Family Mouse moves ahead on fifty language worldwide Odyssey

Today we want to tell you about a bit more concerning progress on a collaborative international project on a children's book exactly on our subject. Back in mid March, we announced our intention to produce a 2011  edition of this successful  children's book, but this time in (our target) fifty language editions. Read on to see where things stand today. All the more  if any of you out there might be interested in lending a hand so that we can create handsome print and electronic versions for worldwide distribution and use. - Alvin reports from Paris

--> Read on:

A family of small mice needs some help with new mobility

Today we want to tell you about a children's book on our subject, and beyond that to see if any of you out there might be interested in lending a hand so that we can create a handsome electronic version, and possibly in other languages.

- Alvin reports from Paris.

--> Read on:

1-minute movies

If you click today to the home page of the 2010 Kaohsiung Conference of the World Share/Transport Forum at www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org, you will see that the organizers have just this morning added the first of an intended new cycle of “1-minute movies” by way of livening up the conference preparations, and as a quick introduction to the concepts of sharing in transport as a sustainability strategy. We have long been proponents of the imaginative use of media of all sorts to get the messages of sustainable development and social justice out to a world that is for the most part more puzzled than antagonistic.
It is our dead-serious intention to make use of all the tools and tricks we can lay our hands on to get the basic message of the World Share/Transport Forum program and associated events and conferences across: namely, that we really should be trying to understand better what happens if people start to think more in terms of not things, physical objects, but of services, i.e., whatever it is that they really need.

Our goal in selecting these little films is not to try to convert people in a single minute or two to our priorities and our way of thinking, but rather to familiarize them just a bit in a soft way about the fact that there are, in fact, other ways of seeing and doing things when it comes to getting around in cities. We want to open a few doors, but no pushing.

We intend in this section to provide a certain number of very short videos that in our view can help get these points across. And since many in our audience at Kaohsiung are not familiar with English as their main working language, we shall try to limit ourselves to videos which are image- and not word-heavy. Today you have our first three candidates. Your comments are most welcome. Perhaps you will have some candidates to support the program. If so, you know where to find us.

- - - > Click here to go to the 1-minute movies. (See top menu, right)

--> Read on:

Honey, you gotta slow down

A bare five miles per hour over the speed limit on a city street, and . . .



Editor's comment:
It is the consistent position of this journal that much of what is wrong with our current transportation arrangements in cites could be greatly alleviated if we can find ways just to slow down. And it's not that hard. Stay tuned.

(If you click here to http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/search/label/slower you will have before you all of the postings thus far published in our "slow it down" series.)

On slowth: And here is an entry we made some time back in Wikipedia on the concept of slowth to get the ball rolling. Have a look and if you are up to it, please improve.

Slowth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Slowth is a new mobility transport planning concept, usually deployed in congested urban environments, where transport is calibrated for lower top speeds, but the result is shorter overall travel times across the entire system.[1]

The concept of slowth is sometimes compared to the story of The Tortoise and the Hare; the paradoxical notion that slowing the top speeds of transport will when properly engineered allow more people to get to their destinations more quickly. An example is that where there is sufficient traffic congestion, a bicycle may get to its destination more quickly than say a Ferrari. When a city adopts a policy of slowth, the top speeds will be lower, but congestion decreases because the slower speeds result in steadier traffic flow.[1]

This is a powerful model which urban planners and traffic engineers, with a few notable exceptions, are only recently starting to take seriously. An important new mobility concept, it is also referred to as "slow transport."

In the report "Speed Control and Transport Policy" (Chapter 10, on speed limits in towns, Policy Studies Institute, 1996) Mayer Hillman and Stephen Plowden describe an experiment in Växjö, a Swedish town of 70,000, which showed very small time penalties arising from some fairly substantial speed reductions at 20 junctions. The Swedish researchers used the results to simulate what would happen if similar speed-reducing measures were introduced at 111 junctions throughout the town and concluded that there would probably be a small net time saving.[2]

In recent years it has gotten steadily increasing attention both in the literature but above all as part of the on-street sustainable transport strategies of a growing number of leading programs and projects around the world (See listing below).

See also (Hot links in Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowth

• Cittaslow (Slow cities movement, in English)
• Home zones
• Livable Streets
• New Mobility Agenda
• Pedestrian#edestrianisation
• Public space management
• Road traffic control
• Shared space
• Slow movement
• Street hierarchy
• Sustainable transportation
• Traffic calming
• Walkability
• Walking
• Woonerf
• World Streets

Again, please consider adding to and improving this article.

--> Read on:

Listening to children

Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice
Volume 15, Number 1. March 2010

Editorial - John Whitelegg:

This issue contains two articles that on first reading may appear totally unrelated. This is not the case. The Kinnersly article – "Transport and climate change on a planet near you " - is a comprehensive reflection on the links between economic growth, poor quality democracy, lack of will to deal with sustainability and biodiversity and the perversity of reckless decision taking that supports a business as usual (BAU) model of the world.


Tranter and O‟Brien in "Positive psychology, walking and well-being: Can walking school buses survive a policy of school closure?", show convincingly and persuasively that a child-centred policy based on listening to children, thinking about the wider issues around children and the journey to school can bring about a very different outcome to the ones currently on offer.

Kinnersly‟s well-founded worries about BAU are neatly dealt with by the child-centred model (CCM) advanced by Tranter and O‟Brien. Equally there will be other non-BAU models that raise alternative visions and perspectives and this journal want to hear from older people, those with mobility difficulties and those who live in the accessibility poor “facility deserts” that we have created in many British cities.

It is clear from both articles in this issue that we cannot expect intelligent, ethical, human-centred, quality of life outcomes from our expert led, neo-classical economics, “bean counter”, top-down perspectives.

The failure of the Copenhagen climate change summit last December which is dealt with by Kinnersly captures these points in a rather dramatic manner. It is clear that whatever was going on in Copenhagen it was nothing to do with a human-centred, ethical view of the world and nothing to do with precautionarity or quality of life.

We are lucky that the politicians and world leaders who drew up the failed “accord” in Copenhagen last December were not around in the first couple of decades of the 19th Century. If they had been around they would have presented a wonderful story in favour of continuing the business known as “slavery”. Slavery is after all very good for the economy, it would be disruptive to ban it, any ill-informed criticism of slavery can only result in “foreigners” benefitting from the desirable business model and it will still be there anyway. Abolishing slavery was not easy but luckily there was a different mood around and it was done.

Kinnersly also represents a valuable tradition in the development of so-called western civilisation. Like David Engwicht in Australia (see end note) he has thought about his subject matter very deeply and produced a fine intellectual product with a strong policy resonance.

This is lacking in the ranks of professional planners, economists, traffic engineers and others and highlights the need for “citizen science” or productive engagement between the professionals and those who have something highly intelligent to say. This productive engagement does not exist at the moment. Our professional world of science and expert evidence has produced an arrogant, dismissive model of the universe.

The dismissive model applies to children. Asking children about the journey to school as described in Tranter and O‟Brien is a brilliant way of sorting out what we should be doing for children and is more likely to produce more active travel, less obesity and happier children than high-blown waffle in official documents.

Clearly we do not listen to children and like Tranter and O‟Brien. I have heard
children speak eloquently about roads and traffic and against the closure of their school and seen a completely dismissive response. The roads and traffic policies continue to ignore children and to prioritise the needs of the person in the car to the detriment of the child on foot or bike and a very fine secondary school in Hornby (Lancashire, UK) much-loved by its local community, was closed in spite of massive protest and a unanimous vote by a group of councillors to keep it open.

This is now being repeated in the decision to close Skerton primary school in a deprived community in Lancaster UK which will produce the result of exposing children to severe traffic danger as they travel to more distant schools.

This issue contains important messages about a desirable future, the real need for alternatives to BAU and the importance of other voices, and we look forward to more of this in future issues

John Whitelegg Editor

Engwicht, D. (2005) The smarter way Envirobook, Annandale, Wales, Australia

Abstracts & Keywords

Transport and climate change on a planet near you
Patrick Kinnersly Creating a sustainable transport system requires more than merely reducing carbon emissions from vehicles. A superficial greening of transport is essential to the continued expansion demanded by a market-driven model of unlimited growth, inducing further carbon emissions and resource conflicts and preventing the sustainable development required to avert climate crisis.

Keywords: Transport, climate change, carbon emissions, economic growth, environment

Positive psychology, walking and well-being: can walking school buses survive a policy of school closures?
Catherine O‟Brien and Paul J. Tranter Children provide an insight into our understanding of the link between walking and happiness, as walking is a playful experience for them. Many adults make trips simply because they are focussed on getting to a destination. Children on the other hand, are more often able to enjoy the “places” along the way, rather than being focused on the “next task.” Evidence from positive psychology indicates that happiness and positive emotions contribute to our health and well-being. Slowing down, enjoying life's pleasures, and appreciating our friends, community and environment are all linked to enhanced well-being. Despite an awareness of such benefits, government policies can often be seen as undermining well-being, even by discouraging walking to school by children. This paper examines the impact of a policy of school closures on the viability of walking school buses.

Keywords: positive psychology, walking school buses, children, community, environment

# # #

* Click here for full issue: http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/pdf/wtpp15.4.pdf

About the authors:



For the past decade Catherine O'Brien has been leading efforts in Canada to create child and youth friendly communities and Catherine is currently developing child and youth friendly land use and transport planning friendly guidelines for every Canadian province. More recently, she has been exploring how sustainability and happiness studies can contribute to a more sustainable future. Catherine is an education professor at Cape Breton University where she developed the first university course in the world on sustainable happiness! Articles on sustainable happiness can be found at www.sustainablehappiness.ca. Catherine lives in Sydney, Nova Scotia with her husband, two teenage children, a dog, a cat, and a turtle.


Paul Tranter is Associate Professor in Geography in the University of New South Wales. He writes: "Creating resilient cities? It’s child’s play! Paul’s research in the areas of child-friendly environments, effective speed, road safety and sustainable transport, has led him to the realisation that if we can create environments where children can playfully and safely explore their neighbourhoods and cities, we will also be creating places that are happier, healthier and more livable for all city residents, both now and in the future."

Patrick Kinnersly describes himself as follows: "Patrick blames Mrs Thatcher for turning him into a transport activist. After two decades campaigning against the hazards of work he escaped to write a novel, but wherever he went one of her ‘roads to prosperity’ was heading for the place. In 1993 he helped form an alliance of local groups that dismantled government plans for a ‘superhighway’ between the M27 and the M4. They had to do it again as local councils revived dead schemes for their own ‘strategic corridors’. It took ten years and a fortune in professional fees to make ministers reject the last of these ‘undead’ roads. Such victories are rare. Expanding roads, runways and ports still dominates transport policy - and the lives of objectors with better things to do. But the folly is so obvious it may not need a novel to expose it!"


John Whitelegg is visiting Professor of Sustainable Transport at Liverpool John Moores University and Professor of Sustainable Development at University of York's Stockholm Environment Institute, and is founder and editor of the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice. John is a local councillor in Lancaster, and Leader of the North West (of England) Green Party.

--> Read on:

Musing: Chopin, sustainable transport and sustainable lives

All of us who show up here, well most of us anyway, have come to understand that we can't simply cut matters of "transport" with one snip away from the rest of the fabric of our daily lives. Which is why we continually keep repeating phrases like "sustainable cities and sustainable lives" (perhaps much to your annoyance, eh?). Which brings us on this early and cold Sunday morning in Paris to the perhaps surprising link between World Streets and Frédéric Chopin. That's right, Frédéric Chopin.

------------------------------------
Is this too much of a weekend stretch? You tell me.

For starters, Chopin and World Streets were born on the same day but one, March 1st for the great composer, March 2nd for your favorite (and the planet's only) sustainable transport daily. One day and one hundred ninety nine years, that is.

Still too much of a stretch? Admitted. So let's try this. But first, let me invite you to listen to this Nocturne (Opus 15, No. 1, in F) while I give this my last late Sunday morning try.



Chopin reminds us -- you can hear it right here, can't you? -- of the importance of quiet and reflection in our daily lives. Quiet and reflection yes but with plenty of ideas, drive and passion -- not at all a "sit back and wait for it to happen to you" life.

Here in this spirit are three quiet and to me really quite thrilling moments in the life of sustainable ways of getting around (which of course and exactly is why we are all here and what I want for you and all our children).

- On any day in any city in the world, being able to walk quietly and safely on an ordinary street holding the hand of someone you love

- On a visit to Ludwigsburg in southern Germany, on a chilly autumn afternoon as school is just getting out, hearing a distant flutter of almost bird like noises which soon materialize into a gaggle of chaotically peddling schoolchildren, girls and boys, large and small, chatting and laughing as they safely and joyfully make their way home on a reserved bike path. (Shouldn't those be your children?)

- Warmly ensconced in a seat on a clean train getting where we wish to go while comfortably reading a big fat book as the wheels turn beneath us.

Then, and finally for this end of a long week musing, there is the concept of shared space, so important to the composer, writer, painter, playwright and film maker – the vital shared space they seek and create by means of our eyes, ears and minds. No one can listen to Chopin, or Chekov or Molière or or . . . without being drawn into the special space they first create and then draw us in.

We now know this. This concept of shared space is critical for us as well. It's an indisputable fact. There can be no sustainable development, no sustainable cities, nor real well-being for all without deeper and wiser sharing. We have a lot to learn about this.

Yes, the young Pole was telling us something very important, so we really need to listen and learn. And then do.

--> Read on:

US Report Shows How Safe Routes to School Initiatives Protect Children Walking and Bicycling

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership in the United States has just released a new report showing how Safe Routes to School programs can be harnessed to keep children safe from traffic dangers while walking and bicycling to school. The report explores the approaches five different communities used to create safer environments for children walking and bicycling. The lessons are universal.

The five communities (Santa Rosa, CA; Miami-Dade County, FL; state of ME; Springfield, MO; and Portland, OR) each demonstrate how Safe Routes to School evaluation, education, encouragement, enforcement, and engineering can address traffic safety concerns. Many of these safety improvements are made at relatively low costs to communities and schools, yet have profound effects on keeping children safe while also improving physical health and the environment.

The report demonstrates there are many different approaches to improving safety for children walking and bicycling:

• In Santa Rosa, CA, after children received pedestrian safety education, there was a 63 percent increase in children using the crosswalks to cross the street rather than crossing at unmarked locations.

• In Miami-Dade County, FL, since the launch of the WalkSafe™ child pedestrian safety program in 2001, there has been a 43 percent decrease in the total number of children ages 0-14 hit by cars.

• An analysis comparing bicycle crash rates in Maine for the eight years before their Bicycle Safety Education Program was implemented (1992 to 1999) with the first eight years the program has been offered (2000-2007) reveals a 51 percent drop in bicycle crashes for children aged 10-14.

• Springfield, MO has already demonstrated the impact special roadway signage can have on vehicle speeds. Data from their pilot showed that 85 percent of motorists reduced their speeds by three to five miles per hour without any increase in enforcement after speed limits were reduced from 30 mph to 25 mph.

• Infrastructure improvements in Portland, OR have been successful in helping decrease crashes, as well as the severity of the crashes. Total crashes decreased by nearly 25 percent and there was a 32 percent decline in pedestrian injuries from crashes.

Deb Hubsmith, Director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership noted, "The success stories in this report show the power and promise of Safe Routes to School to help communities all across the country to address safety risks and improve conditions for students walking and bicycling to school."

In 2007, an estimated 14,000 children ages 14 and under were injured as pedestrians, while more than 300 children were killed while walking. In 2008, an estimated 52,000 bicyclists were injured in motor vehicle crashes, and 21 percent of those bicyclists-nearly 11,000 children-were age 14 or younger. Children walking and bicycling to school represent 11 percent of injuries and fatalities during the school commute, but just 14 percent of trips and less than two percent of miles traveled.

Transportation for America also recently released a report, Dangerous by Design, identifying the dangers that pedestrians face in 360 metropolitan areas and focusing on solving the epidemic of preventable pedestrian deaths through active transportation. Safe Routes to School programs can provide tangible solutions to major traffic safety issues such as these, making it safer for children-and other residents-to walk and bicycle in their neighborhoods and to and from school.

Congress launched the federal Safe Routes to School program in 2005 through the federal transportation bill and provided $612 million for five years of state-level implementation of programs that build sidewalks, bike lanes, and pathways, while also providing funding for education, promotion, and law enforcement. Federal Safe Routes to School funds are educating children on safe bicycle and pedestrian practices, increasing traffic enforcement to improve adherence to traffic laws and speed limits, and making infrastructure improvements to create safe places for children to walk and bicycle.

The report can be viewed at www.saferoutespartnership.org.

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership, hosted by the non-profit Bikes Belong Foundation, is a network of more than 400 nonprofit organizations, government agencies, schools, and professionals working together to advance the Safe Routes to School movement in the United States. The Partnership focuses on building partnerships, changing policies, advancing legislation, and improving the built environment.

--> Read on:

Bogotá's Ghost Bike

Nicole Cañón, a 10-year old student on her bike ride to school, was run over by a bus and, when thrown to the street, was killed by a taxi. As if this were not enough, both drivers of bus and taxi escaped, leaving the child on her deathbed with no one to take responsibility.

Ghost bike ceremonies as memorials and calls for action

By Carlos Felipe Pardo, ITDP country director, Colombia

As of last Friday, Bogotá now has its own 9-11 to remember. Though it is of much smaller scale, it is equally tragic. Nicole Cañón, a 10-year old student on her bike ride to school, was run over by a public transport bus and, when thrown to the street, was killed by a taxi. As if this were not enough, both drivers of the bus and the taxi escaped, leaving Nicole on her deathbed with no one to take responsibility.

Later that day, the taxi driver was found, but due to legal technicalities, he was let go, provided that he would not leave the city. The police did not even revoke his driver’s license.

In response, we at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) took action. As has been done since 2003 in St Louis, we bought a used bicycle that resembled what a little girl would use, painted it all in white, and held a “ghost bike” ceremony at the crossing where Nicole had lost her life. More than 100 people came with flowers to commemorate her death, and a local advocacy group (Ciclopaseos de los Miércoles) kindly redirected their Sunday bike ride to arrive at the location of the accident as well. Local media were present to record the event.



Our message at the ceremony was not only specifically related to Nicole’s death, but also in general to confront the lack of effort by the city to continue promoting sustainable, and cycle and pedestrian friendly transport.

Contrary to what had been done by Bogotá’s former mayor Enrique Peñalosa during his 1998-2000 administration, Bogotá is currently giving in to motorized traffic, and policies are slowly regressing to the previous paradigm where the car is king and pedestrians second-class citizens.

We want to stop this trend and revive the policies of the Peñalosa administration. This is what we transmitted on that day: a city must have sufficient infrastructure for bicycles and pedestrians, no matter what the consequence to motorized traffic.

The big problem with implementing sustainable transport policies in many of the cities in the developing world is not that these policies are hard to implement, but that it is hard to show to traditional politicians how these policies are not only better for the city, but better for them and the entire world. Many of them remain in their cocoons, riding in their bulletproof cars and thinking that decisions in transportion should be made from the back seat blind to the realities out the window.

Neighbors of Nicole had asked for a proper pedestrian crossing for more than 10 years, and nobody had paid attention to them. We still have a long way to go, but at least we have inspiration from many places. Bogotá was one of them, and it must continue to be.



# # #

Carlos Felipe Pardo is a psychologist interested in transport. Mainly, any strategy that reduces the dependence to car use and improves access of all population to affordable transport modes. He is director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) in Colombia

--> Read on:

Transaid: Emergency Transport in Northern Nigeria

Transaid is an international development organisation that seeks to reduce poverty and improve lives in Africa through creating better transport. Here is a partnership transport project they are working on in Northern Nigeria.
-- Sustainable development and social justice? Think Africa! --

Transaid has been working as part of the PRRINN project in Northern Nigeria to help improve immunisation coverage for women and children in the states of Yobe, Jigawa, Katsina and Zamfara.

Transaid’s role has been to advise on appropriate management of the Ministry of Health’s transport to ensure adequate healthcare reaches those most in need. This project has now been expanded in three of the four states to cover all primary healthcare for mother’s, newborn babies and children (MNCH) extending the reach and impact of Transaid’s vital work.

The Problem
In this part of Northern Nigeria, less than 6% of children are fully immunised against life-threatening diseases and rates of newborn, maternal and child mortality are some of the highest in the world. Over 500,000 women die in pregnancy every year. A woman in sub-saharan Africa has a 1 in 13 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth, compared to a 1 in 4,000 risk in the industrialised world*.

The millennium development goals which have been put in place to reduce extreme poverty aim to reduce child mortality by two thirds, maternal mortality by three quarters and to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015. Efficient and effective transport has a key role to play in the delivery of health services and is a vital link to enabling these goals to be realised.
*Statistic taken from 'Maternal Mortality: Africa's Burden. A Toolkit on Gender, Transport and Maternal Mortality', vs4-04-2005

The Process
Transaid is providing technical assistance in relation to the transport elements of the project. Through the initial PRRINN project we have already begun to implement a transport management system to help improve health service delivery. We are also working with project partners and the government at state level to establish solutions to the problem of accessing health facilities in emergency pregnancy cases.

Plans are being developed for an emergency transport system to be put in place using members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers NURTW) to take patients for a small fee. This has already proven to be successful following a pilot in Jigawa state. We are also looking at the viability of other low-cost modes of transport such as the motorcycle and bicycle ambulance to improve access to emergency healthcare in hard to reach areas.

Partners
The PRRINN-MNCH consortium led by Health Partners International, Save the Children and Grid Consulting, the State Ministry of Health in Katsina, Yobe and Zamfara. (Jigawa state is not included in the MNCH project)

The Results
The overall aims of the whole project are to improve antenatal care for women and the number of births attended by skilled medical personnel. The project also aims to increase immunisation levels so that 60% of children under one year old are fully immunised by 2012, decreasing the number of cases of life-threatening illnesses such as measles. It is hoped that health centres will serve 50% more women and children through better functioning and rehabilitated systems (including transport). The increase in trained staff at health centres and hospitals will also ensure greater accountability and responsiveness to patients and a more joined up approach to management at all levels.

Impact
The new PRRINN-MNCH project will improve the quality and availability of all maternal and child health services including antenatal and postnatal care, safer deliveries, care for newborn and young children, better nutrition and increased routine immunisation. Using Transaid’s transport management system vehicles will also be better managed and scheduled, increasing vehicle availability for emergency pregnancy transfers.




More:
(If you want to know more about Transaid’s work in Nigeria please follow this link: http://www.transaid.org/projects/nigeria,-increasing-access-to-healthcare-for-mothers-and-children,-prrinn---mnch-update-%E2%80%93-april-2009

--> Read on:

Heads-up: "Bus schools in Delhi slums

"School buses are being converted to mobile classrooms for children in Delhi slums "
From: Sudhir Gota, CAI-Asia Center
Metro Manila, Philippines
Dear all,

I found this very interesting - "In pictures: Bus schools in Delhi slums" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8236636.stm

Do you know of any other city which uses "Public Transport facilities" as schools?

Co-benefits :-)

Sudhir Gota

Transport Specialist, CAI-Asia Center
Unit 3510, 35th Floor, Robinsons-Equitable Tower,
ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City
Metro Manila, Philippines 1605
Tel: +63-2-395-2843 Fax: +63-2-395-2846
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia
Skype : sudhirgota

--> Read on:

So you think you know how children travel to school?

Now I do not want to offend, but in all probability, what you think you know about travel to school could well be wrong. Equally some of the things you encourage people to do in the name of health and sustainability will not help and in some cases will make things worse!

- Andrew Combes reports from the Dorset County Council, UK

The School Travel Health Check

Some thoughts/facts to ponder:

• Soon (we may already be at this point) we will reach a position where the majority of the UK’s children do not attend their nearest school.

• We consistently over estimate the distances children will walk or cycle to school.

• We have no spatial approach to the delivery of education.

• A sticking plaster is no good for a severed arm – We are in danger of using up schools considerable enthusiasm for achieving change in this area by failing to have policy in place at the local, regional and national level that supports their efforts.

The good news:

• If you live close enough to your chosen school you will walk (Walking is and will always be the majority mode).

• If we ever manage to achieve ‘European standard’ cycle infrastructure (experience shows this to be unlikely – please prove me wrong!) we will see far more cycle trips.

• What parents really want is ‘A good school locally’. This equals sustainable travel and communities.

Why are we at this position?

• We have failed to make best use of the rich data sources available to us.

• We have been handed a politically sensitive task which we have ducked; At the Local Authority level the notion of ‘Challenge and Support’ has quite a way to go!

• We struggle to work across borders.

• By placing the emphasis for change on schools we miss our strategic responsibility.

• Put another way we are still blaming lazy mums in their 4 by 4’s and expecting children to walk far greater distances than they ever will be able to.

How do we move forward?

1. Use your data well– The School Travel Health Check (used by 21 authorities to date) has recently been recognized as best practice by the Sustainable Development Commission and used as a case study within their publication ‘Towards a Schools Carbon Management Plan’ (June 09).

Put simply it works at all levels from school to central govt. But beware; it does not shy away from the Challenge and Support that is essential if we are to achieve real lasting change – some are scared of this (pretty sad really as we are only holding up a mirror to show what is going on).
NOTE: Please do contribute to the current DCSF ‘A carbon management strategy for schools ‘consultation that this document supports! http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/

2. Build on this foundation to put in place the strategic policy chain that can deliver sustainability

3. Pester your Local Authority to get involved in the School Travel Health Check – Yes it costs money; yes the private sector is feared and yes theoretically this work could be done in house. BUT, having spent most of my working life in Local Government I know what works and what does not... You will have to trust me on this

I still don’t know what a School Travel Health Check is?

1. Sorry far too much to fit in to this article and sorry no time to develop a dedicated website:

2. But do check out the resources in out InfoMapper ViewFinder under Safer Routes to School: www.viewfinder.infomapper.com/dorset/resources

3. School Census spreadsheets folder – Look at ‘Quick Guide 1’. Then take a look at the various spreadsheets.

4. School Travel Health Check folder – Examples of output going back in to schools.

5. Feel free to take a look in the other folders – we are making a start on delivering a spatial approach to the delivery of education.

Interested / Still confused? = Call me.
I work from home, which is great (Thanks Dorset CC!) and our dog loves the company, but it is nice to talk to a human from time to time! +44 1823 432946. a.combes@dorsetcc.gov.uk

# # #

Andrew Combes, andrew@combes1.plus.com
Dorset County Council
County Hall, Dorchester
Dorset DT1 1XJ United Kingdom

--> Read on:

Twenty is plenty

A pedestrian hit by a car at 40 mph has a 95% chance of being killed, at 30 mph this becomes 50% and at 20 mph it becomes 5%.

- Dr. Stephen J. Watkins, from the National Health Service, UK

Speed contributes to causing accidents and it also increases their severity.

A pedestrian hit by a car at 40 mph has a 95% chance of being killed, at 30 mph this becomes 50% and at 20 mph it becomes 5%.

Most child pedestrian road deaths would be averted if people drove at 20mph in side streets. As few places are more than a mile from a main road, few journeys involve more than two miles on side roads (a mile at each end). The difference between driving two miles at 20mph and at 40mph is 3 minutes.

We are killing our children to save less than three minutes on our journeys.

In residential side roads 20 is plenty.

To enforce this policy we need

• A 20mph speed limit in residential side streets

• A recognition that motorists are solely responsible for the injuries that occur in accidents in residential side streets to the extent that they exceed those that might have been expected at 20mph. The concept of contributory negligence by pedestrians should apply only to injuries that would have been likely to have occurred anyway at 20mph. Any excess over that should be the motorist’s fault.

• Ideally we need to reshape streets so that they are used primarily for community use and the vehicle is a guest.

The Dutch concept of the “Woonerf” (living street) (often called Home Zones in the UK, although the Woonerf is more radical than many Home Zones) divides up the street for community use. Car parking spaces are provided, usually in nose to kerb car parking places so that the parked cars add to the obstacles to traffic. Space is allocated to gardens, trees, communal meeting space and play areas. The carriageway becomes simply the gap between obstacles and is usually arranged in chicanes to slow traffic down.

This concept has other advantages as well as slowing traffic down. It increases community networking and social support (the Appleyard & LIntell study in San Francisco, recently replicated in the UK, has shown that people know more of their neighbours in lightly-trafficked streets). It improves environments. It creates usable greenspace. It increases the aesthetic attractiveness of the street so as to encourage walking.

Dr. Stephen J. Watkins,
Stockport Primary Care Trust
National Health Service, Stockport, UK

--> Read on:

A family of small mice needs some help (Graphic/design)

Today we want to tell you about a children's book on our subject, and beyond that to see if any of you out there might be interested in lending a hand so that we can create a handsome electronic version, and possibly in other languages.

- Alvin reports from Paris.

The Mouse Family (that's Alvin, the poor harassed father there - - >) needs a little professional help.

Behind the mice:
Back in 1992, Year IV of the New Mobility Agenda, we had the idea that we should be doing more with children, not only to teach them (what do we really have to teach?) but rather to engage them with a first small step. They are, after all, our future.

After talking this over with a couple of my colleagues (Wolfgang Zuckermann, who became our poet, and Roget Tweed, our artist) several things ensued, of which one that enjoyed a certain success at the time was the joint creation of the first children's book in a series, entitled "Family Mouse Behind the Wheel".



The mouse story in brief:
It is a story about a family of mice who live in a tranquil setting and who one day receive an invitation from their grandmother in a distant city. After intense family discussion they finally decide that it is time for them at last to buy a car. This sets off a chain reaction in which not only today but all of the other animals in the bars have the same good idea. Guess what happens as a result? Well for that are going to have to read them in mouse behind the wheel.

Family Mouse had a double life actually which is kind of interesting in our present context, both as a children's book and also as part of a small children's school program which we developed at the time in which subsequently a number of others have taken on an improved. Collaboration across ages, over distances and over time.

How can you get a copy?
Printed in 1992 and after two editions, FM is now out of print, but if you go to www.Amazon.com you can order your own copy, use, or a round $189.38, ex shipping. A steal!

Alternatively and perhaps more to your taste, a small bookstore in Avignon can sell you one of the remaining two hundred copies of the original hard back edition for € 8.40 or $11.00, plus postage. An email to Shakespeareavignon@hotmail.com should secure you a copy for less than $189,38.

The help wanted section:
We now would like to create a handsome electronic edition as a gift to our subscribers and worldwide distribution, and what we have to work with is a high quality PDF file. However it needs a bit of artistic touching up, and that perhaps is where you can lend a hand.

Get in touch via editor@worldstreets.org or Skype newmobility and let's talk about it.

Other language editions.
Enrico Bonfatti, editor of our great sister publication Nuova Mobilità in Italy, has some time ago prepared an Italian language introduction which is good to have, but why don't we get together to provide handsome translations in other languages? Again, if you wish to talk it over, you know how to get in touch.

What's the moral of this small story?
I would suggest there are two. First the one that appears on the last lines of the last page of the little book: "Here's what we learned from this affair. To trees be kind – of cars beware!"

The second has to do with the importance of continuity, something which has, sadly, not been a consistent strong suit of the sustainable transport process in most places. Many projects and programs have been launched over these past two decades with noble goals and here and there some very interesting achievements. But all too often the very institutions that encouraged, facilitated and supported them at one fixed contractual point slam the window and the program simply disappears. To be replaced most often by another one that is probably doomed to repeat the same cycle. This is surely not the way to a sustainable planet. We need to become better, more creative managers of our scarce resources.

So here we are with this little book, not all that far from two decades after the idea was first born and pen first put to paper -- and don't you agree that it's not a bad idea to be thinking how it might still be put to work for our great cause? It's not as if we have learned all that much over these years.

But think about this. If you read Family Mouse in 1992 and got it, well today you are an adult, a citizen, perhaps a professional and a parent. And there is still work to be done.

So off we go for another round with the mouse family, in many more places, probably in many more languages. Thousands of small lessons. And the hope that the children who read it today will do better than we are managing to do.

--> Read on:

Walking to School - Italian style

"Piedibus" -- "Walking Bus" in Italian -- is the first article posted from our newly-born sister publication, Nuova Mobilità. And to open up our minds to the big and varied world out there, here it is in the original Italian -- with a convenient one click link to a workable if not perfect machine translation into English. If you want to know, you will know. Buon appetito.

- Enrico Bonfatti reporting from Bergamo, Italy

* Click here to read the Italian original. (In own window)

* Here for the rough English machine translation:

* And here for our article of 22 July introducing and explaining plans for the Nuova Mobilità sustainable transport daily in Italy.

Editor's note:

This is the category -- children, schools -- which is very important as a new mobility tool on a number of grounds and is therefore one to which we shall be getting considerable attention in the months and years ahead.

This first posting on Piedibus in Italy will shortly be followed by reports from "Walk to School", "Safe Routes to School" and similar national programs in Europe and North America, and, to the extent to which we can find them, in other parts of the world as well.

It is truly impossible to get too much of this great idea. So thank you Enrico Bonfatti from Nuova Mobilità and to you Massimo Vassallo from Piedibus were taking be time and trouble to report to us on these developments in Italy.

Some handy international references:

* International Walk to School program- www.iwalktoschool.org/
* UK "Walk to School" initiative -- www.walktoschool.org.uk/
* International Walk to School in the USA -- www.walktoschool-usa.org/
* Safe Routes to School - http://www.activetrans.org/walkandroll
* Safe Routes to School (Canada) - http://www.saferoutestoschool.ca/
* Feet First Walk to School (New Zealand) - http://www.feetfirst.govt.nz/
* To search all our Key Links & Sources for related sites - here

--> Read on:

Profiles: One Small Step (Ireland)

One Small Step – Social Marketing for Travel Behavior Change

Last year a Journey Logger was developed here in Dublin for use by schools, the general public and/or Partner Organizations wishing to incentivize sustainable employee travel . The Logger is an online diary where registered users can log their sustainable trips. Points are collected for sustainable travel, and users are updated on their personal fuel and carbon savings.

One Small Step is a travel awareness program, which is made up of five complementary strands:

• Public awareness campaign and website
• Workplace travel plans, with some of the largest employers in the Irish State signing up as Partner Organizations (about 45,000 people as of February 2009);
• Pilot residential travel plan in a new strategic development zone
• Developing new mobility management guidelines, in partnership with Dublin City Council;
• Supporting the national Green-Schools Travel program

Purpose and Objectives

Changing behavior is far more complex than choosing one brand over another. The Journey Logger is based on the principles of Community Based Social Marketing, which focuses on the steps necessary to achieve behavior change, as well as raising awareness and changing attitudes.

1. Secure a commitment:
Users are asked to make a pledge to reduce their drive alone trips during registration.

2. Provide for incentives:
• Public users are automatically entered into draws for regular prizes
• Companies can set their own incentives for staff – for example, employees with >250 journeys gets a ½ day extra holidays.

3. Prompt people in a positive manner to think about their travel habits on an on-going basis.
Users are sent a regular reminder email inviting them to log their trips. The calendar forms a visual record of their actions, and helps them identify themselves as ‘sustainable’ travelers.

4. Communicate in a vivid, personal and concrete fashion
Each user can see their personal accumulated carbon offsets, their calories burned and their fuel savings. They can also see the combined results of all users.

5. Remove barriers by making it easier to remember what to do and how to do it.
The calendar form is very user-friendly designed to stimulate habitual sustainable travel.

Findings –

The Journey Logger went ‘live’ in February 2009, and several companies have already registered interest. A similar product in Australia registered a 20% drop in car use amongst participating staff.

Conclusions and Policy implications
This is a “catch-all” tool for general public awareness campaigns, as well as school and workplace travel planning. It is particularly useful in workplace, where employee travel can be monitored and rewarded, and companies can report on CO2 saved, increased staff activity levels and cost savings.

To know more about One Small Step:

* www.onesmallstep.ie (8 page guidelines for your travel plans)
* www.greenschoolsireland.org

Contact:
Arlene Finn, arlene.finn@dto.ie
Dublin Transportation Office. www.dto.ie
Dublin Ireland

--> Read on:

Profiles: Shared Space Institute (Netherlands)

Sharing Knowledge on Shared Space

- Sabine Lutz, Shared Space Institute, Drachten the Netherlands

On June 23 a stunning article was posted on World Streets, by Paul Barter, of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the University of Singapore. He refers to experiments with shared space or ‘naked streets’ which have drawn considerable public attention in recent years. Indeed they have. From 2004 – 2008 seven European partners from five countries have been sharing knowledge on Shared Space.

It takes shared space to create shared understanding

In the Netherlands, since February 2009 the Shared Space Institute is operational, as one of the project’s tangible results. On June 10th 2009 the Institute had its official opening. The institute is dedicated to further exploring and applying the Shared Space principles. What do they teach us about the ins and outs of successful public spaces, and what changes need to be made to maintain them? And perhaps even more important: what does the Shared Space concept teach us about wealth and health of the people living there?

What does ‘Shared Space’ mean, and why do we think it’s needed?

Over the past decades, traffic objectives and traffic legislation have determined the way in which public spaces were designed. This was meant to improve traffic flows and traffic safety. But it was at the cost of the quality of the public spaces and the living environment of people. And it was also at the cost of the personal conduct in public, and the professional capacities of those who are responsible for public spaces.

In contrast to current practice, Shared Space strives to combine rather than separate the various functions of public spaces. By doing so, the quality of public spaces will be improved, and responsible behaviour will be evoked. So, when designing spaces, Shared Space relies on information from the surroundings to guide road users' conduct, instead of forcing them to strictly obey to traffic rules and signs. When there is a primary school, we don’t want to hide it behind fences and sign posts. Instead, we extend the school yard out into the street. We think that car drivers are not stupid. If they can see children playing in the streets, they will reduce speed and drive as careful they possibly could.

We need space for traffic and space for people

Of course, this does not mean that rules will be entirely superfluous. Without rules of the road, some well meaning drivers would drive slowly, others would drive quickly, believing correctly that they were doing so safely, and still others would drive quickly but not as safe as they thought they were. Therefore, Shared Space makes a clear distinction between traffic areas and those spaces, which should serve as people space and thus must invite to behave socially. In his article from Tuesday, June 23, 2009 on http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/, Paul Barter very clearly pointed out the characteristics of these areas.

Both of them, roads and motor ways on the one hand and streets on the other, are depending on one another. Only if there is a suitable network for fast traffic, we can design all the other public space for the purposes it’s meant for: all those surprising and interesting things people want to share with each other.

We need to change our minds

But that’s not all. We learned that Shared Space does not only change our thinking about how to handle traffic and how to design our roads and public spaces. It also points out how to tackle the overwhelming power of rules and legislation in politics and in our daily lives. Shared Space gave way to the search for new ways to achieve key improvements in the interrelated areas of road safety, spatial quality, economic prosperity, governance, community capacity and confidence. It stimulates the capacity of communities to be more creative in the way they tackle a broad range of issues. And it also assists politicians, decision-makers, city staff and citizens to 'think outside the box' when looking for ways to address public issues.

Who is working at Shared Space Institute?

We are ten professionals in the Netherlands, experienced in various working fields, such as traffic engineers, urban planning, psychology, process management and geography. We are and connected to a worldwide network of researchers, practitioners and citizens. We all share the mission to develop a new way of thinking about public domains.

However, the quality of public space is not a goal in itself. We think it’s important to create ‘people spaces’, places where people can meet, engage and communicate. Space only has quality if it contributes to the quality of life. So, public space is about people and their living environment. And it is also about the quality and justice of society. As a consequence, society itself should be organised in a way that people can act as responsible members of that society.


Shared Research Program

Shared Space Institute is an international knowledge institute, dedicated to knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and knowledge implementation in the field of Shared Space. It is our starting point that public space is the heart of society. Through its quality, public space supports people in their humaneness.

Research and knowledge creation on these aspects are at the heart of our activities. Our approach is integral and cross-sector. This means that:

• research should always be carried out in partnerships with stakeholders in society, to make sure that it is based on the demands of society
• various disciplines should participate and that research should always be related to every day practice in the working fields
• our aim is not to gather theoretical information. Research never should be an aim on itself. If we say ‘research’, we always start from concrete projects
• these projects deliver research questions to be answered. The answers on their turn deliver knowledge to be applied in the projects.

Please find more background information about the Shared Space Institute’s research activities on: http://www.sharedspace.eu/en/activities/research

Needless to say, that our staff is ready to support authorities, professionals and interest groups in development and innovation processes. You’re always welcome for a lecture or a field trip to interesting Shared Space locations. For more details about Shared Space – schemes in the Netherlands please refer to http://www.sharedspace.eu/en/activities/projects.

Next steps?

At the moment, we are busy on working out the Shared Space – research program. Our main research question is centered at the cross roads of the knowledge domains as illustrated in the figure on the right. How are these domains connected to each other, and how do they influence each other? If you improve one of them, what changes does it cause to the others?

Of course, our research will further plunge into projects addressing safety issues, solving community severance, tackling congestion and enhancing economic vitality in streets and public spaces. Our main interest is at developing innovative approaches to the process of planning, designing and decision-making towards new structures for municipal organization and public engagement.

European collaboration

Perhaps interesting to mention: we would like to apply for European funding to build a partnership in the North Sea Region countries working on new strategies towards balancing rules and ethics to facilitate healthy social and economic organisms. We believe new alliances of public and private stakeholders can provide a better quality of life through a new sense of civility.

Our central result will be to deliver a proved strategy which allows to delegate responsibilities to where they belong. Partners will demonstrate this through sharing management and governance, and forming new alliances between authorities, agencies, networks and individuals. Our target groups are: public authorities, business clusters, research institutes, universities, public support agencies in urban and rural areas, and citizens' organisations. All those who are interested to join the partnership are invited to contact us.

To know more:
Shared Space Institute
Lavendelheide 21 NL 9202 PD Drachten
Sabine Lutz - s.lutz @sharedspace.eu
P: +31 88 0200 475 M: +31 6 83 20 90 78

-----
Editor's note:
Remember this? - The unexpected interview in Groningen: Homage to Hans Monderman

* Click here for 90 second video

--> Read on:

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 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.

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.
- - -

* View World Streets policy on Fair Use:

Notice from the NYT: "This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now."

--> Read on: