building blocks of this effort, notably the potential for collaboration and exchange among colleagues and groups who care deeply about these matters. For a quick overview of postings and contributions since opening day on March 2 2009, a click here to bring you to three PDF files provide summaries of entries by month. But certainly the best way to view the journal is to go directly to the front page at http://www.worldstreets.org .

Thus far we have had several dozen high quality contributions from collaborators joining in from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.

A very wide range of articles have come in from these diverse sources reporting on exemplary projects, problems, services, tools, innovative programs, public policies (good and bad), demonstrations, media, events, partnerships, and a variety of approaches for strategic planning and implementation. Again the goal in each case is to point to things that are going on in many corners of the world which somehow are exemplary and hold meaning for all those in search of new ideas and approaches.

Last 80 visitors to World Streets on 22 May 2009.

We are off to a strong start, but we now need to do more and better -- hence this invitation to you to consider how you to can get on board to help create a journal and a network which is going to be more useful yet. Here are some of the areas in which your thoughts, contributions and counsel are invited:

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1. Suggest topics for future articles, contributions, contributors2. Send on news – Events, projects, conferences, that our readers should know about3. Comments - You will see that room is left for comments at the end of each article4. Delivery: Help make Streets better known. Tell your contacts and lists who share our concerns5. Links: To date we are linked to 97 leading international sources. Can you help complete?6. Author guidelines: Click –here7. World Eyes on the Street /Sentinels – Check them out here and see how to get involved.8. Help put Plan B to work – Plan A is not working . So let's work on Plan B and put it to work.9. Support: Get behind Streets and help us to keep going. Click here to Support World Streets

First 122 World Eyes on the Streets Sentinels as per this date

Beyond all this there is one other broad area of potential collaboration which I very much hope we shall start to examine and exploit now. This involves the prospect of direct collaboration at the level of specific city or regional projects or programs, in which individual members or combinations can be somehow be brought in to extend your planning and problem-solving efforts, in areas in which their international skills and competence may be useful to round out your local capabilities. We are already seeing examples of this, and in closing I would simply like to ask you to bear in mind that this is neither a one-way street nor a passive example of international networking and collaboration. It is an active toolset and I very much hope you will make full use of it when the opportunity presents itself.

Eric Britton, Editor 8, rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris. T: +331 4326 1323 Editor@worldstreets.org Skype: newmobility Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 13:33 0 Comments Links to this post

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Thursday, May 21, 2009

Plan Verde : Green Projects in Mexico City Spinning Forward

- Tom Bertulis, ITDP, Mexico City

In a daring move, the Mayor of Mexico City is looking to leaving a legacy by launching an eco-action plan known as the “Plan Verde” (aka, the Green Plan, see http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/08/31/index.php?section=capital&article=035n1cap). The proposal includes expanding the “Hoy No Circula” program (where drivers are prohibited from using their car one weekday a week) and the replacement of 100% of Mexico City’s official vehicle fleet for cleaner models.

Part of the Plan Verde is the Bicycle Mobility Strategy, the most ambitious bicycle undertaking in Mexico City to date. Just recently 2,500 bicycles were purchased and will be given away free-of-charge to candidates that successfully complete a cycle training course here in Mexico City. I have never heard of a city giving away so many bicycles at a time, so that might be a first. The design of the bicycle is a practical yet trendy “Dutch bike” design with a low frame and upright riding position. These green commuter bikes come pre-equipped with a basket, bell, fenders, and reflectors to ride quickly, safely, comfortably, and stylishly in the city. (see photographs at http://www.itdp.org/index.php/projects/update/mexico_city_builds_first_bike_parking_facilities/)

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Another development has been the installation of dozens of inverted-U shaped bike racks over the last few months and the city is on pace to install nearly 1,000 bicycle racks by the end of the year. That figure might not seem high, given that Chicago, a much smaller city, has over 10,000 inverted-U racks. However, well designed cycle stands are a rarity in Latin American cities. Even in Europe (with the UK being a notable exception) it was surprising to see so many “ribbon racks,” “wheel benders,” and other substandard examples of bike racks. Mexico City is learning from European mistakes and is installing the most cost-efficient and practical type of bike rack available. Moreover, they have built a cycle ramp leading to a subway station and there are plans to construct a large scale bicycle parking facility at an intermodal interchange.

Public bicycles, as most are aware, are still experiencing growing pains, and in Mexico City that is no exception. There are currently public bikes available at three sites in Mexico City, although they are similar to the older generation type of public bikes (think Copenhagen) rather than the new generation public bikes (read: Paris style.) They are practical, if somewhat ungainly, and free to use with a deposit of 200 pesos (about USD$15.) More information can be found at http://mejorenbici.wordpress.com. There is a plan to open a Vélib-style new generation public bicycle system this year, with Phase I calling for 1,500 bicycle at 111 stations, to be expanded in later years.

Mexico City is currently producing six cycling related manuals, on everything from cycling strategies to a cycling toolbox, to supplement their bike projects. People-scaled infrastructure projects are set to be implemented, including both shared space and segregated facilities, accommodating beginners and expert cyclists alike. The city’s first "30 km per hour Zone" is in its planning phases now and local neighborhood traffic calming projects are planned for all over the city. As a supplement, over 20km of segregated cycleways are set to be built in the city by the end of the year, with help from high profile consultants including Gehl Architects from Copenhagen (www.gehlarchitects.com) ensuring high quality cycle facilities. ITDP is helping with the aforementioned projects and is also looking at bigger picture issues for the city, such as motor vehicle circulation and car parking measures, which have profound impacts on overall livability.

Mexico City also has an extensive bicycle promotion program, with adverts splashed across all corners of the city, proclaiming such memorable slogans as “La Bici es el Futuro” (the Bicycle is the Future.) Learning from mistakes made by other cities, Mexico City is advancing leaps and bounds in endeavoring to transform the cycling culture in the city with a multi-pronged approach, which is sure to pay off dividends in the future.

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Tom Bertulis, PE (Eyes on the Street in Mexico City)Senior Technical AdvisorInstitute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)Mexico City, MexicoTomBertulis@gmail.com

Additional references:http://www.vimeo.com/4062864 - Mexico City's Environmental Minister, Martha Delgado, defines her city's revolutionary green policy to address climate change, water shortage, transportation and other serious environmental challenges.

Photo credit: Jonas Hagen, ITDPRead on: Posted by Eric Britton at 10:35 0 Comments Links to this post

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Public Transit <-> Public Health: The Link?

Is it possible that public transportation is actually “good for you”? Is there a link between transit and health, individual and collective? Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (Canada) reports that a number of recent studies do show that high quality public transit service can improve public health by...

Increasing physical activity (people who use public transit on a particular are about 3 times more likely to achieve the basic amount of walking required for public health as people who drive and do not use public transit)

Reducing per capita traffic fatalities (residents of cities with high quality public transit have about a quarter of the per-capita traffic fatality rates as residents of more automobile-dependent communities)

Increased affordability and therefore less stress and more money left in the household budget for healthy food and other necessities (residents of cities with high quality public transportation spend about 20% small portion of household budgets on transportation, and this effect is probably larger for lower-income households)

Improved accessibility for non-drivers, and therefore less difficulty reaching medical services and healthy food.

These factors cannot overcome other demographic and economic factors that reduce poor people's health, but it does suggest that everybody, particularly poor people, are much better off in a transit oriented community than in an automobile-dependent community.

Todd Alexander Litman - litman@vtpi.orgVictoria Transport Policy Institute - “Efficiency - Equity - Clarity”Victoria, Canada

For information see:

Heather Allen (2008), Sit Next To Someone Different Every Day - How Public Transport Contributes To Inclusive Communities, Thredbo Conference ( www.thredbo.itls.usyd.edu.au/downloads/thredbo10_papers/thredbo10-plenary-Allen.pdf).

APTA (2003), The Route to Better Personal Health, American Public Transportation Association (www.apta.com); at http://spider.apta.com/lgwf/legtools/better_health.pdf.

David Bassett, John Pucher, Ralph Buehler, Dixie L. Thompson, and Scott E. Crouter (2008), Journal of Physical Activity and Health, Vol. 5 ( www.humankinetics.com/jpah/journalAbout.cfm), pp. 795-814.

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Reid Ewing, et al. (2003), “Relationship Between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity,” American Journal of Health Promotion, Vol. 18, No. 1 ( www.healthpromotionjournal.com), Sept/Oct. 2003, pp. 47-57; at www.smartgrowth.umd.edu/research/pdf/EwingSchmidKillingsworthEtAl_SprawlObesity_DateNA.pdf .

Lawrence Frank, Sarah Kavage and Todd Litman (2006), Promoting Public Health Through Smart Growth: Building Healthier Communities Through Transportation And Land Use Policies, Smart Growth BC (www.smartgrowth.bc.ca); at www.vtpi.org/sgbc_health.pdf.

Ugo Lachapelle and Lawrence D . Frank (2008), “Mode Of Transport, Employer-Sponsored Public Transit Pass, And Physical Activity,” Journal Of Public Health Policy ( www.palgrave-journals.com/jphp).

Todd Litman (2003), “Integrating Public Health Objectives in Transportation Decision-Making,” American Journal of Health Promotion, Vol. 18, No. 1 ( www.healthpromotionjournal.com), Sept./Oct. 2003, pp. 103-108; at www.vtpi.org/AJHP-litman.pdf.

Todd Litman (2004), If Health Matters: Integrating Public Health Objectives into Transportation Decision-Making, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/health.pdf .

Todd Litman (2007), Community Cohesion As A Transport Planning Objective, VTPI (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/cohesion.pdf.

Todd Litman (2008), Evaluating Transportation Affordability, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/affordability.pdf.

Todd Litman (2008), Evaluating Public Transit Benefits and Costs, VTPI (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/tranben.pdf .

Todd Litman and Steven Fitzroy (2006), Safe Travels: Evaluating Mobility Management Traffic Safety Benefits, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/safetrav.pdf.

William H. Lucy (2003), “Mortality Risk Associated With Leaving Home: Recognizing the Relevance of the Built Environment,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 93, No. 9, September 2003, pp. 1564-1569; at www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/93/9/1564.

Richard E. Wener and Gary W. Evans, (2007), “A Morning Stroll: Levels of Physical Activity in Car and Mass Transit Commuting,” Environment and Behavior, Vol. 39, No. 1, 62-74 ( http://eab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/39/1/62).Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 08:36 2 Comments Links to this post

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Transport in Cities: Plan A is Not Working (1)

The goal of today's column is provide an opening statement and then to invite short contributions (200 words or less) from our international colleagues around the world as to why "Plan A" is not working in the transport sector of our cities.

Why is this? The response almost always given is that there is not enough money for doing it right. For my part I have serious doubts about this.

We would like to see if by putting our heads together on this here in this forum we can together usefully pinpoint and question some of the broadly shared preconditions of policy and practice in the sector, not in order to criticize or cast blame but rather to see if through our collective efforts we can help come up with some positive ideas for near-term improvement.

A bit of first background to get us started:

Any fair-minded person who looks around the streets of our cities as things stand here halfway through 2009 has to be struck by the fact that our transportation arrangements are in very rough shape in almost all cities worldwide .

This is not to say that there are not many people, programs, groups and institutions out there trying very hard to do better. It is just that the bottom line, whether functional, economic, environmental, or social, is highly problematic and actually crumbling in almost all cases. This is highly troubling, especially because there are in fact many things that we can do in order to improve performance in many places and at many levels.

What can we do to work our way out of this situation? Well what about starting by taking a few steps back (yes, that is right, back!) in order to see if we can spot some basic patterns here, the idea being that once we have this in view we may be able to put our fingers on a couple of key pressure points that may permit us to reverse some of these downward trends.

Primary building blocks of Plan A dysfunctionality: The first is surely the fact that we are so busy trying to put details after detail right that we do not recognize that there is de facto something like "Plan A" going on at all -- which, if we did get this message, would almost automatically lead us to start to think about something else . . . Call it "Plan B".

Plan A is in almost all cases a pure example of "in the box" "problem-solving". To the innocent-eyed outsider it appears to be a clear case of surrender to the trends and the conditions which create them. Here are couple things which strike this observer about Plan A:

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* It is overwhelmingly inertial, i.e. in most areas it accepts trends and constraints rather than challenging them directly.

* Focuses largely on infrastructure.

* Treats supply as if that were the main key.

* Broadly accepts existing institutional arrangements.

* Consistently ignorant of, or alternatively fails to give full scope to, the critical externalities.

* More concerned with products than services.

* Weak on people in all their varieties of conditions and needs.

* Offers abundant excellent explanations as to why anything more far-reaching, radical, and eventually powerful is not possible.

In a next article in this series I propose to get these issues in more detail. But for now let me be leave the word to you and invite your comments and suggestions.Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 11:27 1 Comments Links to this post

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Monday, May 18, 2009

Two views of carshare futures in Paris

Summary: The story behind this debate on how best to organize very large new network of electric cars and stations offering “one-way” service; and the other proposing instead to support and extend the existing system of carsharing services, of which there are presently five operators serving the city and developing their operations at steady growth rates.

Some useful references to fill out this story:

* “Common sense on next generation carsharing - Paris, London EV proposals”, World Streets, 19 March 2009 -* PBS television interview – “From Bikeshare to carshare” -- of Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin, leader of the Greens, with his filmed commentary on the environmental and personal cost implications of the two approaches* Map of current carshare locations in Paris (at end of this article)

Original French text. Machine translation follows:

Vœu relatif au développement de l’autopartage à ParisDÉPOSÉ PAR DENIS BAUPIN ET LES ÉLUES DU GROUPE LES VERTSL’autopartage est un dispositif déjà répandu à Paris qui propose un service d’abonnement permettant, généralement à partir de stations implantées dans des parking souterrains, de disposer ponctuellement de véhicules, pour de courtes ou moyennes durées.

Comme le souligne paris.fr : « l’autopartage devient une réelle alternative à la possession d’une voiture individuelle et fait partie des nouveaux outils pour modifier nos comportements de mobilité. »

Comme l’indique le Plan de Déplacements de Paris, l’autopartage permet de « favoriser le développement des nouveaux usages collectifs de la voiture », ce qui a amené la Ville de Paris à lancer le label « autopartage Paris » en février 2007. Cinq sociétés sont aujourd’hui labellisées par la Ville de Paris : Caisse Commune, Carbox, ConnectbyHertz, Mobizen et Okigo, et représentent un potentiel considérable d’abonnés parisiens et franciliens.

Par ailleurs, le maire de Paris a annoncé la création d’un dispositif de voiture en libre-service en 2010 : Autolib’, présenté comme l’adaptation à la voiture du concept de Vélib’.

Or, depuis l’annonce de la création du syndicat mixte Autolib’, de nombreuses critiques ont souligné la complexité technique et logistique d’un réseau censé mailler l’agglomération avec des véhicules électriques, qui sont loin d’être disponibles à une telle échelle et à cette échéance.

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De plus, le concept envisagé dit de « one way » engendre des déplacements techniques coûteux et polluants.Considérant que des doutes sérieux existent sur la viabilité et la faisabilité d’Autolib’,

Considérant qu’en matière de mobilité durable, le nouveau contexte budgétaire des collectivités incite à donner la priorité à un dispositif éprouvé comme l’autopartage, qui permet un usage mutualisé de voitures individuelles, sans générer des déplacements inutiles comme Autolib’

Sur proposition de Denis Baupin et des éluEs du groupe « Les Verts », le conseil de Paris émet le voeu que : Les moyens techniques, financiers et de communication de la Ville de Paris prévus pour le projet Autolib’ soient réorientés vers le développement de l’autopartage. A cet effet, une mission sera conduite pour étudier la meilleure façon pour la Ville d’appuyer le développement de l’autopartage (implantation de stations sur voirie, campagne de communication grand public...), s’intégrant dans un bouquet de service d’éco-mobilité.

Source : http://conseildeparis.lesverts.fr/article.php3?id_article=1615

* * *On May 12, the following text was submitted by the Green Party for vote to the City Council of Paris. A machine translation is given just below.Machine translation of above text:

Proposed amendment for development of carsharing in Paris

Promoting autopartage (carsharing) rather than the “Autolib” project . Following this filing and the discussions that followed, the deputy mayor Denis Baupin was asked to remove this vow. The proposal was maintained (over the objections of the UMP and Center & Independent votes).

TABLED BY DENIS BAUPIN ELECTED AND THE GROUP OF THE GREENS

Carsharing is already widespread in Paris, presently offering subscription service which, generally from stations located in underground parking facilities, to provide a timely vehicle for short or medium terms.

As the site of the City of Paris puts it, http:// www.paris.fr : “Autopartage (carsharing) offers a real alternative to car ownership and is part of the new tools needed to modify our mobility behavior. “

And as per the text of the Travel Plan de Paris (PDP - Plan de Déplacements de Paris): Autopartage promotes the development of new ways to use cars” which led the City of Paris to launch the “Label Autopartage Paris” in February 2007.

Five companies are now certified by the City of Paris to offer carshare services: Caisse Commune, Carbox, ConnectbyHertz, Mobizen and Okigo, and represent a considerable potential subscribers in both the City of Paris and the surrounding communities.

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In addition, the mayor of Paris announced the creation of a new carshare service in 2010: Autolib ', presented by the mayor as the adaptation to the car of the concept of Vélib'.

Since the announcement of the creation of public/private Autolib operation', many critics have highlighted the technical and logistical complexity of a network intended to mesh with the urban electric vehicles, which are far from being available on such a scale and to this end. In addition, the envisaged concept called "one-way carsharing", a concept that leads to high cost services and increased pollution.

Whereas there are serious doubts on the viability and feasibility of Autolib ',

Considering that sustainable mobility, the new budget encourages communities to give priority to a device tested as autopartage, which allows shared use of cars, without generating unnecessary travel as Autolib '

On a proposal by Denis Baupin and elected the group "Les Verts", the Paris council recommends that:

The technical, financial and communication from the City of Paris currently allocated for the Autolib ' project are to be redirected to the development of proven carshare services. For this purpose, a mission will be conducted to study the best way for the City to support the development of autopartage (location of stations on streets, communication campaign ...), general public in an integrated package of eco-mobility services.

Map of carshare locations in Paris

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 09:30 1 Comments Links to this post

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Europe to appoint European Bicycle Officer

The European Commission announced in a statement during the closing session of the 2009 Velo-city congress in Gent, Belgium, that they intend to appoint a "European Bicycle Officer". This decision was taken as a result of a process of careful process of consultation over the last several years engaging a wide spectrum of groups representing a range of interests, ranging from cycling federations, groups and manufacturers, along with a wide array of cities, environment, sustainable transport and new mobility groups from across Europe.

One of the institutional background challenges that had to be addressed for this decision to be taken had to the more general question concerning what the European Union is able to do in helping tackle urban transport problems, without compromising the famous “subsidiarity” principle. The process of consultation and discussion over the last two years eventually put that into perspective. The Commission eventually concluded that there is a need for cooperation and coordination at European level, on the grounds that local authorities cannot face all these problems on their own.

This first announcement just in from a collation of groups representing the bicycle industry here in Europe is presented with extracts here. Further information and background on this will appear in the Comments section below in the coming days. A good source for more complete information on this is the European Cyclists’ Federation which brings together and represents 56 member organizations in 38 countries

One of the important institutional background challenges that had to be addressed for this decision to be taken had to the more general question concerning what the European Union is able to do in helping tackle urban transport problems, without compromising the famous “subsidiarity” principle. The process of consultation and discussion over the last two years eventually put that into perspective. The Commission eventually concluded that there is a need for cooperation and coordination at European level, on the grounds that local authorities cannot face all these problems on their own.

This first announcement just in from a collation of groups representing the bicycle industry here in Europe. Further information and background on this will appear in the Comments section below in the coming days.

Gent, 16 May 2009 - For many years, ETRA, COLIBI and COLIPED have been asking the European Commission for the appointment of a European Bicycle Officer. It now looks as if the European Commission is finally prepared to grant that request.

In the closing session of the Velo-city congress, Mattia Pelligrini of the cabinet of Vice-President Tajani, competent for transport, announced a "nice surprise". It appears that in the long awaited European action programme for urban transport the Commission will make the appointment of a Bicycle Officer official. He or she will be stationed in DG TREN and will be responsible for the

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coordination of bicycle policies in the different DGs. The appointment of a Bicycle Officer, an idea originating from COLIBI and COLIPED, was one of the three main demands which ETRA, COLIBI and COLIPED put forward when the Green Paper on Urban Transport was published in 2007. Since then, the 3 associations have lobbied for their demands relentlessly.

The action programme is announced for this year without further details on a concrete date. A number of member states, headed by Germany, are obstructive in the discussion, accusing the European Commission of interfering with national affairs. Nevertheless, during the closing session of Velo-city, a number of mayors called on the European institutions to show more energy in the field of cycling policy. The mayor of Copenhagen Klaus Bondam said: "MEPs and Commission members are still too hesitating to acknowledge the full potential of cycling. And yet, every car kilometre costs Copenhagen 10 eurocents, whereas every cycled kilometre yields 16 eurocents."

However, political courage will be necessary in the short term to change the trend in emissions, as became clear from MEP Michael Cramer's statement: "90% of all car journeys in urban areas are less than 6 km. The increasing emissions from transport are nullifying all efforts to reduce emissions in other sectors."

== end of above press release ==

In an earlier Position Paper, the European industry associations give a number of recommendations to the European Commission. Among these:

1. Appoint a European Bicycle Officer. "By appointing a European Bicycle Officer, the EC would confirm to policy makers on all levels, civil society and the public at large their true believe in the potential of the bicycle as a sustainable, proper and individual means of transport and not just as a possible alternative mode."

2. Produce and introduce reliable and comparable statistics (e.g. on bicycle use and the capacity of bicycle lanes), measurements and surveys (e.g. costs & benefits of bicycle use).

3. Remove barriers and facilitate easier access to financial means for all transport ‘players’ and to fight the current imbalance in the allocation of financial means by introducing effective criteria that serve sustainability and by closely monitoring their application.

4. Set clear objectives. "Taking into account the wide range of benefits resulting from (an increased) bicycle use, while also considering its potential in contributing to the realisation of European policy objectives, the European Commission should define unambiguous goals related to the modal shift towards and thus growth of sustainable modes." Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 09:14 1 Comments Links to this post

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Sustainable Transport that Works: Lessons from Germany

Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice Volume 15, Number 1. April 2009

Editorial - John Whitelegg:

We live in interesting times. Almost all the largest world economies are assembling packages of financial support for the car industry and financial incentives to persuade citizens to throw away an older car and buy a new one. The recession and the rise in unemployment is a personal disaster for many and the pressure to “rescue” industries is intense. Sadly global thinking and decision taking on this matter is way out of line with evidence and with the need to identify opportunities out of the mess rather than continue on the same lines that created the mess.

Investing in the car industry is wrong. We need large scale investment in things that create real jobs in real communities and have a huge impact on the big things that we are all trying o address including peak oil, climate change and poverty eradication. Investing in renewable energy anywhere in the world is a “no brainer”. It will create lots of jobs in every community. Designing, equipping and retro-fitting every building with whatever is needed to reduce energy use by 50% is also a front-runner for climate and job creation success.

Investing in high quality streets for walking and cycling and public transport will do the same but throwing cash at an early 20th century industry based on moving objects that weight about 75 kgs in a metal container weighing about 1 tonne is not very intelligent. We can restructure cities, mobility and accessibility and in one highly co-ordinated policy deal with road safety, health, obesity, climate change and peak oil but it looks like the answer is, as usual, “no”.

In this issue of WTPP we introduce a new comment section. Comments are invited for future issues and should be lively, topical and relevant and will be given careful consideration. In this issue Kurt Lesser talks about the urge to rescue the car industry and Glenn Lowcock discusses speed limits and oil dependency.

Our main article (Buehler and Pucher) returns to a theme we often emphasise in this journal. They talk about sustainable transport in Germany especially Freiburg and demonstrate that carefully designed and integrated policies can create an exceptionally high quality of life with high levels of cycling and wide community and fiscal benefits. This should be required reading for every council officer in the UK and North America.

We then have an article by Bjorn Haake who takes issue with an earlier Pucher and Buehler article on cycling and promotes education rather than infrastructure change. This is an important debate and even though we disagree with Haake we are delighted to facilitate the discussion.

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Pucher and Buehler then respond to Haake’s arguments and readers are invited to come to their own conclusions and let us know if they want to submit a comment or another contribution to develop the debate further.

John WhiteleggEditor, The Journal of World Transport Policy and PracticeEco-Logica Ltd. ISSN – 1352-7614

Volume 15, Number 1 Contents

Editorial - John Whitelegg

No Stopping the Gravy Train of Car Support? - Kurt Lesser

Moving toward a non oil dependant society with a proposed road speed limit of 30mph - Glenn Lowcock

Sustainable Transport that Works: Lessons from Germany - Ralph Buehler, John Pucher

The Importance of Bicyclist Education - Bjorn Haake

Cycling for a Few or for Everyone: The Importance of Social Justice - John Pucher, Ralph Buehler

* For your copy of the journal click here - http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/pdf/wtpp15.1.pdf

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 04:37 0 Comments Links to this post

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Honk! From Bikeshare to Carshare

This short film explores some differences of views between experts about an eventual new and very ambitious carsharing project currently being discussed in Paris for application by the city. It combines scenes showing some of the different ways that people getting around in the city these days, with expert commentary, all of which is aimed at a general audience and not just the usual insiders.

In other words, it engages complexity. Now that's a start!

This professional video clip has been prepared bringing together selected extracts from the film stock developed for a full length prime time television documentary of the United States Public Broadcasting System. You can access the full program directly from here at http://www.e2-series.com/, (then click Webcast, then Paris).

In this clip a group of on-the-spot Parisians discuss the eventual links between bikesharing (a field in which Paris is world leader) and carsharing (a field in which Paris has until now been a middling performer, but for which the mayor has some highly ambitious plans for something he calls Autolib.

The five minute video brings together the remarks of Céline Lepault and Denis Baupin of the city of Paris's crack mobility team, Nicolas le Douarec, co founder of the successful Mobizen carshare start-up, and Eric Britton of World Streets.

Is there a direct link from one to the other? Can your city hope to move smoothly from bikeshare to carshare (or vice versa)? Check out what each of these people on the spot has to say on the subject. As Denis Baupin, vice-mayor of the city and at the time in charge of mobility, tells us: it's a bit more complicated than you may at first believe. Welcome to the world.

* Check out from Bikeshare to Carshare here.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 15:30 4 Comments Links to this post

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Op-Ed: Mobility Matters: Reducing Car Use

Mobility Matters - Reducing car use on a long term basis

- Margaret Mahan, BEST Vancouver CanadaThis program launched by BEST - Better Environmentally Sound Transportation in Vancouver Canada, encourages people to reduce car use on a long term basis, and promotes more sustainable and active transportation choices. Links car disposal services with transportation planning, using a community/neighborhood organizing approach. It works like this:

Transportation demand management studies show that people are more inclined to make lasting changes in their transportation choices if they have access to travel planning services that help them to understand and better utilize the full range of mobility options available to them. Mobility Matters encourages car owners to either relinquish their car or offset the GHG emissions from car use, in exchange for individualized travel planning services and incentives that support sustainable transportation changes.

Participants donate their car to BEST (a local non-profit that promotes sustainable transportation and land use planning), who then resells newer model cars for revenue, and provides the participant with a tax receipt, or organizes disposal of end-of-life cars through a recycling company. Participants receive membership to the local carshare operator (Co-Operative Auto Network) and customized travel planning services and incentives that are tailored to meet their specific lifestyle and transportation usage needs (these may include combinations of ride sharing, telecommuting, trip combining, transit, walking and cycling). The Coop Auto Network will put a fleet car in each neighborhood that achieves 15 households signing up with Mobility Matters.

Those not wishing to part with a car can participate by purchasing carbon off-sets for their vehicle use. All participants have access to a Mobility Matters members-only website that offers trip planning and GHG emissions calculators, and connects them to other program participants, and other benefits.

BEST derives revenue from the resale of cars taken in through the car sale option, from the resale of the older, end-of-life cars taken in through the car recycling option, and from the sale of offsets. This revenue will be used to support BEST's ongoing efforts to increase access to trip planning tools and education on the range of travel options available. This will further support long-term commitments to reduce vehicle use.

Margaret Mahan, Executive Director, margaret@best.bc.caBEST - Better Environmentally Sound Transportation, www.best.bc.ca Vancouver, Canada

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Comments: Europe Imagines Its Suburbs Without the Car

There is some telling US style discussion of this article in yesterday's New York Times which you can pick up here .

To my mind, most of these discussions invariably have more to say on (a) why it won't work or (b) at best only at the margin. Not all that useful.

World Streets aspires to do better. We have to look more broadly for inspiration and ideas.

What about this for a bit of mind-feeding counterpoint on this topic? Click here to see our short video with some views on exactly this topic from the perspective of one man on the street in city of Groningen.

Your comments?

Again that link is http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/carless-in-america/

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 07:53 1 Comments Links to this post

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Dialogue: Transferability of International Experience - Part II

Michael Yeates of Brisbane continues on this important topic.Hopefully this is a subject that will be pursued in some detail and with more vigour ... but without too much personal umbrage. In the interim, http://www.transplus.net/TrDoc/T_inglese.pdf appears to give a useful "summary" from the perspective of the TRANSPLUS project brief.

But as with most such projects, there are so many caveats or "weasel words" that drawing directly from such work simply induces yet another round of reasons for not adopting or not changing etc etc ... much like the scientific method involves critical review rather than a more healthy dose of the "precautionary principle".

Oh yes, then there is the whole area of "risk" ... in all its forms.

From my experience and research, opponents of change prefer endless research rather than what I describe as a combination of trial + demonstration + research ... something where all the "but what if ...?" questions can be answered by experience rather by tactical debate and rhetoric and where the experience is a learning experience .. raising awareness so that decisions and research are informed by informed respondents and/or participants.

While this opens up the whole behaviour change area, Ajzen and/or Fishbein are widely accepted theorist-practitioners to explain the interaction(s) between personal and group behaviour change and social norms etc and of course there are many debates and developments ongoing.

One other practitioner I find convincing based on case studies in very different circumstances is Werner Brog of Socialdata ... in particular in relation to what might be described as "knowledge drag" or "awareness drag" or even "experience drag" as terms with similar implications to the idea of "fiscal drag" ... the delay from when something occurs to when its outcomes occur.

The relatively major project by SOCIALDATA in Brisbane was followed by a much smaller one ... there are some reports on the web .. but then no more application and back to building more roads ...! Is this the influence of biased research, of politicians beliefs, of consultants pushing their preferred expertise?

Brog has shown that decision-makers (often politicians <> consultants) over-estimate political support for the status quo ... a bit like the under-estimation of costs and over-estimation of benefits in CBA (GOOGLE <>)

The result is a political and consultant preference for continuation of business-as-usual which tends to increase current behaviour and/or rational preferences while continuing to constrain alternatives.

The issue is discussed by Brog in Section 7 in ...Bilbao 2000: The challenge for cities in the 21st Century: Transport, Energy and Sustainable

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Development European Conference Bilbao / Guggenheim 10 - 11 February 2000 ... Changing mobility behaviour - the role of information and awareness.

Another with similar info is in ...Section 1 in Interactive Workshop on Sustainable Development “Sustainable Development Makes Good Business Sense” Brisbane, 26/28 October 2004 A Global Approach for a Global Problem - Development of an Integrated Sustainability Approach

The paper http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=focus has similar views but without the graphics which in my view help enormously in conveying or at least demonstrating the situations addressed.

But then, if Brog's "successes" and many are well documented as case studies, are still not accepted for more general application, there is a need for further explanation. As Brog says in the introductory part of the above paper, (my emphasis in bold) ....

Since passive mobility takes up an incomparably greater part of our lifetime, citizens generally judge the traffic trend from the passive mobility standpoint. They therefore hope that transportation planning and policy will provide relief precisely during the period of passive mobility by an orientation towards the promotion of environmentally friendly and not (no longer) motorized private modes.This understandable wish that environmentally friendly transportation modes will be encouraged is countered by public opinion, which is seen as “pro-car”. Accordingly, the importance of motorized private transportation is overestimated and the possibility of reducing it is underestimated.

Nonetheless, limited changes by individuals in their behavior would be possible at any time without giving rise to major problems and would have a great impact. But it is not sufficient for such behavioral changes to be possible, as they must also be considered possible. And the predominance of the car in public opinion runs counter to this requirement.

The result is, strange as it may seem, that the simple behavioral changes in active mobility, which would make an appreciable contribution to the desired improvements concerning passive mobility, are (wrongly) considered to be so radical that any attempt to initiate them is immediately seen as an unwarranted impairment of the quality of life. Accordingly, practical measures to reduce traffic are not taken at all or not taken seriously enough, and the very trend we think we are avoiding (deterioration in the quality of life) actually occurs.

Transportation policy and transportation planning do not provide much solution to this “mental blockage”. For, first and foremost, it is not a change in basic conditions, which is necessary, but a change in people. It is not “others” who have to make a change, but we ourselves. This obviously applies not only to citizens but also to opinion-formers and decision-makers.

and then in the summary ending he also says ...

The insights at the root of this concept are neither new nor revolutionary. They have been proven

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effective. Nevertheless, they have not attracted the public attention they deserve. Instead, they meet widespread disbelief, skepticism, and rejection by many transportation professionals. This unveils the fundamental dilemma faced by the transportation world.

Transportation policy, transportation planning and transportation sciences have been greatly influenced in the last few decades by the rapid development of car traffic. In only a few dozen years the car has left an indelible mark on social life in the Western countries. It has become mankind’s symbol for the technical conquest of nature, for freedom and affluence, for status and individuality. The slogan “open roads for free citizens” came to reflect the spirit of a generation who for the first time in history felt they were able to cast off their fetters and enjoy virtually unlimited mobility.

Those who produced cars or carried out the necessary infrastructure planning work were also held in equally high esteem and they succumbed to the universal euphoria; the (planning) techniques and instruments developed by them clearly reflected an emphasis on car traffic. With such planning methods and their planning action, they have left their mark on people’s thinking and their environment.

It is precisely everyday mobility that makes it possible to achieve considerable overall improvements by means of numerous, minor changes in individual behavior and to test a change in thinking that is very important for the survival of humanity.Unfortunately, this opportunity is scarcely perceived by transportation policy decision-makers, transportation planners and transportation theorists. Those who are so often themselves the staunchest advocates of “automobile freedom” find it extremely difficult to accept the idea that transportation modes, which are more tolerable than the car, have to be promoted.

Mind you the vested interests would soon emerge again ... imagine the job losses from all those policy writers and planners who currently enjoy job security based on producing endless consultancy briefs and then engage all those consultants ... all or most of whom may well be almost unemployable given their ethical commitment to their current employment and employers ...!

Michael YeatesBrisbaneAustraliaRead on: Posted by Eric Britton at 03:11 2 Comments Links to this post

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Toolkit: Building a World-Wide Learning Community

Knoogle New Mobility 1.1

Knoogle New Mobility 1.1 is the first iteration of a power search engine aimed at better linking a world-wide learning community in support of urgent, climate-driven transport reform in cities. Knoogle is specifically tailored to help policy makers, local government, researchers, NGOs, activists, consultants, concerned citizens and the media keep up efficiently with the work and plans of the programs, groups, and sources leading the field of sustainable transport and sustainable cities, worldwide.

We invite you to test our in-process but entirely usable Knoogle New Mobility 1.1 combined search engine to view the results of a quick unified scan based on your selected key words, combing through more than one thousand selected institutions, programs and sources in thirty countries that we view as leading the way in their work and competence in our heavily challenged sector world-wide.

Click here: to go to Knoogle New Mobility 1.1.

The question: Networking knowledge, competence, collaboration?

Is there a requirement, a potentially useful role for a more creative and powerful system of linkage, dynamic multi-level interaction, information exchange and eventually collaboration between the many and fast growing constellation of programs and their considerable knowledge and competence bases, with specific reference to the issues, roles and possibilities of the new mobility/sustainable transport policy, planning, and practice? And if so: who, when, what next?

Basic principles of project

The Knoogle project is defined by the following basic principles:

1. We are losing the climate war in a very big way - and we don't need to.2. We are losing the fossil fuel, food, and resource wars-and we don't need to lose them either.3. Transportation accounts for on the order of 20% of the climate problem -- more in the case of some of the others.4. More than half of the world population today live in cities -- with more pouring in every day.5. The vast majority of these people are poorly served by the existing transportation arrangements - and most the plans and projects in the pipeline offer zero prospect of the fundamental structural improvements that are needed.6. A growing number of institutions and programs trying to make targeted contributions to deal with these challenges --some with fair resources and broad backing, most however working on bare bones budgets.

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7. These programs and the people who make them up communicate with each other and collaborate with each other in a number of ways - but there is every reason to step up this creative interaction by several orders of magnitude if we are to have a chance to rectify these fundamental planet and life threatening problems.8. Communications and computer technologies offers the possibility to better network these programs, institutions and the people working with them - at low cost and very quickly.9. The more unified, more deeply seated networking and sharing approach that would come out of these greatly heightened communications arrangements would improve their chances, individually and collectively, at getting to grips with the underlying challenges.10. This project has the mission of opening up the dialogue that is needed to advance this very specific component of the sustainability agenda.11. Dividend: This deepened and more universally accessible knowledge environment is for sure going to open up new project and service opportunities for entrepreneurs, both public, private and volunteer.

What makes Knoogle Klick

There are four main building blocks of this tool set,

Google CSE: The first of which is Google's excellent search functionality which does the heavy lifting. (The name combines the two basic components that make it work, KNOwledge and goOGLE, into a single memorable (?) word (pronounced "kah-noogle").) Our contribution is simply to point it in the right direction, as follows:

The targeted sources:The next building block is the selection of programs and sources to which we have directed the search engine. Thus far more than one thousand in number, each carefully screened for inclusion here as a result of our research identifying what we regard as the premier sources and programs working in the areas that specifically concern us - sustainable transport, new mobility, climate, environment, reform programs, etc. To get a feel for these sources all you have to do is try a few sample searches and inspect the programs that are called up in the search results. (If you click here, you will see an early (partial) listing of these sources which should give you a feel for what we are targeting for coverage.)

Key words:In carrying out your search you can of course use the usual key word filters in combination. (Click here for a reminder on this if useful.) Let's look at an example by way of quick illustration: "BRT" generates 439 Knoogle references. "BRT + India" narrows this down to 217 entries, "BRT + Pune" calls up 75 entries -- most of which are right on topic. The usual except that we are dealing here with targeted references and not the dog's lunch.

Search refinements:Then as a next narrowing device, you will see that each search results page also shows in the top rows which show the "Search refinements" which we have developed on what we see as key topics of interest, ranging from different transport modes. Refinements are labels that you apply

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to websites. They appear as a list of links above search results, offering you a way to narrow their search.The 1.1 version provides on click refinements for the following categories: Children, Climate, Conferences, Economics, Energy, Freight, Land use, Measurement, Non-motorized, Paratransit, Parking, Pollution, Presentations, Public Transport, Traffic, Videos. Each of these calls up not one but a tailored cluster of keywords. As an example when you click Public Transport, it will automatically search the specified target for any mention of public transport, but also public transit, bus, rail, BRT, LRT, tramway, metro, train, subway, Mobilien. And of course if you feel that these composite keywords cast the net too wide, all you have to do is narrow the search with your own selection.

Knoogle or Google

When the first of these search engines appeared on the scene in the nineties, there was great satisfaction to being able to dredge up comparatively large numbers of results in swift answer to our queries. But navigating these shoals has become ever more difficult as the numbers explode. Fortunately judicious use of the key words and other advanced search tools has helped greatly for our daily uses. In fact, the idea behind Knoogle is to take this idea of useful narrowing one full stage further, and in this case specifically in the context of the issues which bring us all here.

Let's have a look at a couple quick comparisons showing why we feel this kind of directed search may be useful to you. Suppose you are going to Kabul for the first time on a mission involving our shared concerns.

You fire up your browser and you get:• Karachi: Google – 1.9 million general references. Knoogle 1.0: 129 targeted references all relating to our topic.• Karachi + pollution: Google – 185,000. Knoogle: 148 targeted references

Likewise, a Google search on "parking" will open up the portals to almost 26 million references. By contrast Knoogle 1.0: 434, most of which right on target. As noted this is still a beta version, and it can be better . . .

Project origins :

The concept of new mobility or sustainable transportation is gradually gaining credibility as an alternative strategy for the policy, development and management of city transport systems worldwide. Starting from a very different series of basic conditions, premises and priorities to the transportation policies and practices that largely dominated the 20th century, these new approaches are increasingly being supported by a wide variety of leading practitioners, authorities, and institutions -- public, private and participatory -- in many parts of the world.

Despite this undeniable progress however, this approach is still heavily outmatched in many cities and parts of the world, in part because it advocates different approaches which are often regarded with doubt or suspicion by more conservative interests.

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Fortunately there are a growing number of people, programs and institutions in different parts of the world that have got the message and are leading the charge with these new approaches: strategies and measures which are far better matched with the very different, historically unique and highly stringent requirements of this new century. One of the goals of this first-stage project is simply to identify the leading groups and approaches. For this you will find our latest short-list if you click here.

The goal of this open collaborative project is to initiate a constructive dialogue among the people and organizations around the world who know the problems and possibilities best, to see if we can come to some sort of creative vision of what if any best next steps might be.

These first stages are being taken in hand by the New Mobility Partnerships as a public contribution -- and in doing this we note the sense of high emergency associated with this project that is driven by not only the long understood needs for radical transportation reform in our cities, but also and above all by the utmost urgency of the climate issues and just behind them the ever more pressing problems of energy supply, security and prices. It is for these reasons that this project takes on particular urgency and importance.

The project started to take shape in Spring 2008 with a series of exchanges between Sue Zielinski Managing Director of the Sustainable Mobility (SMART) program of the University of Michigan and Eric Britton of the New Mobility Partnerships in preparation for a high level brainstorming public/private conference on "New Mobility: The Emerging Transportation Economy" in which the idea was being turned around that our present information and "knowledge recuperation" tools were not keeping up with the urgent challenges we are presently facing. Britton was asked to lead a presentation and discussion on this during the 12 June 2008 conference, eventually entitled "Reinventing the Wheel (But not all by ourselves".

The discussion was well received and eventually gave birth to this first stage project probe.

New Mobility Network - Latest round of incoming contacts and queries

As per 11 May 2009:This map, reporting a selection of the rounds of enquiries coming into the project website, provides a good visual illustration of where the action is on our topic. That great white swath that sweeps from south to north from Africa and up through the Middle East and on to the former Soviet countries is notable. And certainly worth a thought or two if, as it is, our problem is a planetary one that cannot be handled on a piecemeal or partial basis.

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Work plan (in process)

Here you have a quick outline of steps taken and underway in the process of vetting this idea for follow-up and action.

Getting underway (2008)

1. Early 2008. Brainstorming discussions with partners of the New Mobility Agenda discussion group to define problems and eventual paths for solutions2. 12 June. First concept presentation - To Ann Arbor SMART Conference.3. July: Creation of the first version of this website and the 1.0 Knoogle working model.4. August Systematically expanding listing of key groups/programs (to more toward a more complete collection of P2P key nodes )5. First brainstorming on new tools to support new cross-cutting structure (see the New Mobility Agenda discussions via http://www.newmobility.org/, Café)

2009

1. Initiate first round of direct contacts and discussions with identified groups, based mainly on information provided on website2. Continue to develop and refine web site and PPT presentations3. Work to define and test new tools toolkit candidates4. Disseminate preliminary materials widely to seek counsel, suggestions and eventual collaboration.5. Continue to extend master list of groups and programs to be contacted for their ideas and eventual collaboration in the problem-solving stages6. Discuss formation of an informal core working group (provisionally 5-10 active collaborating groups)7. Invite selected colleagues to join International Advisory Council8. Discuss and decide about organization of the appropriate "discussion/exchange forum": the technology to be used for group discussions and exchanges (the simplest option would be to use either the New Mobility Cafe, to create another basically similar group dedicated specifically to the knowledge site, or possibly something else and quite different and much more powerful. This last of course being the most appropriate chose for a project like this.)9. Starting summer 2009: : Present project when it is ready to conference, workshops, media, etc. Incorporate feedback into key materials;10. Start to initiate first linking steps - on limited trial basis first, then when proven extending it to all interested participating groups11. Seek both short and longer term support, financial and other12. This is the way that the process looks today (11 May 2009) and we can expect that it will continue to alter quite quickly as work moves head. Stay tuned.

For more on this collaborative project, click here.

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Profiles: Europe Imagines Its Suburbs Without the Car

Note from the Editor: Is it not fascinating, and encouraging, the manner in which the mainstream media are increasingly starting to crawl over to doing a more responsible job on sustainable transport issues, accomplishments and directions? This article by Elisabeth Rosenthal from today’s New York Times looking at the exemplary “car-lite” strategy and accomplishments of suburban Vauban is one excellent example. It is, in fact, one of a steady flow of articles and media that have been reporting on this approach internationally over the last years. And we might note the extent to which leading-edge thinkers and practitioners of the new thinking about transport in and around cities are making their voices heard. (Build it and they will come?)

VAUBAN, Germany — Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars.

Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the Swiss border. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community.

Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called “smart planning.”

Automobiles are the linchpin of suburbs, where middle-class families from Chicago to Shanghai tend to make their homes. And that, experts say, is a huge impediment to current efforts to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes, and thus to reduce global warming. Passenger cars are responsible for 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe — a proportion that is growing, according to the European Environment Agency — and up to 50 percent in some car-intensive areas in the United States.

While there have been efforts in the past two decades to make cities denser, and better for walking, planners are now taking the concept to the suburbs and focusing specifically on environmental benefits like reducing emissions.

Vauban, home to 5,500 residents within a rectangular square mile, may be the most advanced experiment in low-car suburban life. But its basic precepts are being adopted around the world in attempts to make suburbs more compact and more accessible to public transportation, with less space for parking. In this new approach, stores are placed a walk away, on a main street, rather

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than in malls along some distant highway.

“All of our development since World War II has been centered on the car, and that will have to change,” said David Goldberg, an official of Transportation for America, a fast-growing coalition of hundreds of groups in the United States — including environmental groups, mayors’ offices and the American Association of Retired People — who are promoting new communities that are less dependent on cars. Mr. Goldberg added: “How much you drive is as important as whether you have a hybrid.”

Levittown and Scarsdale, New York suburbs with spread-out homes and private garages, were the dream towns of the 1950s and still exert a strong appeal. But some new suburbs may well look more Vauban-like, not only in developed countries but also in the developing world, where emissions from an increasing number of private cars owned by the burgeoning middle class are choking cities.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency is promoting “car reduced” communities, and legislators are starting to act, if cautiously. Many experts expect public transport serving suburbs to play a much larger role in a new six-year federal transportation bill to be approved this year, Mr. Goldberg said. In previous bills, 80 percent of appropriations have by law gone to highways and only 20 percent to other transport.

In California, the Hayward Area Planning Association is developing a Vauban-like community called Quarry Village on the outskirts of Oakland, accessible without a car to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and to the California State University’s campus in Hayward.

Sherman Lewis, a professor emeritus at Cal State and a leader of the association, says he “can’t wait to move in” and hopes that Quarry Village will allow his family to reduce its car ownership from two to one, and potentially to zero. But the current system is still stacked against the project, he said, noting that mortgage lenders worry about resale value of half-million-dollar homes that have no place for cars, and most zoning laws in the United States still require two parking spaces per residential unit. Quarry Village has obtained an exception from Hayward.

Besides, convincing people to give up their cars is often an uphill run. “People in the U.S. are incredibly suspicious of any idea where people are not going to own cars, or are going to own fewer,” said David Ceaser, co-founder of CarFree City USA, who said no car-free suburban project the size of Vauban had been successful in the United States.

In Europe, some governments are thinking on a national scale. In 2000, Great Britain began a comprehensive effort to reform planning, to discourage car use by requiring that new development be accessible by public transit.

“Development comprising jobs, shopping, leisure and services should not be designed and located on the assumption that the car will represent the only realistic means of access for the vast majority of people,” said PPG 13, the British government’s revolutionary 2001 planning document. Dozens of shopping malls, fast-food restaurants and housing compounds have been refused planning permits based on the new British regulations.

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In Germany, a country that is home to Mercedes-Benz and the autobahn, life in a car-reduced place like Vauban has its own unusual gestalt. It is long and relatively narrow, so that the tram into Freiburg is an easy walk from every home. Stores, restaurants, banks and schools are more interspersed among homes than they are in a typical suburb. Most residents, like Ms. Walter, have carts that they haul behind bicycles for shopping trips or children’s play dates.

For trips to stores like IKEA or the ski slopes, families buy cars together or use communal cars rented out by Vauban’s car-sharing club. Ms. Walter had previously lived — with a private car — in Freiburg as well as the United States. “If you have one, you tend to use it,” she said. “Some people move in here and move out rather quickly — they miss the car next door.”

Vauban, the site of a former Nazi army base, was occupied by the French Army from the end of World War II until the reunification of Germany two decades ago. Because it was planned as a base, the grid was never meant to accommodate private car use: the “roads” were narrow passageways between barracks.

The original buildings have long since been torn down. The stylish row houses that replaced them are buildings of four or five stories, designed to reduce heat loss and maximize energy efficiency, and trimmed with exotic woods and elaborate balconies; free-standing homes are forbidden.

By nature, people who buy homes in Vauban are inclined to be green guinea pigs — indeed, more than half vote for the German Green Party. Still, many say it is the quality of life that keeps them here. Henk Schulz, a scientist who on one afternoon last month was watching his three young children wander around Vauban, remembers his excitement at buying his first car. Now, he said, he is glad to be raising his children away from cars; he does not worry much about their safety in the street.

In the past few years, Vauban has become a well-known niche community, even if it has spawned few imitators in Germany. But whether the concept will work in California is an open question. More than 100 would-be owners have signed up to buy in the Bay Area’s “car-reduced” Quarry Village, and Mr. Lewis is still looking for about $2 million in seed financing to get the project off the ground.

But if it doesn’t work, his backup proposal is to build a development on the same plot that permits unfettered car use. It would be called Village d’Italia.- - -

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Monday, May 11, 2009

Dialogue: Transferability of International Experience

From Michael Yeates, Eyes on the Street in Brisbane, Australia. In response to earlier questoins by Steve Melia of the University of the West of England and Stephen Marshall of the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London

Interesting points to raise at present as several "leading" nations (self-appointed e.g. USA, UK, Australia) embark on massive spending to maintain jobs i.e. maintain "growth" and consumption etc, on what looks very much more-of-the-same but no doubt reflects a slight change in priorities.

Interesting in the Australian context as the world's worst per capita with indicators such as solar power and heating, coal powered generation, car dependency, etc., especially on a continent untested in terms of its long term carrying capacity under current and extrapolated resource use rates ... based on little over 200 years of use but with about half not measured, and the last half, barely able to be assessed.

The ongoing trend to convert Australia (and maybe parts of South America and Africa) into an English landscape of trees and grasslands is part of the problem i.e. of colonisation.

I use that as an example where what we are doing and have been doing is right in that it reflects what we have been doing it for so long ...!

But we then change that a bit ... but not too much ...!

Housing and planning are similar ... based on English and more recently USA traditions ... with almost no respect paid to different climatic and other factors ... some directly related, others less so. I guess one example of this is the permitting of housing and in some cases villages and towns in European type forests ... with the tragic results obvious on a regular pattern of cycles in Australia, but also in the west of the USA. These fire events don't or very rarely occur in the climates where people do live in forests ... indeed in most of those places, they have lived there for more than a few hundred years.

Transport and related impacts are quite similar and I certainly agree with the proposition that adopts what might be described as a defensive strategy to change. The change process relies on exposing dominant power structures and exposing their weaknesses (i.e. it is oppositional) even when some of the points are what might be described as obvious.

One example is which side of the road to drive on ... and why there is no analysis of the consequences. Another is why cycling is treated as if it is so different in so many places ... especially when reduced to its basic performance needs for space and topography. Ideas such as cycling challenge the dominant power structures ... i.e. those that insist as in Australia that an urban speed limit of 60 or 50km/h is so safe no reduction is required. Then try inserting cycling "on the road" and outcome all those often borrowed reasons for that not being acceptable ... in effect a defence of car dependency.

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Try making a city "barrier free" or "accessible for all" to see how poorly those people with any kind of disability are treated, public transport and cycling, even walking and footpaths, being useful places of power to review.

In essence it's the old idea of the gap between "rhetoric" and "reality" ... what is said and what is done. Today our national budget is announced and in the depressed economic circumstances, it will be a line-in-the-sand time to see if many of the challenges are going to be addressed by a move to taking the substantial steps needed ... what those steps are is the challenge and what is announced tonight will be a strong historical point in time.

Given the bang-for-the-buck preference and the short versus long term outcome problem, the budget will probably have initial funding for a number of exciting new transport projects but will have the construction costs for major road projects which are "spade ready" and can be rolled out using the rhetoric of reducing air pollution and congestion ...

After all, who really wants to not use their car in urban areas designed for cars, not people or for walking, cycling or public transport? Maybe next time the required projects will be "spade ready" ...

Comment made knowing the risk of (i) over-simplification and (ii) lack of accepted forms of research to underpin the views expressed. The latter is part of the problem in that the dominant power structures decide what forms of research are acceptable and what are not ... and case studies, personal experience, informed observation and/or audit techniques, even "the wisdom of the elders", etc tend to be rejected at least summarily ... so it might pay to persist a while longer.

The following is from the work of a philosopher ... it is also relevant and indicates we may still be in the first stage ...

All truth passes through three stages .... First it is ridiculed (or we might say ignored or marginalised) ... Second it is violently opposed (we might refer to use of the violence of power and of speech and repression and forms of bullying) Third it is accepted as self-evident (we might say based on sufficient evidence i.e. critical mass to make the obvious obvious) ...

Many seemingly radical changes follow that pattern ... it's just that where the power is political, by Stage 3, a massive PR effort will have quite dramatically changed what went before ... and that too is part of the problem ... unless the previous history is able to accurately i.e. factually documented.

Thus access to documentation such as is mentioned in the following is VITAL ... if only to assess against current decisions some 6 years later.

I guess too given the supposed wonders of the www world and the benefits of information transfer, one has to ask why it is so hard to access such info ... ;-)

Michael Yeates, Brisbane Australia

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From: Of Stephen Marshall Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 11:14 AMSubject: Re: [UTSG] Transferability of International Experience

Dear Steve

The EU project TRANSPLUS (Transport Planning Land Use and Sustainability) looked into the issue of transferability of transport/planning policies a few years back (2003).

The deliverable report(s) on "Barriers, Solutions and Transferability" may be hard to locate online; I can forward to anyone interested.

Dr Stephen Marshall, Senior Lecturer, Bartlett School of Planning,University College London

New journal: Urban Design and Planning www.urbandesignandplanning.comNew book: Cities Design & Evolution (Routledge, 2009)

---

At 09:38 08/05/2009, Steve Melia wrote:

To what extent, and under what circumstances, can experience observed in one country or culture be transferred to another?

A lot of transport (and other built environment) research tends to "look across the fence" usually for better practice to be emulated, sometimes for worse practice to be avoided. But how do we know whether something which works in one country, will work in the same way somewhere else?

Most researchers (and others) who take this approach either:

a) assume that something will work in the same way, or:

b) argue that it won't work (or will work differently) because of some contextual differences

In both cases, the writers seem to make up their own criteria for arguing either a) or b). I have never come across any general theory, or even rule-of- thumb criteria for assessing how experience might transfer across countries or cultures.

Has anyone come across anything relevant to this?

Steve Melia, University of the West of EnglandRead on: Posted by Eric Britton at 08:59 0 Comments Links to this post

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Bad News Dept. - A Bad Public Bike Project

(Don't let this happen to you)

There are lots of ways to get your city bicycle project wrong, but here is one path that is guaranteed to fail. Have a look. It doesn't have to be like this.

The "Free Lunch" public bicycle project

Here's how it works:

1. An ambitious local political figure decides s/he wants to get greater glory and votes, do something vastly popular, something very fast, and get it all for free. And all that with an election in view.

2. So s/he whips up interest for a public bike project in the city and goes to any of the players out there (suppliers) to find anyone who will deliver the profiled service for a low price (or, better yet, free).

3. As part of the "free lunch" project, s/he manages to convince one of the advertising-based suppliers or some other group who are ready to put in a system against some sort of swap agreement (though increasingly against their own better judgment, since they have seen this one before and find no great satisfaction in being identified with a crushing failure).

4. They agree to do it - since s/he give them everything they are asking for. (Since it's free. Right?)

5. The project gets ordered, planned and built.

6. But someone forgets to do due diligence to make 100% sure that the demanding infrastructure specifications that are critical to system success are going to be met. (If you can’t cycle safely in your city there is no room for a public bike project. Come back when you have that part of your house in order. Better yet, start today!)

7. The detailed checklists of key points and pivots has not been scrutinized with the needed full expert attention and knowledge of international experience and lessons learned (at time painfully).

8. There is a gala opening day, everyone gets excited, the local media is there, the ribbons are cut and bingo! The system is up and working. Hurrah!

9. But it does not take long for reality to set in.

10. The wonderful new service does not offer the necessary high-grain area-wide coverage,

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stations and collection points are poorly placed, so the whole thing is vastly underutilized. Instead of 8-12 riders, they are getting a small fraction of that. Oops!

11. And soon the accidents start to roll in.

12. The bike redistribution system is not working properly (no bikes in station, no parking slots available), so many potential users after a certain number of frustrating episodes simply stop relying on it for daily use.

13. Maintenance was vastly under budgeted and is neglected.

14. "Maintenance is all." (Everybody knows that but somehow it's not being delivered in the free lunch project.)

15. The anticipated income from subscriptions is not coming in. (And we know who is going to foot that bill when it comes due.)

16. Theft, vandalism, accidents, inadequate enforcement,

17. The project slowly grinds down and finally to a halt, with only vestiges maintained.

18. Happy ending: The local hero who started it all has been elected to another (distant) office and is not around to take the blame.

19. And so it goes.

This is a true story by the way. It really happened. And it's not the only one.But there are plenty of other ways to mess up as well. These projects may look simple but that's just not the case. It's like walking a tight rope: there are a lot of steps that you could take but only one of them is the right one.

• How do you make sure this does not happen in your city? Stay tuned.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 04:15 0 Comments Links to this post

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Friday, May 08, 2009

Bikes as social technologies: Ascobike Brazil

Bikes are basically social technologies. When you ride you are very aware of the people around you, whether on bikes, motor vehicles or travelling by foot. You are not cut off from people and the street as you are when it comes to motorized transport. Part of it is not only that you are basically "nude" in terms of protection, but also that since you are travelling more slowly there is time for eye contact and even speaking with each other. Nice!

We also tend to have much closer relationships with our bikes, since they are so light and often need adjustments which we do ourselves rather than taking them into a shop on an appointment. Of, we may end up helping a neighbor or even a stranger at times. That's the way that bikes work. A social experience.

Have a look at this short video from our friends at Streetfilms, which will take you to Brazil and show you how one very big social bike project is working. And interestingly enough it pays for itself.

Innovative bike support project in Brazil

ASCOBIKE isn't your average bicycle parking station. It is located an hour out of São Paulo on the grounds of the commuter rail station in a city with zero bicycle infrastructure. And yet, ASCOBIKE houses 1700 bikes daily, and offers a series of social, legal and bicycle education services. Watch this video and see how unique ASCOBIKE really is.

* Click here to view the film* Click here for the ASCOBIKE PowerPoint presentation.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 07:28 0 Comments Links to this post

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Ruas do Mundo? Read Streets in Portuguese today

What? Getting tired of reading all this stuff in English every day? Want to travel the world in your mind? So why don't you take a break from the old anglo world and have a look at how World Streets looks in Portuguese. Dance baby dance.

Click here to read Streets in Portuguese today

What? Prefer to try another language? No problem. Here are more choices you can jump to from here with a single click:

* French – fr.worldstreets.org* German– de.worldstreets.org* Italian – it.worldstreets.org* English – en.worldstreets.org* Spanish– es.worldstreets.orgWant more? Check out the language link on the left menu, which will give you a chance to read on in Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Russian. Or Danish, Dutch, Hebrew, Korean, Swedish too. World Streets you know.

Still not enough. Well, go to Google Translate or Bablefish and they will help you out.

Language is not quite the barrier it once was. But we still have the barriers in our minds. Ingest one quick translate copy World Streets with your morning coffee and some of those barriers will disappear too.

World Streets. Understandable in any language.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 05:01 0 Comments Links to this post

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Thursday, May 07, 2009

Brainfood: Mad Car Owner Speaks Out

(And the New Mobility Agenda listens)

Like it or not in most of our cities on this beleaguered planet, there are growing numbers of people who are driving around in cars. And as much as in our eco-heart of hearts we may want to get most of these cars out of the traffic stream -- which indeed is necessary - the simple reality is that this is not going to happen overnight.

Thus, in the core of the New Mobility Agenda, there is a key principle which states that if we are to succeed in this much needed transformation of our cites, we are going to have to figure out ways to help drivers deal with the new circumstances of traffic in cities, while at the same time reducing their number strategically and steadily. And since sometimes it does not hurt to start with a smile, let's invite you to have a look at this interview that never happened with a Mad Car Owner. (That's him right there. You can see that he's not all that happy)

Driver’s Lament:Tired of sitting in your car in traffic that doesn’t move?Feel like you are paying too much for too little?Panicked at that huge price rise at the pump?Exhausted in circling the block for that parking place?Feeling fat and wobbly?Tired of being pushed around?Well, speak out, oh Driver!

Interview: Mad Car Owner Speaks Out

Mad Car Owner (MCO): Eric, I'm so mad I could spit.

Eric Britton of World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda (EB): Why's that friend?

MCO: I'm so mad I could spit -- and it's all because of you.

EB: Oh oh! Me?

MCO : Well maybe not just you personally, but you and all those other wise guys who have made up this New Mobility Agenda thing and are now putting it into application in cities around the world. It scares me Eric. It hurts. Don't you understand? Life is already hard for us car drivers. And getting tougher every day. All you and all those righteous friends of yours are doing is making it even more difficult. It's just not fair

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EB: Oh dear. That is by no means our intention. Okay, so what do you suggest we do?

MCO: Well Eric why don't you start thinking for change about what you can do for all of those of us honest folks like me and my good lady who have cars and who, to be perfectly fair, don't really have a choice. S ure, I think it's great that you are working to improve transportation for poor people, kids, the elderly, people with handicaps, cyclists, and all of those who want to or are able to get around without cars. But hey! there are a lot of us drivers out here and we think it's high time you did something for us too.

EB: Fair enough MCO. Let's give it a try. Here is our proposal for you: “New driving for new mobility: Handy hints for cars, from cradle to grave.” You'll see, we think you have some interesting choices in this new transportation environment. and you will make them because you want to -- not because someone forces you to do it. After all, the Wall came down and one would hope authoritarian government with it.

MCO: That's right. And don't forget Eric, we vote.

The New Context for “NewDrive”

Drivers are our customers too: So let’s help them out

Yes, yes. We are listening to every word you say.

For starters, we have to understand that a good part of the new and very tough transportation context that we are faced with is being driven by forces which are beyond anyone’s control, external to transportation policy: including of course the ongoing energy crisis and the enormous overload that our present mobility patterns are making on the environment and the planet. But public policy -- that third cheer when we say “two cheers for the market, not three” -- has an important role to play in this. Let’s take a look.

Twenty-first century transport policy in those cities that are taking the lead -- the New Mobility Agenda --builds on three strategic pillars, which between them condition pretty much all the rest: There is a very big difference with past policies in the sector, including the no-policy policies which have had a very big role in getting us into the present mess.

Step (1) Expand supply: Work to provide the city with first class new mobility services (i.e., more, better, faster, cheaper than the old mobility options) and a greatly expanded palette of new mobility choices.

Step (2) Manage demand: Reduce substantially, strategically and discretely the amount of road and parking space available to low occupancy vehicles (namely cars and above all ca motor vehicles (namely cars and above all cars with only a single person in them).

Step (3) Full cost pricing: Cars and trucks to pay full costs, especially in space-constrained, environmentally sensitive areas (cities).

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This is not all bad news. To the contrary, with the hugely powerful technologies and organizational skills at our disposal today, there is no reason why, in cities at least ,we should not be able to offer new mobility options which compete favorably or even better than driving your own car there (old mobility style).

But what about all those good people, you and all those voting citizens who today are driving their own cars and thoroughly locked into the old mobility (all-car) syndrome? And even it is costing them a bundle, even if the huge increase in gas prices has them shaking, and even if they are losing huge amounts of time in traffic still would prefer to keep on rolling in their cars. The devil they know, etc. etc.

No problem. Let’s see if we can work that into our formula as well. Which brings us to NewDriving, the car owner/operators best friend in 21st century cities.

“NewDrive” (The till-now missing link in the New Mobility Bouquet)

In many places there are huge numbers of citizens who are locked into their cars in a no-choice situation. So, if we aspire to provide wise public policy counsel, can we afford just to ignore these honest people, or, worse yet, force them into our cookie-cutter for change? No, of course not. We need consider them – and by the way that’s you and me when we are behind the wheel for instance, both from a human and strategic behavior.

So we ask ourselves: is there some way to roll all these much needed measures, reforms and actions into a single coherent package, which is not only good for the environment and for our cities and good for all those who live and work there? But we need something that has a positive ring to it so that people will welcome it as a great thing to do. Rather than scrape, gripe, grumble, and at the end of the day resist (and maybe successfully at that). Which is almost always the case given the prevalent policy mindset du jour.

The central idea behind NewDrive, as the till-now missing soldier of our strategy, is to treat car owner/drivers, not as adversaries, but as our customers. We want to bring all these good car-captive citizens into that world of new mobility with a smile. So, how can we best serve our good customers? That is the question.

The idea is that as a NewDriver, you will have a better, healthier, more comfortable and more economic life style than before. (And oh yes, you are also cool and have more friends!)

Behind all this new mode of behavior is the fact that our cities are changing because they must, in part before the increasingly urgent climate, energy and resource challenges, -- but also for many other immediate local reasons. But now, you are able to use your car AND be a good citizen and neighbor at the same time.

To achieve this leap, as a new NewDriver you now have at your disposal a rich array of tools, technologies, partners and organizational devices which permit you to be palpably better off than you were under the old mobility arrangements which our cities are increasingly leaving behind it.

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You are, for sure, a car owner/driver, but as a NewDriver you are not going to spend less time stuck in traffic, you are not spending a bundle, and what is more, in addition to your own much loved car, now a lot more effective than it was in the old days, you also have access to a whole range of the new and improved mobility options which you can use as and when you wish to. (“Look Ma, no compulsion!”)

Now while this single, simple, understandable, positive proposal encompasses goals usually set out in “negative” terms, i.e., traffic reduction, less congestion, lower speeds, fewer places to park, less energy consumed, greenhouse gas reductions, resource savings, and the long list goes on – we can, I am confident, achieve these important objectives, but this time with NewDriving putting the whole thing in a positive frame for an important part of our voting and vocal public.

Also, it is positive and at the same time can be shown to lead to numerous other advantages, including offering improved mobility options and services to many people who simply would not have them if you had not put “newdriving’ into practice in your city.

NewDrive strategies for cities – Getting started

To make it work it has to be a package and different cities will handle it indifferent ways. It will in each case bring together a dynamic set of integrated, synergistic policies, measures and technologies -- and while this is not the place for us to roll out the full red carpet, here in shorthand is a first think list of some of the good things that you might want to consider bringing into your own program:

A. Information/Communications programs launched by city:

1. Match-your-car: I f you are going to be using your car regularly in the city be sure that your choice of vehicle size, energy efficiency, emissions, noise, visibility (eye to eye contact with pedestrians and cyclists is important), and top speeds matches the new driving environment.

2. Eco-driving: This is well charted terrain as a quick Google visit will make clear.

3. Know your costs: We live in times in which most of us have to be very careful about how we spend our money. The city can develop a series of self-audit procedures, and support them with outreach programs.

4. Mixed-mode driver training: Driver training programs for new high density, mixed-mode, variable speed travel patterns to reduce accidentsNow what the above have in common is that they are all strictly information and education program, and involve no changes in law, coercion, or any other constraints on car owners and drivers. And yet, between them, they will already help the city start to rationalize car use, with all the advantages tat this brings with it.

B. Technical initiatives, measures, programs:

Here you have a first sample of initiatives that can be launched by the city, each of which can do its part to create a more positive car ownership and use environment.

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1. Carsharing: A car when you need it, but someone else’s problem the rest of the time. There are more than one thousand cities in the world in which you can carshare this morning. There is no reason why such services cannot be greatly expanded in your city. They will mainly serve people who live there. (See http://www.carshare.newmobility.org)

2. PBS - Public Bicycle Systems: True automobility for shorter city trips. Serves both residents as a complement to the public transport system, and makes it easier for incoming travelers to switch to public transit and still get around in the city when they need to. (See http://www.citybike.newmobility.org/)

3. ZRIP - “Zip Right In Parking”: New parking technologies and packages which permit city drivers to reserve their parking slot by mobile phone or internet before they set off on a trip, so that they can on arrival zip straight into their reserved slot without driving all over the place to find one;.

4. HOV parking: Proportional and significant parking fee reductions and increased availability to all those operating their car with three or more passengers aboard.

5. +3 HOV access: Privileged access to HOV lanes and conveniences, if you can figure out how to get more than three people in the car; (Supported by the following)

6. Ride-sharing: This is how you get those people into your car (and their car off the road), helping to share your costs and gaining you in the process that privileged access to the scarce road resources. It’s been around for a long time but things are changing fast.

7. Digital hitchhiking: This twenty-first century fillip for ride-sharing (car and van pools) keys on the dynamic use of mobile phones as the central organizing device. But it’s going to go way further than that and will tie in carsharing, public transport, taxis, etc. (tune in to www.dighitch.org )

8. Shed a car” programs: Vehicle Buy Back incentive programs and packages, together with savings and good deals via transit incentive schemes.Getting time on your side

Given the extremely stringent time issues, the city’s New Mobility Agenda should be putting a lot of stress on measures which offer big and early pay-offs. And while the main target is certainly anything that will lead to big visible paybacks in less than two years - a target that is in fact be obtainable by at least some of the measures that are getting attention here - the fact is that a couple of years of operational experience will invariably be needed to fine tune, debug and start to get the most out of your new mobility measure

And when it comes to the car ownership and use changes in particular, it will be critical to get time on your side there. There is only so much you can do in the very short run, but stretch your program out to four or five years, and new horizons and possibilities open up. Thus, In addition, within this more extended frame you are going to have time to do things such as . . .

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· At the very least to replace your present vehicle with something more appropriate for responsible 21st century city travel.

· Alternatively and better yet If possible where you live and work) shed your car altogether as new affordable mobility alternatives start to come on line in your community (affordable carsharing among them of course)

· To seek a better, more environmentally and economically coherent place to live and work

· And if you are an industrial or service group, enough time to design and bring on line a new range of products and services. And finally if you are a mayor or elected official, this gives you time to achieve your announced objectives within your electoral term. Four years: Put up or shut up. Seems fair. That's why we have elections.

Conclusion

Any major transportation reform program must bring with it a strong positive message – otherwise it is just one more self-righteous well-meaning phrase. And one that in a pluralistic vigorous democracy is doomed to failure.

The ideas you have sketched here are only a sample of the concepts that you can find, prepare and put to work, to create a more positive transportation environment in your city for all. There are many more where they come from.

The people who own and drive cars, and the businesses and interests behind them, are numerous and powerful. If they are not brought into the New Mobility Agenda in a positive way, it is unlikely to work in your city.

- Comments invited, just below

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 05:46 1 Comments Links to this post

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Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Introduction: Toward sharing

World Streets is convinced that the future of the sustainable transport will in large part be mediated by new attitudes toward and practices of both ownership and use of both private and public means. Starting in the cities showing the way, we are going to see a lot more sharing in a lot more ways, among them: carsharing, ridesharing, bike sharing, taxi sharing, space sharing, street sharing, intersection sharing, time sharing, and the list can go on. To this end we shall be giving plenty of space in the coming months to information on specific projects, means, and groups dedicated to be part of this solution path. We all have a lot to learn on this score.

The following Policy Briefing Note on "Naked Streets" by the British group Living Streets has been brought to our attention by Amy Aeron-Thomas, Executive Director of RoadPeace.

Naked Streets: Background and Summary

The naked streets concept, also known as “shared space”, is a very promising approach to both pedestrian safety and improving the vitality of an area. Naked street schemes place importance on how drivers make decisions about their behaviour, recognising the importance of how they perceive their surroundings. It’s a significant departure from attempts to control behaviour through interventions like road humps, or engineering pedestrians out of our streetscape through subways or guardrail.

Although the UK has a good road safety record for people in cars, when it comes to pedestrians the picture is less positive. Compared to other European countries our record is poor and, despite progress in recent years, children on foot are particularly vulnerable. The unacceptable number of pedestrians being killed or seriously injured on our streets needs to be taken as a wake up call. Rather than being satisfied by the status quo, we must look for improvements to the way we design and manage our streets. We need to examine ways to encourage and enable more people to make walking their natural choice for short journeys, and to tackle the unacceptable number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured on our streets.

We believe that schemes which use naked streets principles have great potential to make our streets safer and more people-friendly, by changing the behaviour of all road users for the better. However these schemes must be well designed and implemented, and involve thorough consultation with local interest groups as well as ongoing monitoring and evaluation of impact to ensure that the scheme brings positive results. Improving safety and ensuring accessibility must be at the heart of schemes.

This policy paper sets out Living Streets’ position on naked streets, acting in our role as the national charity that stands up for pedestrians. We explain the concepts in the glossary in part 2, set out our best practice ideas for implementing naked streets schemes in part 3, and finally set out our recommendations in part 4. As with all issues concerning our streets, we expect to

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develop policy further in this area as experience is gained and new projects are tested.

Living Streets has been working for the past 80 years to make our streets safer for those on foot, and to make the physical environment support and encourage walking. This paper is based on those same values, embracing new ideas to create safe, attractive and enjoyable streets across the UK.

Click here for full report (PDF) - http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/news_and_info/content/naked_streets.php

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 09:20 0 Comments Links to this post

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Why "Dysfunctional Transportation" is major public health threat

And what we can do about it:

There can be little doubt that the best way of gauging the seriousness of the mounting problems of our present dysfunctional transportation arrangements - and hence the need for fast and effective remedies and adjustments -- is not so much from the usual purely transportation lens, or public works, or energy, nor even that of "environment" or land use - though all these are of course critical components of the challenges we need to resolve. Rather, above all we should be prepared to look at this from a public health perspective. It is only from this vantage that we can begin to appreciate the full range and degrees of severity of the problems that we are, in fact, resolutely refusing to face.

Public health Impacts: Public health broadly defined - as it must be - is heavily impacted by the dysfunctional parts of our transportation arrangements in every city in the world. Here are a rough dozen broad areas in which these impacts are being felt, and which therefore should make it clear why this is a challenge that needs to be addressed immediately as a very high priority for the city and its region.

Let us start here with those that are most commonly associated with the 'public health' rubric, and then go on to list briefly yet others which in fact belong here as well.

1. Traffic Deaths and Injuries: We need to achieve major reductions in traffic deaths and injuries, most of which occur in or because of cars. We can do this if we chose to (and if you need a real world example check out the results of the several striking European examples of the past decade or so which have been sensational and entirely a function of political will and commitment from many levels of society).

2. Air pollution: Clean air must be a priority for the health of our citizens and their children. Driving a car is the most polluting act an average citizen commits. Adverse air quality can kill many organisms including humans. Air pollution can cause respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, throat inflammation, chest pain, and congestion.

3. Other forms of toxicity and pollution: Pollution from the transport sector takes other forms as well which also threaten public health significantly. Among them leakage of fuels and oils in normal operations or road traffic accidents, threats to underground water quality, various residues from vehicles, and others.

4. Traffic noise is a significant and increasingly targeted public health problem too. And while we are at it there are also such intrusions as odors and light pollution, each of which eat away at the health of those who are directly inflicted.

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5. Destruction of urban form and quality of life: Roads and traffic are the life blood of a city -- but too much of both threatens the city's livability in many ways.

6. Life Styles: We increasingly need to promote healthier, more active life style. And in the process cut back on obesity for children and adults

7. Time Pollution: This is the first thing we all see and feel. As a result of our dysfunctional transportation arrangements, we are all spending far too much time stuck in traffic. This is taking away from the time we should be spending with our families, with our own personal development, on our neighbors, doing important work. The stress that is related to this significant time-deprivation does little to improve our health or that of our families.

8. Personal economics: We are spending significantly more on our transportation habit as individuals than we need to. All of us, car owners and others, can get around better, faster and more safely -- and for less money than most of us currently are putting out. And this too is a public health problem.

9. Total system costs, including subsidies, hidden and visible: Indeed if we add up the annual cost to society of these, let us call them "transport dysfunctonalities", we have a very very large number indeed in most of our cities, which at the very least should get our fullest attention. Overall we need to find ways to get a lot more bang per buck for the huge amount of money we spend on transport (so that we can free it for more important uses such as education, health, culture and more)

10. Medical resources: Our dysfunctional transport arrangements are present unnecessary pressure on our hospitals and public health programs - crowding them with patients and problems who really should not be there, and taking scarce resources that are much needed for other uses).

11. Passive citizenry: The present transportation paradigm defines the citizens of a city as

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passive agents, whose choices are largely made by "experts" and others who shape the system. But 21st century democracy requires an active civil society. For this to happen in the realm of mobility, a new paradigm of governance and action is required.

12. Climate modification. .. and finally back to Kyoto II: Everybody needs to do their bit to cut back on global warming. Rather than decreasing emissions by grams each year to get us back to 1990 levels - itself a proposal so timid as to warrant deep soul searching, -- our cities, all of them, are steadily doing worse every year when you look at the bottom line (e.g. CO2 emissions resulting from increased traffic volumes). Moreover there is no end in sight. If we cannot somehow come up with something that is consequential and will get these basic trends back in line, it will just continue to get worse year after year and the planet, your city and your country and more will all passively go to hell in a handbasket.

Putting this checklist to work for decision and investment purposes

This gives us an interesting checklist to ponder the difference between, say, Policy A and Policy B.

Let's take as "A" a proposal to invest hard-earned taxpayer dollars into an expanded roadway so as to be able to accommodate more private car traffic. And "B", say, as a proposal for a similar amount but this time to improve mobility for a vast majority of citizens through the introduction of a package of strategic car traffic reduction together with an integrated range of improved mobility services, combining traditional public transport but this time with privileged access to reserved portions of the road network, ride sharing, carsharing, new shared taxi and other shared small vehicle services, improved conditions for cyclist and pedestrians. Both for, say, the same amount of money.

Then run down the checklist, calculate the impacts as best possible so that we can to put dollar or other values to the changes brought about by A and B, and see what the bottom line looks like.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 09:19 0 Comments Links to this post

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Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Street Smart: Reading World Streets

Not easy to stay on top of what is important to you in an age of info overload, but we are giving this serious thought here at World Streets. Here are a few ideas for you, starting with one-click call ups of off-line summaries of all postings and comments over the month for both March and April. . .

The following PDF files have been prepared to give the reader a quick overview of all the month's postings. For quick follow-up on any given piece we suggest you click to Streets and scroll down to the Archives section for the full month listing in the left menu.

April 2009 - http://ecoplan.org/library/WS-April-2009.pdf March 2009 - http://ecoplan.org/library/WS-March-2009.pdf

Subscribe/RSS:You will see this one-click tool on the left menu. It will permit you to create handy RSS feeds with summaries and direct links in several formats, including Google Reader, Yahoo and Bloglines.

Library and Reading Room:For the full collection of all postings and messages on World Streets since opening day on 2 March, click here.Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 05:15 0 Comments Links to this post

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Monday, May 04, 2009

Honk! Brains Not Included

Context: New York Times, The Green Issue, April 16, 2009 “Batteries Not Included”

Will electric cars, plug-in electric hybrids, new mobility vehicles, fuels and power sources in general deal with the massive systemic challenges of transport in cities in all their 21st century fullness: climate change, environment, public health, noise, pollution and traffic reduction, energy, petroleum and import dependency, fair mobility, costs to individual s citizens, and to the collectivity, efficient mobility, and quality of life for all?

And if they have a role, what is their relevance in today’s priority time frame – namely the need for large scale impact improvements in the several years directly ahead?

The sad truth is that when it comes to the real bottom line they have no relevance at all. However . . . sexy new product ideas have little difficulty in getting strong media support. They combine what appears to be "pragmatic" – i.e., a product you can see, feel and in this case maybe drive – together with a certain dreamlike sense of a very different future. (It is said by some psychologists that this approach is far more likely to bamboozle men than women. Certainly worth thinking about but we can dig into that another day.)

Here you have an example of high profile coverage by the New York Times of a concept, Shai Agassi’s clean-energy company’s “Better Place” electric car project. Some five thousand words of unfiltered technology optimism that, at the end of the day and given the time horizon to which we above all need to be giving attention, will make very close to ZERO difference to the real bottom lines.

Now I invite you to turn to the New York Times article of 16 April 2009: Batteries Not Included:

* * *

The trick from a sustainability perspective with almost all of this “sit back and let technology take care of it” approach is that it promises us a pristine future in which we do not have to change ourselves. We change the technology but keep on in our old ways.

Would that this could be so, but it is not possible. To have a different future, a sustainable future, we have to start by changing ourselves. It’s that simple. Fortunately we can, and that is what World Streets is all about.

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Lee Schipper* comments:

Here in Silicon Valley there is a lot of interest in battery electric vehicles. Unfortunately there are these little catches that my students at Stanford and Berkeley have picked up:

Each mile of range from an electric-car battery costs $200 to $500. A battery supplying the 40-mile range of the GM Volt is said to cost $20,000. The batteries are valuable and should not be discarded, which makes Agassi’s “Better Place” a good model for keeping tabs on them.

Society will need to tax the electricity to pay for roads. If an electric vehicle goes 5 miles on a kilowatt-hour, then at California’s average fuel tax of 64 cents/gallon and M.P.G. of 21, we need to pay almost 15 cents/kilowatt-hour to make up for lost revenue.

Plug-in hybrids present the best features of gasoline and battery vehicles, but the real oil savings depend on how people drive.

The overall energy and carbon- dioxide savings from any battery vehicle depend on where and when it is charged. Smart utilities will charge less for cheaper nighttime charging and more for daytime charging.

From an energy-efficiency standpoint, electric cars are more valuable because they use fewer overall resources. Why can’t we just move to equivalent, existing gasoline cars that get 50 M.P.G. first, then decide if the jump to electricity is worthwhile? At the cost of electric vehicles, small Fords and Hondas are a bargain.

Lee

* Lee Schipper, Senior Research Engineer, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (You can find Lee by clicking here to the World Streets “Eyes on the Street” Sentinels map.)

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 17:01 1 Comments Links to this post

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Heads-up: Collaborative international cities project

An interesting international collaborative cities project looking at exchange and interaction in the field of urban transport innovation that you may find it useful to know about.

Organized under the auspices of the European Commission: NICHES+ ("NICHES plus") is a FP7 coordination action aiming to network key actors actively engaged in developing innovative urban transport concepts and to facilitate the coordination of their activities across Europe.

NICHES+ mission: Comprehensive coordination on urban transport innovation

The NICHES+ consortium aims to continue and expand a comprehensive coordination platform for innovative urban transport solutions.

NICHES+ shares the same mission as its forerunner project NICHES: To stimulate a wide debate on innovative urban transport and mobility between relevant stakeholders from different sectors and disciplines across the EU and accession countries, in order to promote the most promising new concepts, initiatives and projects from their current "niche" position to a "mainstream" urban transport policy application.

Expected Results

• In depth analysis and promotion of 12 innovative concepts in four thematic areas with the support of expert working groups (WGs):-WG1: Innovative concepts to enhance accessibility-WG2: Efficient planning and use of infrastructure and interchanges-WG3: Urban traffic management centres-WG4: Automated space-efficient transport systems

• Effective networking by bringing together for personal exchange at least 500 stakeholders relevant for the uptake of innovative urban transport solutions. Working group meetings, conferences and national events will provide the main platform for networking.

• Establish the success factors and conditions for transferability of the new NICHES+ concepts, and issue concrete recommendations for integration into local policies.

• Preparing for the actual take-up of innovative concepts in European 7 NICHES+ Champion Cities (see map) through the promotion of at least ten on-site visits via a study tour catalogue and

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other targeted promotion activities. The cities will develop implementation scenarios for innovative transport concepts in co-operation with the NICHES+ partners and external experts.

• Expand the OSMOSE open source website for urban transport innovation as a comprehensive urban mobility innovation portal for local practitioners and decision makers.

• Recommendations for further research, demonstration and technical development within the EU's Framework Programmes for Research and Technical Development.

• Develop twelve additional policy notes for local decision makers on the impact and problem solving capacity of the innovative urban transport concepts to meet key mobility challenges, also providing practical guidance on implementing the innovative transport concepts.

Project Duration 2007-2010

Funded under the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, DG Research.

Project co-ordinator - POLIS - European Cities and Regions Networking for New Transport Solutions

Technical Coordinator: Rupprecht Consult is technical coordinator of the NICHES+ project and leads Working Group 1 on "Innovative concepts to enhance accessibility".

Organisation : The NICHES+ consortium is made up of 6 partners from 4 countries (Belgium, Germany, Hungary and UK). All the partners are known as experts on innovative urban mobility policies in their countries and at EU level.

The following types of organisations are represented in the consortium: • City networks: Polis, EUROCITIES• Private research and consultancy companies: Rupprecht Consult, Transman• Universities: University of Newcastle, University of Southampton

Project Website www.niches-transport.org

OSMOSE website on innovations in urban transport www.osmose-os.org

Further information: Sebastian Bührmann Tel: +49-221-60 60 55 14 s.buehrmann@rupprecht-consult.eu

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 01:56 0 Comments Links to this post

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Friday, May 01, 2009

Op-Ed: On encouraging car-users to leave their cars behind

On encouraging car-users to leave their cars behind

- Bina C. Balakrishnan, Transportation Planning and Engineering, Mumbai *

Mumbai is encouraging car- users to leave their cars behind for the commute to work, through parking initiatives.

Currently over 90% of the parking demand is met by on-street parking, which is either free or very nominally charged. A parking policy has been worked out, where there will be NO free parking and all parking will be charged –the concept of “Universal Pay & Park”. These rates will gradually be raised so as to be reflective of the real estate values of the locality- after all, a car is a personal property that is using public space for a period of time!

All residential parking demand is also met on-street, with resultant loss of carriageway capacity throughout the road network. In order to release this space for community use such as pedestrian movement or movement of traffic, the concept of “Parking Facilities” is being introduced. These will be off- street parking areas (under ground, multi-storied, or on in-frequented side lanes), with add–on features such as basic maintenance / repair facilities, valet drivers, car wash services- all under the charge of a registered contractor who will be fully responsible for the safety of the car. The entire facility can be monitored by CCTV, and connected to the Police network as well as the Internet, so that both the Police as well as owners can ensure that vehicles are not being misused. It thus becomes more attractive to park in these facilities rather than on- street.

Also, given the security concerns today, the parking concessionaire and his staff can be trained as “Neighbourhood Watch”, providing assistance to the locality if required, as well as supplementing the Police in their work, forming the lowest tier in the security set-up.

Additionally, on-street parking on all arterial roads is banned, and off-street parking facilities have been recommended in commercial areas also. The owner makes a call to the facility nearest his destination just as he is approaching, and valet drivers will be dispatched to pick up and drop off the cars.

Multi-storied parking is also being provided near train stations, connecting them through Skywalks to the train platforms, in order to encourage Park- and-Ride trips.

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The road width thus released could be reallocated, and used for an exclusive bus lane on arterial roads, or to increase the width of pedestrian pathways, which are almost non- existent in Mumbai.

Reference:

http://www.visionmumbai.org/images/projects/report_parking%20issues.pdfhttp://www.binabalakrishnan.com/transport.htm

Mrs. Bina C. Balakrishnan, binac@rediffmail.comTransportation Planning & EngineeringMumbai, India

* 28 April 2009. Mrs. Balakrishnan is the one hundredth concerned citizen to join the informal World Streets Sentinels program (Eyes on the Street) since its inception on 2 April 2009. Click to http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/03/world-streets-correspondents.html for map showing the latest listings. Are you ready to be the 101st? Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 10:29 1 Comments Links to this post

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Print: Cycling-inclusive Policy Development

The Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) of the GTZ and the Interface for Cycling Expertise (I-Ce) have joined efforts in the development of a training document entitled "Cycling-inclusive Policy Development: A Handbook". Written by 12 experts in different fields of cycling-inclusive development.

This handbook provides detailed information on how to develop cycling-friendly policies and facilities. It can help you, as a planner, engineer, community leader of advocate to enrich your own ideas about the future traffic and transport system where you live and work. The publication is also part of Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) initiative, of which GTZ and I-Ce are partners.

SUTP users can download the document from here (PDF, 19 Mb.) Unregistered visitors can click here to register (at no cost) and then proceed to download.

Posted by Eric Britton at 10:11 0 Comments Links to this post

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