Here please find a selection of articles taken from the archives of World Streets, each of which reporting briefly on a concept or event that I as editor and author consider to be worthy of the attention of our several thousand international readers. I am reviewing these for ideas, materials and clues in support of a book in progress under the title "The Third Transportation Revolution: Cities, Indolence, Complexity and the Equity Agenda". More will be posted on this project shortly.
What you find here at this point is the result of a somewhat precipitous first sorting to get the ball rolling and will surely be amended in the months ahead as work proceeds on the book. That said it already gives us a good start. [And if for some reason you are not able to link to one of these titles directly here, you can go directly to the Reader at http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/reader/ where you will readily locate it.]
- Thinking about Equity-Based Transport Systems: Get Ready to Embrace Complexity (or Get Off the Bridge)
- Does anybody notice anything weird going on here?
- What do you think the mayor is thinking about when you walk through the door this morning to talk to her about that very important transport issue?
- On Building New Mobility Ecosystems: The mayor has some questions
- A Mayor’s-Eye View of Sustainable Transportation: Politics as the art of the possible
- Editorial: Why are we losing the sustainability wars? In transport, in cities, in our lives? Because we are . . .
- The Transportation Majority. (And why can’t our politicians count?)
- Editorial: The Seven Simple Truths of Sustainable Mobility (Come argue with me)
- We have no money gentlemen, so we shall have to think.
- Man – > Technology – > Speed – > Distance – > Destruction of proximity
- Op-Ed: What/who keeps holding back New Mobility reform?
- Is World Streets doing its job?
- What was wrong with "Old Mobility"
- The First Step in the New Mobility Agenda . . . is not to take that step at all.
- The New Mobility Strategy
- Mission Statement – - >
- The New Mobility Agenda gets a hearing in Barcelona with a “Come argue with me” session
- “They are supposed to scream”
- On the plane to Helsinki
- Late Night Thoughts on Equity from Helsinki
- Man and car: Who is driving whom this morning?
- John Whitelegg on “Health in the sustainable city”
- No Parking, No Business 1: What if the other guy actually has a point?
- No parking, No business 2: What happens in the store?
- No Parking, No Business 3: Walking and cycling perspectives
- Transportation Innovation and Reform: Finding the Way to Social Sustainability
- Hacking Sustainability: Part 2
- Equity/Transport 2012: Road map for Helsinki Stage 1
- Helsinki Equity/Transport project kicks-off today
- Equity-Based Transportation Planning, Policy and Practice: First Helsinki project announcement
- Op-Ed: Priority for Public Transport in Tallinn
- Select Network Media. (Do we know what we are doing?)
- Is World Streets doing its job? We asked 100 experts for their views – - and 101 responded.
- Getting outside that box (which may require being just a bit unreasonable)
- Whenever I hear the word revolver . . . I reach for my culture.
- La femme est l’avenir de l’homme
- What happens in a high-tech Smart City when the lights go out?
- Weekend musing: The bicycle helmet rears its ugly head
- Musing: Your iPad is a bicycle for your mind
- Towards Carfree Cities X: What happened in Guadalajara from 3 to 10 September 2011?
- Learning from each other: Four Cities, Four Ways
- Car Crazy: Lee Schipper on the Perils of Asia’s Hyper-Motorization
- III. The Female Quotient. Women shaping the future of transport in cities: Who, how, where?
- II. The Female Quotient. Women Shaping the Future: What are the criteria for measuring impact?
- SLOWTH: Or why it is so very important (and so very easy) to slow down traffic in cities
- Going down? Newman and Kenworthy on Peak Car Use
- Doodling with Frank
- Family Mouse moves ahead on fifty language worldwide Odyssey
- PRT proposal for Delhi convinces the Chief Minister (But does it convince you? See poll results)
- Honk! Cars, People and the Planet. It’s a Wonderful World (Have a stupid weekend)
- Ten reasons why I really hate bicycles (and cyclists) in cities.
- Sempé: A Short History of Social Mobility
- Sustainable Transport and the Importance of Pattern Recognition
- Seize the moment: A “Street Code” for Porto Alegre
- UK High Speed Rail: Going very fast in the wrong direction
- Grading Sustainable Transport: Scholarship A. Leadership C-
- The Social Space Format
- Energy and Equity, Ivan Illich.
- Car Free Days 2010: Part 1. Origins, Timeline, Progress
- “Old Mobility” = mechanical solutions to biological problem
- Honk! City of the Future? (Have a stupid weekend)
- Why Free Public Transport is a bad idea?!? (v. 1.1)
- Honey, you gotta slow down
- Editorial: A Six Thousand Kilometer Non-CO2 Conference (From the archives)
- Do monorail projects deserve fair treatment? Part I Editorial: Building knowledge and consensus via the internet
- There they go again, burying poor old Vélib. (Hey New York Times, read World Streets.)
- Sharing as a sustainability strategy – Part I
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A few words on the quality of what you see in these extracts, at least in terms of those articles which I have written. They are not at all appropriate in this form for inclusion in a serious book. Quickly written and without copy editing, they are for the most parts "this morning's thoughts". And while in this I do not mean to say that I do not have confidence in the messages and insights. But as you will see for yourself they could be better written. However they are presented here not as proposed content for the final book, but rather as clues and reminders of some of the things to which I as author intend to give more careful attention in the months ahead. Stay tuned.
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Things with wheels are fun; transportation is recreational, not just functional. This element is missing from the discussion. Searching for the term "recreation," most references are for getting to recreation and there was one reference to recreational cycling. The Sunday drive, cruising for kids of all ages, is recreational and therapeutic. Sometimes you just have to get out of the house. Driving can become a chore, but that is usually later in life. For kids, trikes, a big wheel, scooters, skates and skateboards, bicycles of all shapes and sizes, and vehicles with motors, big or small, two, three, four wheel and more, licensed or non, on-road or off, specialized or not, are fun, even when used for work. They can be powerful and control of power is a sense of the driver/operator.
ReplyDeleteThe recreation element is strong with individuals for vehicles they control, but it is by no means absent when one is a passenger on a planes, trains and automobiles, and anything else that moves under its own propulsion. Movement is fun and the faster the better. A good amount of transportation services on land, water and in the air is for recreation. Travel, whether for business or tourism, has this element. There is both need in transportation and desire. All that racing stuff is a waste, except that its entertainment.
Might one conclude that streets were designed into the settlements of the world and to connect settlements of the world, because foot paths weren't adequate as settlements figured out how ways house themselves? In the rainy season, getting from home to home was made easier by hard surfaced paths that also served as play areas, as they do today. I think recognition of mobility as recreation would humanize the discussion. If work transport were more efficient, there would be some for play. If work transport takes up all the capacity, we have: "All work and no play makes a dull world." Maybe some flame decals on the wheel wells of the city bus?