Biodiversity is down

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One more reason

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Op-Ed: Where Does SLoCaT Stand in Realizing Sustainable Transport?

Three years ago the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) was established to address the relative absence of sustainable transport in the global discussions on sustainable development and climate change. Rapid motorization in the developing world and its negative impacts motivated the organizations that came together in SLoCaT. There was agreement that SLoCaT should initially have a mandate for three years only and that by the end of 2012 a decision would be made whether to call it a day or to go on, possibly, with a revised mission. Those three years have gone by. So where is SLoCaT now and what is next; declare victory and move on, admit defeat and move on, or stay in the fight?

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Op-Ed: Do you know your ecological footprint?

Toward the end of each year, I take a few minutes to run my personal Ecological Footprint scan to see if I can get a handle on how I am doing relative to myself, to others and to the planet. Seems like the least I can do, not less because it does oblige me to think about my life pattern and choices in the greater scheme of things. "Walk the talk", etc., etc. (PS. On a more global basis, to get a feel for where the high scores hang out, this map of earth lights at night will provide you with some good clues.)

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Climate of Denial: Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison?

From the New York Times, 22 June 2011: "Former Vice President Al Gore sharply criticized President Obama as lacking leadership on climate changein a magazine essay published online Wednesday, saying his policies had been little more effective than those of President George W. Bush. In the 7,000-word article in Rolling Stone, Mr. Gore said . . . "

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The World - the Climate – the Strategy. Come argue with me.

Part I: Ten steps to get the job done:
Let me sketch out an easy to understand (or reject) climate/transport foundation strategy that presents some stark contrasts with the ideas and approaches that are getting the bulk of attention when it comes to targeting, policy and investment in the sector -- and which in a first instance is quite likely to earn me more enemies than friends (that goes with the territory). At least until such time that these basic underlying ideas are expressed in a manner which is sufficiently clear and convincing that we can with confidence put them to work to turn the tide. So here you have my first brief statement of the issues, the basic strategic frame and the key pressure points to which I invite your critical reactions and comments. In a second piece in this series, to follow shortly, I intend to have a look at the package(s) of measures, policies, tools, modes, etc. which can be sorted out, combined and refined to do something about it. Or maybe not.

- Eric Britton, Editor

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India Steers Full Speed towards Low Carbon Transport

We do not normally carry media releases on projects, programs, reports or books, but today we make an exception and are gladly posting the following important announcement. We share this both here, in India Streets and on the Sustran Global South forum for comment and discussion. It is our firm intention to keep an independent eye on this potentially promising program, and our firm hope that the money spent and technical resources brought to the job will result above all in multiplying the number of many and diverse on-street examples of how sustainable mobility works in the interest of the entire population -- and not just the privileged (automotive and relatively affluent) few. As William Blake put it roughly two centuries ago: “He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars." We pledge keep as eye on the minute particulars, in the hope that we are going to see examples of policies and practices not only for India but for the world.

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Kaohsiung 2010 Papers. Sharing/Strategy for a Small Planet. Part I

After many decades of a single dominant city-shaping transportation pattern - i.e., for those who could afford it: owning and driving our own cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles, getting into taxis by ourselves, riding in streets that are designed for cars and not much else -- there is considerable evidence accumulating that we have already entered into a world of new mobility practices that are changing the transportation and city landscape in many ways. It has to do with sharing, as opposed to outright ownership. But strange to say, this trend seems to have escaped the attention of the policymakers in many of the institutions directly concerned.

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Kaohsiung 2010 Papers: Thoughts on Share/Transport from Chengdu, China

This essay has been contributed by one of the 2010 Jason Chang International Fellows, Jane Voodikon, who introduces herself as follows: "Since my interest in transportation and planning is purely personal - I have no professional background in any transportation-related field - I hope to walk away from Kaohsiung 2010 with a more informed picture of transportation possibilities and the goals and objectives related sectors should be working toward." - Jane Voodikon, Concerned person and editor. Los Angeles and Chengdu, China.

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World Transport Policy & Practice - Vol. 16, No. 2

The Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice is the long standing idea and print partner of World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda. The summer 2010 edition appears today, and in the article that follows you will find the lead editorial by founding editor John Whitelegg, along with abstracts of the principal contributions. (For a more complete introduction to WTPP click here.)

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"Time to count the spoons": Alan Atkinson on sustainabilty back-peddling

Dr. Samuel Johnson reminded us some time back that "When a man proclaims his honor loudly at the table, it's time to count the spoons". Which is what our guest editorials Alan Atkisson is going for us today as he comments on loudly proclaimed sustainability initiatives from Europe and America. Oops. Something appears to be missing here.

Sustainability under assault

Reading the news has not been easy for champions of sustainability in recent weeks, at least in the Western World. That means the news has not been kind to the interests of future generations, to new economic thinking, to accelerated innovation, to long-term prosperity, or to life on Earth, for that matter. It almost feels as though sustainability itself is under assault, at least from some national governments -- just when its value in economic terms has been solidly established, and the need for it in environmental and social terms has risen dramatically.

Let's review the situation.

First, the new UK government axed the Sustainable Development Commission (www.sd-comission.org.uk). This Commission, led by Jonathan Porritt, has been an extraordinary source of innovative thinking and clear-sighted critique for the past decade. Its impact on the UK has been very important ... but its impact has also been global. And as a "cost-cutting" measure, it's wrong-headed.

The Commission was costing the UK government roughly 3 million pounds per year, but by following (some of) its advice on energy conservation and the like, the UK government was already saving many times that amount -- and could have saved a lot more.

Outside the UK, the Commission's reports helped to advance and even to reframe the debate on sustainability -- especially Commissioner Tim Jackson's landmark report, "Prosperity without Growth" (now a book, published by Earthscan. Hint: Download the original report free while the Commission's website is still working. Click here >> )

Across the pond in the United States of America, energy and climate change legislation died in the Senate -- despite the fact that a supposedly pro-climate-action majority of 60 Democrats sits there. Barring a political miracle, the Senate may have wasted the best historical opportunity to get something serious into US law, and it has at least wasted precious time.

Crossing the Atlantic again, France has earned positive headlines for its recent legislative commitment to sustainability, both its new "Grenelle" package of laws, and its recently released national strategy on "développement durable" (interestingly, many languages use a word meaning "durable" or "enduring" in place of "sustainable").

But at the same time, my colleagues in France tell me that actual money for sustainability programs has been drastically cut; and according to the French papers, the new national strategy lacks "any detail ... on how the necessary investments for the realization of its objectives are to be financed." (Les Echos, 27 July 2010)

Meanwhile, the news on the state of the planet has not been heart-warming, either. A recent global report on biodiversity carries the scary title "Dead Planet, Living Planet" -- a glass-half-empty message if ever there was one. Ironically, we are losing to fight to retain biodiversity, even as we get better at figuring out how much life on Earth is actually worth to us in cold, hard cash -- somewhere between 21 and 72 trillion dollars per year, according to the United Nations Environment Program's new report on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. That's roughly equivalent to the entire annual Gross World Product ($58 trillion in 2008).

Meanwhile (again), a new NOAA report is out on climate change, and US and UK scientists are using words like "undeniable" and "glaringly obvious." Even Russia's President Medvedev is talking like a climate activist these days, as his country swelters in record-breaking heatwaves.

So ... what's a sustainability optimist to do, in the face of such pessimistic news?

Veteran planet-watcher Lester Brown, lecturing in Stockholm, was asked how he maintained optimism in the face of the gathering gloominess. "I get that question a lot, and I have a one-word answer," he joked. "Bourbon."

Lester's real answer, of course (both at that lecture, and as evidenced by his own years of extraordinary work), is not alcohol -- it's action.

And not just any action: strategic action, designed to create the most powerful impacts possible, in the shortest amount of time.

Because that's what we're all working for, and that's what the world needs.

Now more than ever.

# # #

About the author:

Alan AtKisson began professional work on sustainability in 1988, serving as executive editor of the pioneering journal In Context: A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture. In 1990, he and other colleagues co-founded the Sustainable Seattle initiative, later recognized by the United Nations as a model project in urban sustainability and indicator development. Also in 1990, Alan began to introduce the concept of "sustainability change agents" through workhops and lectures, and to develop the tools and methods that are now called the ISIS Accelerator and used world wide. In 1992, Alan began consulting on sustainability and founded the small business that has grown into the AtKisson Group. - www.atkisson.com

A few closing words from Alan on their current work in this area:

At the moment, my publisher Earthscan and I are planning the re-launch of two of my books in new versions. Both of them are about what it takes to be optimistic and to continue making positive, strategic, accelerated change for sustainability -- no matter what the odds.

So be on the lookout this November for the new Believing Cassandra: How to be an Optimist in a Pessimist's World(you can already pre-order the fully updated new edition). Also, my second book, The ISIS Agreement, will appear in paperback then with a new introduction, cover ... and even a new title. I'll keep the (very optimistic) new title for the ISIS book secret for now ... but the new subtitle should give you a taste of it: "How to Make Positive Change in Difficult Times."

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"Time to count the spoons". Alan Atkinson on sustainabilety back-peddling

Dr. Samuel Johnson reminded us some time back that "When a man proclaims his honor loudly at the table, it's time to count the spoons". Which is what Alan AtKisson has to offer on the subject of back-peddling as he comments on loudly proclaimed sustainability initiatives from Europe and America.

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Transport and the lock-in problem

Politicians are reluctant to confront the economic and environmental costs of transport. The task: to reduce the demand for mobility. I probably don't write about transport as much as I ought to, and that was brought home to me at an event on The Future of Transport in Leuven in Belgium, at which I was also a speaker. There's a case for regarding transport as a climate emergency, given that it accounts for about a quarter of Europe's carbon emissions, and that in the last decade (unlike pretty much every other sector) emissions from transport have continued to grow sharply. And before I continue, even if you’re a climate sceptic, this represents a significant policy issue: the transport sector (at least, the non-human powered transport sector) is 97% dependent on fossil fuels. As these become scarcer, more expensive, and more prone to interruption, we will have an incipient social and economic problem which is serious enough to prod policy makers.  … Read More

via thenextwave

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Transport and the lock-in problem

Politicians are reluctant to confront the economic and environmental costs of transport. The task: to reduce the demand for mobility. I probably don't write about transport as much as I ought to, and that was brought home to me at an event on The Future of Transport in Leuven in Belgium, at which I was also a speaker. There's a case for regarding transport as a climate emergency, given that it accounts for about a quarter of Europe's carbon emissions, and that in the last decade (unlike pretty much every other sector) emissions from transport have continued to grow sharply.

And before I continue, even if you’re a climate sceptic, this represents a significant policy issue: the transport sector (at least, the non-human powered transport sector) is 97% dependent on fossil fuels. As these become scarcer, more expensive, and more prone to interruption, we will have an incipient social and economic problem which is serious enough to prod policy makers. … Read full text of article

via thenextwave

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Brazilians observe how Germans are creating Low Emission Zones in cities

When it comes to the performance and quality of our streets in cities around the world, the simple truth is that for now at least we are stuck with far more losers than winners. But that is only part of the story; and one of the tasks of World is to keep a weather eye out for projects and programs, tools and policies which open up the possibility of creating better streets and better cities. Here for example you have a conversation between a Brazilian environmentalist and a German scientist running a pioneering program for a low emisssions zone which is up and running in Berlin.

Interview with Martin Lutz, Director, Low Emission program of the Berlin Senate
- By Lincoln Paiva , Green Mobility Brazil
(With kind thanks to the author for translating from the Portuguese original text which first appeared this week in http://mobilidadesustentavel.blog.uol.com.br/.)

This week I talked with Mr. Martin Lutz, Responsible for the Department of Health, environment and quality of Air Berlin's Senate. He told me how Berlin instituted the LEZ (Low Emission Zone) in 2005, with the goal of reducing the emission of toxic gases emitted by vehicles, also spoke about the difficulties in convincing companies of logistics, small businessmen and the population which used highly polluting vehicles in areas of high concentration of toxic gas vehicle. Mr Lutz was directly responsible for the Deployment of Low Emission Zones in Berlin. Germany has implemented the most stringent policies regarding the vehicular emissions of harmful gases in Germany, he tells us how the LEZ has been reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the population's health.

Lincoln Paiva: What were the main barriers to the successful deployment of an LEZ (Low Emission Zones) in Berlin?

Martin Lutz: A number of preparatory steps had to be taken before putting the low emission zone (LEZ) into practice. As the LEZ is a selective traffic ban for the most polluting vehicles, a vehicle identification scheme was needed as a precondition for practical enforcement. According to our legislative framework, the Federal Government was in charge to come up with a respective regulation for a nationwide concept, which paved the way for implementing LEZ also in other German cities, if necessary. Contrary to the technically sophisticated approach in London and Stockholm with a CCTV--based automatic number recognition system, the German scheme is based on a simple sticker system for the window screen, which illustrates the emission category of each vehicle willing to enter the LEZ.

In addition, a market for retrofit kits for diesel particulate filter (DPF) needed to be built up, so that most of the diesel vehicles affected by the traffic ban could be upgraded by retrofitting them with a particle trap.

In order to allow vehicle owners to adapt to the emission criteria of the LEZ, for example by retrofitting or replacing their vehicle stock, a 2 1/2 year transition period was granted between the adoption of the scheme in August 2005 and its launch in January 2008. In addition, a more stringent stage 2 came into force in January 2010 with the Euro 4 emission standard as the basic criterion for all diesel vehicles, including light and heavy goods vehicles. Older diesel vehicles can be upgraded to that standards by a retrofit with a DPF.

More information on Berlin's LEZ and the vehicle labelling scheme can be found on our website http://www.berlin.de/sen/umwelt/luftqualitaet/en/luftreinhalteplan/umweltzone_allgemeines.shtml. The site www.lowemissionzones.eu provides an overview on all LEZ planned or in force in Europe.

LP: Public attitudes toward the program?

Martin Lutz: While drawing up Berlin's clean air plan, which stipulates several measures including the LEZ, the concept went through a public consultation process, in order to gain support of the Berlin's citizens for the plan and for the LEZ in particular. Due to the long transition period and additional funding granted by the national government to those retrofitting their diesel car with a DPF the low emission zones was generally accepted by the urban population. However, resistance by truckers and business associations was also voiced, pointing to the economic burden because of the investment in new vehicles or in retrofitting emerging from the introduction of the LEZ. These concerns were accommodated by drawing up a set of rules under which individual temporary exemptions from the traffic ban could be granted to vehicle operators who can prove that they would run into severe economic problems because of the LEZ.

LP: What were the results? Was there a reduction of traffic?

Martin Lutz: After two years since the start of the Low Emission Zone in Berlin its success can be clearly seen in terms of an accelerated shift towards cleaner vehicles, reduced pollutant emissions and better air quality. While traffic flows have not changed due to the LEZ, the turnover of the vehicle fleet towards more cleaner vehicles has speeded up considerably, resulting in the first year of its introduction in 21% less exhaust particle emissions and 15% lower NOx emission from Berlin’s motor traffic. Measured concentrations of black carbon at kerbside spots decreased in 2008 by around 15%. Despite an increasing share of direct NO2-emissions, NO2 concentrations in Berlin have also decreased by 7-10%, after several years without a visible downward trend. With the recent launch of stage 2 of the LEZ its mitigation effect on the air pollution is expected to eventually reduce total particulate matter concentrations (PM10) by up to 10%.

LP: What are the health benefits accruing to a decrease in vehicle emissions and implementation of the LEZ?


Martin Lutz: Given the high toxicity of diesel particle emissions it can be expected that the LEZ-related drop in black carbon levels is also resulting in a fall of respiratory diseases and eventually in a reduction of premature mortality especially among the poorer population living along heavily trafficked roads. Concrete investigations have not yet been launched but are planned for the coming years, when more data on the effects on pollution levels and on public health will be available.

LP: You say that Berlin has simplified monitoring in relation to London. How does that work?

Martin Lutz: As mentioned above a simpler sticker system has come into force, which allows to clearly identify the vehicles allowed to enter the zone, which cover 88 km2 with almost one third of Berlin's 3.6 Mio inhabitants living in the LEZ. Police and staff of the local municipal public order offices have enforced penalties, resulting in about 60.000 fines since the launch of the LEZ.

LP: How are you engaging the public?

Martin Lutz: An extensive information campaign was launched after the adoption of the scheme, with flyers, newspaper articles and advertisements in TV and radio.

LP: Are there penalties for infringement?

Martin Lutz: Driving within the zone without a sticker or with a non-compliant vehicle is penalised with 40€ and with one point in the national road penalty register.

LP:: Finally...What is the cost of monitoring the program in Berlin?

Berlin's spends a lot of effort in monitoring air quality in the city, with a network of 16 automatic stations, which continuously record the pollution concentration within the city area. Extra monitoring of black carbon and nitrogen oxide is being done at additional 20 kerbside spots. In addition with dispersion models and traffic detectors a good data base is available to assess the impact of the LEZ and other measures on the air quality. The costs of these extra monitoring and assessment activities alone are well above 100.000 € per year.

Originally published in Portuguese : http://mobilidadesustentavel.blog.uol.com.br/
# # #

About the authors:

Lincoln Paiva is director of Green Mobility Brazil. How to ensure people’s transportation and at the same time be sustainable? The Green Mobility Project arose from the need to develop a culture concerned with managing the demand for mobility in a sustainable manner in order to reduce the use of individual transportation, responsible for 70% of the occupation of the earth and for the problems arising from this option such as pollution and investments in modal infrastructure, as well as to discuss alternative, more sustainable means for cities.

Martin Lutz has a university degree in meteorology and air chemistry. More than 2 decades ago he started dealing with winter smog alarm management in Berlin. During a four year detachment to the EU Commission he was drafting an European ozone strategy and a new ozone Directive. Back in Berlin he led investigations in the sources of PM10 pollution and an impact analysis of control measures on PM10 and NO2 pollution. He was developing Berlin’s air quality strategy. Mr. Lutz is now head of the sector on air pollution. FOr more on the LEZ project: http://www.life-spas.at/deutsch/includes/12_Lutz-LEZ-Sep09-EN-sent%281%29.pdf


For more information on Low Emission Zones in Europe:

http://www.lowemissionzones.eu/

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It's March, let's go to the movies: "Fixing the Great Mistake in New York City"

Fixing the Great Mistake: Autocentric Development in New York City opens a new Streetfilms series that examines what went wrong in the early part of the 20th Century, when our cities began catering to the automobile, and how those decisions continue to affect our lives today. The irrepressible Elizabeth Press points her camera at Paul White of New York's Transportation Alternatives who tells us the story.

Fixing the Great Mistake in New York City: Autocentric Development

- by Elizabeth Press on February 25, 2010

In this episode, Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White shows how planning for cars drastically altered Park Avenue. Watch and see what Park Avenue used to look like, how we ceded it to the automobile, and what we need to do to reclaim the street as a space where people take precedence over traffic.

- Click here to view the four minute video.

And don't forget: If they can do it there, we can do it anywhere. New York, New York.

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Plan A for Sustainable Transport : The New Mobility Agenda and the Politics of Transportation

Plan Zero - also known as "old mobility" - with its stress on supply, more vehicles and more infrastructure as the knee-jerk answer to our mobility problems, has been the favored path for decision-making and investment in the sector over the last 70 years. It is well-known and easy to see where it is leading. Responsible for something like 1/5 of all greenhouse gas emissions, costing us a bundle, draining the world's petroleum reserves, and delviering poor quality tranpsort for the majority . . . Plan Zero is a clear failure. Time for Plan A: The New Mobility Agenda.

World Streets is not exactly what one would call a neutral source. We have a very definite position on transport policy, planning and investment, the result of long experience of working with and observing the sector in its daily operation in cities around the world. It would not be true to claim that these views are unique to us; indeed they have been distilled over the years as result of contacts and work in collaboration with farsighted colleagues and policymakers in many places. They are shared, at least in good part, by many of our most distinguished colleagues.

It is only appropriate that I clearly state the underlying philosophy of this new sustainability journal in no uncertain terms right here at the outset. Our position on this is clear: namely, that we face a major planetary emergency that requires immediate high priority action at the very core of public policy, and that we have the means available to make the difference. But until now we are not addressing the issues at the level of intensity required. We need a plan of action. So let's have a look.

The New Mobility Agenda in brief

The main reference point for all that you will read in these pages is the long-term program, the New Mobility Agenda, an international collaborative effort focusing entirely on transportation in and around cities. It has been in operation since 1988 with continuous interactive presence on the internet as one of the pillars of the collaborative knowledge-building process that is behind it. And this is what we have concluded:

Virtually all of the necessary preconditions are now in place for far-reaching, rapid, low cost improvements in the ways that people get around in our cites. The needs are there, they are increasingly understood -- and we now know what to do and how to get the job done. The challenge is to find the vision, political will, and leadership to get the job done, step by deliberate step.

But we have to have an explicit, coherent, ethical, checkable, overarching strategy. Without it we are destined to play at the edges of the problems, and while we may be able to announce a success or improvement here or there, the overall impact that your city needs to break the old patterns will not be there. We really need that clear, consistent, omnipresent, systemic strategy.

The Agenda provides a free public platform for new thinking and open collaborative group problem solving, bringing together more than a thousand leading thinkers and actors in the field from more than fifty counties worldwide, sharing information and considering together the full range of problems and eventual solution paths that constitute the global challenge of sustainable transport in cities.

Managing the transition: Basic principles

And it must be understood that the shift from old to new mobility is not one that turns its back on the importance of high quality mobility for the economy and for quality of life. It's just that given the technologies that we now have at our fingertips, and in the labs, it is possible for us to redraw our transportation systems so that there is less inefficient movement (the idea of one person sitting in traffic in a big car with the engine idling is one example, an empty bus another) and more high-efficiency, high-quality, low-carbon transportation that offers many more mobility choices than in the past, including the one that environmentalists and many others find most appealing: namely, getting what you want without having to venture out into traffic at all. Now that's an interesting new mobility strategy, too.

Here you have in twelve summaries the high points of the basic strategic policy frame as we see it: principles that we and our colleagues around the world have diligently pieced together over the years of work, observation and close contact with projects and programs in leading cities on all continents under the New Mobility Agenda. (If you click here you can see in a short video (four minute draft) a synopsis of the basic five-point core strategy that the city of Paris has announced and adhered to over the last seven years. With significant results.)

1. Climate-driven: The on-going climate emergency sets the base timetable for action in our sector, which accounts for some 20% of greenhouse gasses. At the same time GHG reduction works as a strong surrogate for just about everything else to which we need to be giving priority attention in our cities, chief among them the need to cut traffic. Fewer vehicles on the road means reduced energy consumption, less pollution in all forms, fewer accidents, reduced bills for infrastructure construction and maintenance, quieter and safer cities, and the long list goes on. What is so particularly interesting about the mobility sector is that there is really a great deal we can do in a relatively little time. And at relatively low cost. Beyond this, there is an important joker which also needs to be brought into the picture from the very beginning, and that is that these reductions can be achieved not only without harming the economy or quality of life for the vast majority of all people. To the contrary sustainable transport reform can be part of a 21st century economic revival which places increased emphasis on services and not products.

2. Tighten time frame for action: Select and gear all actions to achieve visible results within 2-4 year time frame. Spend at least 50%, preferably 80% of all your transportation budget on measures and projects that are going to yield visible results within this time frame. Set firm targets for all to see and judge the results. No-excuse transport policy.

3. Reduce traffic radically. The critical, incontrovertible policy core of the Agenda -is BIG percentage cuts in vehicle miles traveled. If we don't achieve this, we will have a situation in which all the key indicators will continue to move in the wrong direction. But we can cut traffic and at the same time improve mobility. And the economy. That's our new mobility strategy.

4. Extend the range, quality and degree of integration of new mobility services available to all: A whole range of exciting and practical new service modes is needed if we are to keep our cities viable. And they need to COMBINE to offer better, faster and cheaper mobility than the old car-intensive arrangements or deficit-financed, heavy, old-technology, traditional public transit. We need to open up our minds on this last score and understand that rather than being stuck in the past with a 19th century version of how "common people" best get about, it is important to move over to a new paradigm of a great variety of ways of providing shared transport mediated in good part by 21st-century information communications technologies.

5. Packages of Measures: As distinguished from the old ways of planning and making investments what is required in most places today are carefully interlinked "packages" of numerous small as well as larger projects and initiatives. Involving many more actors and participants. One of the challenges of an effective new mobility policy will be to find ways to see these various measures as interactive synergistic and mutually supporting projects within a unified greater whole. A significant challenge to our planners at all levels

6. Design for women: Our old mobility system was designed by, and ultimately for, a certain type of person (think about it!). And so too should the new mobility system: but this time around it should be designed to accommodate specifically women, of all ages and conditions. Do that and we will serve everybody far better. And for that to happen we need to have a major leadership shift toward women and, as part of that, to move toward full gender parity in all bodies involved in the decision process. It's that simple.

7. The shifting role of the car: State-of-the-art technology can be put to work hand in hand with the changing role of the private car in the city in order to create situations in which even car use can be integrated with a far softer edge into the overall mobility strategy . These advantages need to be widely broadcast so as to increase acceptance of the new pattern of urban mobility. The new mobility environment must also be able to accommodate people in cars, since that is an incontrovertible reality which will not go away simply because it would seem like an ideal solution. We are going to have plenty of small and medium-sized four-wheel, rubber tired, driver-operated vehicles running around on the streets of our cities and the surrounding regions, so the challenge of planners and policymakers is to ensure that this occurs in a way which is increasingly harmonious to the broader social, economic and environmental objectives set out here.

8. Full speed ahead with new technology: New mobility is at its core heavily driven by the aggressive application of state of the art logistics, communications and information technology across the full spectrum of service types. The transport system of the future is above all an interactive information system, with the wheels and the feet at the end of this chain. These are the seven-league boots of new mobility

9. Play the "infrastructure joker": The transport infrastructures of our cities have been vastly overbuilt. And they are unable to deliver the goods. That's just great, since it means that we can now take over substantial portions of the street network for far more efficient modes.

10. Frugal economics: We are not going to need another round of high cost, low impact investments to make it work. We simply take over 50% of the transport related budgets and use it to address projects and reforms that are going to make those big differences in the next several years.

11. Partnerships: This approach, because it is new and unfamiliar to most people, is unlike to be understood the first few times around. Hence a major education, consultation and outreach effort is needed in each place to make it work. Old mobility was the terrain in which decisions were made by transport experts working within their assigned zones of competence. New mobility is based on wide-based collaborative problem solving, outreach and harnessing the great strengths of the informed and educated populations of our cities. Public/private/citizen partnerships.

12. Pick winners: New approaches demand success. There is no margin of error. So choose policies and services with track records of success and build on their experience. (And there are plenty of them out there if you are prepared to look and learn.)

13. Lead by Example: If you are mayor or other elected official. If you are engaged as a professional in public policy areas that relate to the sustainability agenda . . . you don't have a choice really, you must lead by personal example. This means getting to work by bike, walking, public transport or some form of carsharing/ridesharing at least two days a week. Every week. By doing this, you will have hands-on knowledge of what works and what does not in your city. You become Eyes on the Street. You will be authentic and credible. You will be the kind of leader we need to identify and guide the reforms, policies and projects that must now be put in place. And if you do not do this, if you stay in the back seat of your limo, you won't get my vote.


Where to from here?

To move ahead in time to save the planet and improve life quality of the majority of the people who live in our cities -- no, they are not all happy car owner/drivers; get out there and count them; you'll see -- we need to have a fair, unified, coherent, and memorable strategy.

There may be other ways, better ways one would hope, of facing this emergency. If so we are ready to learn, let us hear from you. This is the challenge to which World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda are addressed.

Eric Britton, Editor, World Streets, Paris, France

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Next Steps After Copenhagen: Opportunities and Challenges in the Transport Sector

For those of you who may have missed this recent brainstorming session organized at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC and attended by a number of other important players on the worldwide sustainable transport scene, here is the next best thing we can offer you, complete with more comprehensive references and URLs to the main presentations. I am sure that many or our readers would have liked to be there to observe and contribute in person. You now have a chance to send your comments to all those who were there are the time.

A wrap-up of key messages from EMBARQ’s Transforming Transportation 2010.

Source: EMBARQ.org

Last Friday, January 15, 180 transport and climate change experts from local and national governments, multi-lateral development agencies, academic institutions, nonprofits and private companies gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss “Next Steps After Copenhagen: Opportunities and Challenges in the Transport Sector” as part of the annual Transforming Transportation conference.

The full-day event, held at the Inter-American Development Bank headquarters, came one month after the international community met in Copenhagen to negotiate the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol and a new international climate agreement on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The event was jointly organized by the Asian Development Bank, EMBARQ – The World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport.

The day’s events, hosted at IDB’s Enrique Iglesias Auditorium, provided a forum for the transport, climate and development communities to discuss the following topics:

* How the transport community can best engage in solving the challenges caused by climate change;

* Connections between climate change and other drivers of transport interventions in developing countries;

* Outcomes of the Climate Conference in Copenhagen and significance for national and local policy making in the transport sector.

Organizers drafted key messages that will help inform the following initiatives, including:

* The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) discussion and policy guidelines on sustainability in the transport sector;

* The Regional Environmental Sustainable Transportation Strategy of the Inter-American Development Bank;

* The 2010-2011 work plan for the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport.

The key messages from the event Next Steps After Copenhagen are:

#1: Climate change mitigation efforts need to address emissions from the transport sector in developing countries in order to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2050, a target suggested by the IPCC and referred to by the Copenhagen Accord.

#2: Decision making in the transport sector should consider multiple policy objectives in support of sustainable development, including adaptation to climate change, greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, economic and social development, congestion relief, road safety, air quality and health.

#3: Countries can take important steps towards sustainable, low carbon transportation now, before the international community reaches a new international climate agreement or revised Kyoto Protocol. Leading developing countries and cities have initiated efforts to make their transport sectors less carbon intensive or, in some cases, completely carbon neutral.

#4: The allocation of transport-related funds requires a paradigm shift. The guiding principle in future transport funding should be the Avoid-Shift-Improve approach. A better understanding of the mitigation potential in the transport sector will speed up the formulation of more comprehensive investment strategies. Externalities, such as air pollution and carbon emissions, must be addressed through comprehensive pricing policies. And financing from different sources – i.e. nonprofits, multi-lateral development agencies, governments, and the private sector – need to complement each other, rather than work towards different goals. As a large and fast-growing source of carbon emissions, the transport sector should have access to financing under international climate change agreements, in order to spur mitigation activities.

#5: There should be more financial support directed towards enabling and preparatory activities, rather than simply investing in transport systems and infrastructure alone. Sector-wide programs can significantly complement individual projects, and they should include a bundle of measures, instead of isolated interventions, to make transport projects more sustainable.

#6: Adaptation needs to be mainstreamed in the transportation sector. Knowledge, tools and methodologies to address climate change adaptation must be developed, tested, scaled up and mainstreamed quickly into the transportation sector. There is also a need to identify synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation activities, which should work in conjunction with each other as part of an overall transportation strategy.
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To view more details about the event, including the full agenda, Powerpoint presentations, speaker bios and photos, go to www.transformingtransportation2010.org.

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Letter from the editor: 2009? And what the hell was that all about?

The following was sent yesterday by the editor as a private communication to a small group of long time colleagues, as a kick-off to and call for collaboration in the new year ahead. Since the reaction has been so immediate and positive I have decided to post it to World Streets, as part of our transition strategy and general preparations for the year ahead. Comments more than welcome. Eric Britton, Editor, World Streets (Shown: Our editor at his desk as he reflects on 2009.)

New Mobility Partnerships – http://www.newmobility.org
8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France, Europe
+331 7550 3788 eric.britton@worldstreets.org Skype: newmobility

Paris, 1 January 2010

Dear Friends.

Was there anything horrible that we did NOT see in this old year just about to scuttle out the revolving door of time? War, plague, pestilence, famine, drought, genocide, global warming, economic meltdown, greed, indolence, indifference, and a feeling of hopelessness in the face of all that. So terribly biblical. Even poor old Job would have found all this altogether familiar.

Other of course than the National Rifle Association which, if ever there were a symbol of the failure of democracy, has to be right at the top of our list (though if we search around the Old Testament we may find some reference to something along those lines).

2009? Sir, out! And kindly be sure you shut the door behind you. Thank you.

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2010? It's ours to make

And then there was . . . the rotten cherry on that awful cake, the last minute events of COP15 and the Carnage of Copenhagen. A very great disappointment for me in my work and concerns, but of course one that we had just about all entirely anticipated. Still . . .

But let's not whine about it or accept this as our inevitable lot -- we can all do something about it, if we care to, if we dare to. And here is how for my part I intend to spend 2010 to do my bit to help things move along just a bit in the right direction. Without boring you to death, let me slot in here brief mention of a handful of things I have targeted for my own work in the year ahead.

1. World Streets – Last year I took the initiative of setting up the planet's only collaborative, worldwide, independent, 5/7 sustainable transport daily. It was probably the best move of my entire career, though a very costly one, which you can easily check out real time at www.WorldStreets.org. (Or if time is short check out http://tinyurl.com/ws-nutshell.) It has been a fair success, and over the year we have learned a lot about how to do better. In the first nine months of daily publication we printed more than 300 original articles, by dozens of expert contributors from all over the world map, had well more than 100,000 visitors, from more than eighty countries, and received 100 votes of confidence which you can see here at http://tinyurl.com/ws-readers

- - > Click image to see full size map showing readers coming to W/S on this date.

2. China – The Green Giant: We have over the last several years been working with a number of groups and colleagues in China and Taiwan, as well as simply keeping our eyes open. And as a result we have decided this: China - with its 1.3 billion people, half of whom already living in cities: two million kilometers of roads and streets, and more fast abuilding; 170 million motor vehicles and already the world's largest and fastest growing car market; the new world champ in terms of emissions; and a planning and investment process that is still all but entirely locked into "old mobility" -- is going to be our main target for communicating and supporting new approaches to sustainable transport in 2010. China is the only big country, the only elephant in the world that can turn on a dime. If it decides to Our draft work program notes can be found right here: http://tinyurl.com/ws-ch2

3. Africa's Streets: Close to one billion human beings, among the poorest in our planet and who deserve a break. Through World Streets and a growing network of contacts there, I am hoping we shall be able to make some meaningful contributions there in 2010. A special target for our work is focusing on the needs of women and children. Get things right for them and everything else follows in good order. It's in fact the only way to go. Click here for the first draft work plan notes - http://tinyurl.com/ws-af2

4. Sharing transport: This might surprise you but we are going to be doing a lot more sharing in our daily transport routines in the coming years, and it is definitely not going to be a step down the ladder of comfort and quality of life. I think you may find this exciting. As do the growing panel of experts and concerned citizens and activists around the world who are joining our project at www.COST.ShareTransport.org.

5. Personal responsibility: Oops. This is the hard part, but we all have to do it. We need to modify our culture of transportation, and it all starts with http://personalresponsibility.newmobility.org The bottom line is that each of us has to think more about the implications of our personal mobility choices. The formula is pretty simple: We just need to drive and travel less, move around at much lower speeds (speed kills more than just people you know), and we need to do a lot more sharing in our transportation choices. I promise you, you will like it. And so will the planet.

* * *

There you have my first-ever New Year's message. Life does seem to keep moving on though, so it's a good idea that we stay in touch more closely than we have over the last year. And if you do come to Paris, come ready to ride a bike and see our beautiful city with me in the best way possible. Then we can pedal over to the Luxemburg Gardens and enjoy a great open air lunch. Even today in December, but dress warm.

And should you want to follow me in my peripacies in various corners of the world over the coming year, an easy way to do it is to tune in every once in a while to check into www.WorldStreets.org. I hope you find it a good read and of course if you have ideas, suggestions, or critical remarks of any kind, well it would be great to have them. As we say, it's all about collaboration. And sharing. And caring.

So until we meet again, warm wishes from Paris on a splendid winter day.

Eric Britton

PS. If you have not had enough of me yet, you can always check out the thirty second film clip from a one hour CBC documentary of this just-past autumn, at http://www.vimeo.com/6856553. It's part of our New Mobility Partnerships media project, which you can see in detail at www.media.newmobility.org .

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Editorial: Après Copenhagen. Now what?

Five times since late evening of the fatal Friday 18th in Copenhagen, I have attempted to get out a strong editorial on this important subject, sustainable transport included, but thus far I have yet to crack my task. Be patient and in the meantime remember what kind old Henry Ford once so famously wrote: "Of all the kinds of work I known, thinking is the hardest. And that's I guess why people do so little of it".

But should you be at all curious to follow my tortured path, during all of which I was trying hard to find a way to be at once both lucid and useful, if you click here you will find my first late Friday night attempt. If I may, there are a few thoughts in there that still may be worth a minute of your time. However upon careful inspection I decided to back away from the early versions of the posting because I found it too verbose, muddy, too roughly reasoned and still incomplete.

But above all I found that in its first iteration it was too openly, one might even say arrogantly critical, and not sufficiently positive. At this point we need to lay off the criticism and carping, that's the past, and now get put our heads and hearts together to see what needs to be gleaned from all this terrible experience (the word is not too harsh) for the future. Which is after all ours to grasp.

Have a look at the revised version here in the next few days. I am confident that you will find it better and hopefully even of some use as we struggle to pick up the pieces from COP15.

The editor

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