Editor's Desk: Radio Silence from World Streets

If you have tried dipping into World Streets from time to time over the last two months in attempt to follow the action, you will have found the cupboard quite bare.  Why, and what next? Let's have a look at what has been going on behind the scenes.

1. Launching the Equity-Based Transport project in Helsinki
2. End-season projects in Utrecht, Tallinn, Paris and Stuttgart.
3. Lyon move
4. Seeking funding support for World Streets

Helsinki: The first stage of our Equity-Based Transport program has taken a major effort and slice of time since February, but is yielding highly satisfactory results. Thanks to the Helsinki team and the two hundred or so people who have participated in the first stages of work as we walked around it, looked at it from all sides, took it apart, discussed vigorously,  and brainstormed on this approach from a wide range of perspectives and mobility environments and needs.

You will be hearing more about this in the coming days and week both here and in more detail on the Equity/Transport blog at http://equitytransport.wordpress.com/ along with the parallel Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SafeStreetStrategies. In the meantime a good starting place to get into the project is http://equitytransport.wordpress.com/helsinki/. And should this really pique your interest you can receive a copy of the peer review report with a simple note to the editor any time before end-June.

Tallinn: The Tallinn project is especially promising and this is an important time for the city. The goal in this first stage  is to launch a series of conversations in the capital of Estonia with a view to moving to a new agenda for mobility and well-being in the city. The Tallinn project is extensively informed by the work going on in their sister city of Helsinki. I will be meeting and working with a broad range of players and actors during the course of a stay there from 9 to 15 June.

For more on that get in touch with Mari Jüssi, Project Manager, Sustainability Measures Programme, SEI Tallinn - mari@seit.ee.  The program is available in Estonian at http://www.keskkonnakogu.eu/?id=10&item=4  (and translates quite usefully via Google).  More will be published here in the weeks ahead.

Paris:  From 6-9 June I have been invited as Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development at the Institut Supérieur de Gestion, to lead the second in my annual Master Classes series for their last-year MBA program on the topic "Sustainable Development, Economy & Society".

You can find full program details at http://sdes2012.wordpress.com/, and on the supporting Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SDES.MasterClass.

Utrecht: The Utrecht project involves cooperation with a group of young Dutch professionals working in the field of sustainable mobility and sustainable energy. We are looking with them and a distinguished panel of experts specially at the main issues in the area of sustainable mobility in the developing countries, with a particular interest in "learning form the South". You can catch the work program for the one day event on 2 June at http://www.yes-dc.org/index.php?menu=2&submenu=0&newsid=200#200.

Stuttgart: The Safe Streets Challenge: 2012. From 1 - 4 July, I will be in Stuttgart where I have been working with the Cities for Mobility team since the beginning of the year to help create a 2012 focus topic and framework ideas on the topic of Safe Streets. I have been invited to give the opening keynote address to their sixth Congress.

For more on this contact the project leaders Worlfgang Forderer at  Wolfgang.Forderer@stuttgart.de or Patrick Daude at Patrick. Daude@stuttgart. de.  Full details on the conference are available at http://www.cities-for-mobility.net/index.php/events/world-congress-2012/registration and on our supporting FB page at http://www.facebook.com/SafeStreetStrategies. If you get in touch with the organisers before 15 June, there are still places for free participation and low-cost lodging.

Lyon: On April 23rd we moved to Lyon after many years of happy and efficient work in Paris. Our motive for the move was the desire of the apartment proprietors to take it over for themselves (they are quite right). This lead us to think about perhaps something more than moving next door, so after consultation with colleagues in many parts of France (and limiting ourselves strictly to cities with lively operas) we decided to take our act to Lyon,  one of Europe's major capitals in transport and related cities and sustainability research and action. We have stumbled onto a terrific working and living environment, and if you get this way drop a line to editor@worldstreets.org or give a call to T. +339 8326 9459| M. +336 5088 0787 | S. newmobility.

Funding World Streets: This was the one that I was not able to get to over these last hectic months. But it is critical if we are to play our full role. The problem is an absolute empty closet of ideas and leads when it comes to hoe to go about contacting foundations and other eventual sources of support. So if you like World Streets and want us to make our full contribution, get in touch and let's talk about it.

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There you have it, the reason for this long silence. But starting today we are back on line, and just to get things going tomorrow we will be launching the latest edition of World Transport Policy and Practice, Vol. 18, No. 3.  Stay tuned to World Streets.

And here is a final reminder on the various programs and projects that relate to World Streets family of initiatives.  See, shape and interact with World Streets from different angles via  . . .

 World Streets on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/worldstreets
 Twitter – http://twitter.com/#!/worldstreets
 Scribd Library - http://.scribd.com/fekbritton
 LinkedIn – http://tinyurl.com/ws-L-In
 YouTube - http://tinyurl.com/YT-WorldStreets-1
 Picasa – http://tinyurl.com/ws-picasa

Hands-on collaboration: With you and your city?

How can World Streets help support sustainable transport initiatives in your neighborhood, city, country, agency, or public interest or user group? Through special issues or supporting articles? Collaboration in support of conferences, projects, workshops, master classes, city dialogues? Local or other media programs? Cooperative programs or events with universities, NGOs, consultancies and schools?

This we will have to do together. So now all that remains to be done is to get you actively involved as a reader, subscriber, contributor, supporter and working partner so that in 2011 we can together go from strength to strength. Get in touch so that we can swap ideas concerning how to go about it.

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