Honk! Cycling your mind

One of the main strategic underpinnings of New Mobility Agenda, and certainly of everything that appears here in World Streets, is that if we are ever to reinvent transportation in our cities, as we so badly need to do, we must in the process free ourselves from our old ways of seeing, thinking and doing things. For example, when you think "bicycle" . . .

For example, you and I think we know exactly what a bicycle is: and while that may apply 99 times out of 100, if we look more closely we are going to see quite a few variations which also need to be taken into consideration. And ditto by the way for what constitutes "safe cycling".

The Conference Bike takes all this from a different angle, so what about a quick visit to their video which you can access directly by clicking here.


You will also find a contribution with some background information on how it works here in World Streets by the inventor of the conference bike, Eric Staller. If you click here you will see his full text.

We like Conference Bikes because once you are on one of them and talking to others about cycling in cites as you all peddle away together on the city streets, you per force have a different view of the whole thing. A useful step to what we need to get going with better policies.

Enjoy the ride.

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One way of looking at World Streets and its worldwide network of diverse international partners, publications, programs, multiple networks, focus groups. continuing research and professional activity in our chosen field is to see it as the visible tip of a very large iceberg of experience and competence available to be put to work on your projects and programs.  The greater part of this considerable mass is the New Mobility Agenda, an open collaborative program that has been dedicated to sustainable transport policy and practice since 1988.   Here are some of the ways in which this international competence can be put to work for your city, agency or firm in 2013 and beyond.

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Speeding to a standstill

This is an interesting and useful article. The topic is timely and important. The approach and methodology are interesting.  And in it  you will find a certain number of points  which I regard as timely, important and very much worth saying again and again. In a couple of instances I find their conclusions and interpretations a bit puzzling, but let me keep them to myself for now and avoid getting between you and the authors. It's time to stand aside and let them speak for themselves.

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New Mobility Consult: Partner for Sustainable Transport

New Mobility Consult is the advisory and consulting arm of World Streets and its world-wide network of international partners, publications, programs, social media and focus groups. This open collaborative program  has been dedicated to sustainable transport policy and practice since 1988.   Here are some of the ways in which this international competence can be put to work for your city, agency or firm.

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INVISIBILITY: Just because you can't see it (or prefer not to) doesn'tmean . . .

  

You are warmly invited to comment on all or any of these.

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Weekend Musing: One more reason why Africa does not matter

"In a fair world it should be unthinkable to ignore the needs of close to one billion of the poorest people on the earth living in its second-largest and second most-populous continent. A part of the world with already one-third of the population living in cities, most of whom in slums, and with a flow of people from the country side continuing at record rates."

- From Cities, Transport and Equity in Africa: Unasked Questions

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Brainstorm: Carsharing, and New Thinking about Transport in Cities

World  Carshare  Cities Program 2013 : Brainstorming notes of 11 April 2013

1. There are many many different ways to share cars in 2013 (far more in fact than most of even the experts talk about when they make presentations on carsharing).

2. This mix of ways of delivering these services is evolving at a speed that makes it a real challenge to keep up with the pace of developments. Even for the experts.

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World Transport Policy & Practice – Vol. 19, No. 2

Rural access, health & disability in Africa

A Special Edition of World Transport, Spring 2013

Transport, health and disability are interlinked on many levels, with transport availability directly and indirectly influenc­ing health, and health status influencing transport options. This is especially the case in rural locations of sub-Saharan Af­rica, where transport services are typically not only high cost, but also less frequent and less reliable than in urban areas.

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Searching World Streets - An open library and toolkit at your fingertips

World Streets is more than a collaborative blog with a very specific focus; it also offers an extensive site and collection of working materials, references and tools in support of our collective push to more sustainable cities.  At this point several thousand articles, tools,  images, and other media are assembled in the family of World Streets sustainability toolkit.

But if it is to be useful as an open library and toolset, we need to be able to offer ways to sort through all this digital chaos, so that you can have a chance to find the kind of information or support you are looking for. Fortunately, in combination with WordPress and Google we are able to offer you a collection of useful search tools, as follows:

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Saudi women can now legally bike in public (under certain conditions)

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Our Right to Walk is Non-negotiable (India)

Anumita Roychowdhury, associate director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi, in a wide-ranging conversation with Faizal Khan reporting for the excellent Walkability Asia ( Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities),  spells out clearly the inevitability of a non-motorised transport code in India through shocking figures and revealing facts. "We need zero tolerance policy for accidents. This menu of action needs support. Our right to walk is not negotiable."  And on this Roychowdhury is entirely right. On this score we must be entirely intransigent and as part of this to keep pounding away on this important point of citizen activism on every available occasion, until we get the concept of zero tolerance written into the law and respected on the streets. All our streets!

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