Behind World Streets: What makes it tick? The New Mobility Agenda

World Streets is the daily reporting arm of the New Mobility Agenda. Its content derives from adherence to a consistent set of overall program goals, mediated by a network of collaborative relationships that have been built up over the last two decades, which involve on the order of two thousand collaborating expert colleagues and friends of sustainable transport worldwide. The goal: sustainable transport policy and practice.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them." -- Albert Einstein

The New Mobility Agenda, active since 1988, provides the unifying strategic base, the firm bedrock on which all the work and content of World Streets is oriented. The orientation is very specific. On the one hand is the Mission Statement, which is set out here. On the other, the overarching goal and m.o. of the program, as set out on its title page: The New Mobility/Climate Emergency Project, is "The Politics of Transportation: New thinking & world-wide collaborative problem-solving".

Focus programs:

The Agenda is organized into and supported by a collection of specifically targeted "focus programs", continuing collaborative projects, each addressing one or more (but far from all) of the key building blocks of sustainable transport. More than two dozen of these focus programs have thus far been developed since the Agenda first got underway in 1988, of which you have the currently most active listed here. Each is supported by its own website and discussion forum and library.

It is not out of place here to repeat the strict 2-4 year results horizon and strategy that underlie all these initiatives -- and of the paramount importance of rapid GHG reductions as a driver for policy, practice and reform in a sector that accounts for nearly one firth of all planetary emissions. That is the insistent hard core of the Agenda

Active New Mobility Agenda programs and groups:

1. The New Mobility/Climate Emergency Project- http://www.newmobility.org
2. World Streets – http://worldstreets.org/
3. Nuova Mobilità – http://nuovamobilita.org
4. New Mobility Partnerships - www.newmobilitypartners.org
5. World Carshare Consortium – www.worldcarshare.com
6. World City Bike Implementation Strategies – http://www.worldcitybike.org/
7. Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice - www.journal.newmobility.org
8. xTransit – Shared small vehicle systems – www.xtransit.org
9. World Car Free Days / New Mobility Weeks - http://www.worldcarfreedays.com/
10. Kyoto World Cities – http://www.kyotocities.org
11. Lots Less Cars in Cities (Idea factory) – www.lotslesscars.org
12. New Mobility City Dialogues – http://www.dialogues.newmobility.org
13. Land Café: Value capture and land tax reform (Forum) – http://www.landcafe.org/
14. Global South – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sustran-discuss/
15. Gatnet: Gender, Equity and Transport Forum - http://www.gatnet.net/
16. New Mobility Media Partnerships – www.media.newmobility.org
17. International Advisory Council - http://ecoplan.org/briefs/general/panel.htm
18. New Mobility Knowledge Environment http://www.knowledge.newmobility.org
19. Knoogle 1.1 – http://www.knoogle.net/
20. Talking New Mobility (all discussion fora)– http://www.talking.newmobility.org
21. World Eyes on the Streets Sentinels network - http://tinyurl.com/ws-sentinels

Example of coverage and participation:

It is not without interest to reflect briefly on the message of the following map, which though it merely maps the locations of the last eighty visitors to the New Mobility Agenda site this morning nonetheless give us an idea as to where the search for new ideas and solutions is most underway. It is gnerally quite typical of the pattern that we observe for this project.




To close, a quick look at the map for the same period for the World Carshare Consortium discussions. This tells us where carsharing is for the most part happening today.

Which is fine, but far from enough. Our goal of course is to put it into every city and community on the planet. Carsharing is an integral part of our sustainable future.

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