World Streets/New Mobility Agenda Mission Statement

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. We refer to it as "The politics of transportation: New thinking and world wide collaborative problem-solving on the net".

Seven good reasons to support World Streets & the New Mobility Agenda in 2009

1. Mission: We support sustainable transport innovation and reform in cities, worldwide. Because our action approach is focused, systemic, pragmatic, principled, collaborative . . . and effective. More . . .

2. New Mobility Agenda: Two decades of international experience as an open knowledge-building collaborative specifically focused on matters of transport in general and sustainable transport in cities in particular. 2009 work program tackles more than a dozen major focus areas/projects. More . . .

3. World Streets: Collaborative international sustainability journal launched March 2009. Motto: ”Heavy traffic on the way to sustainable cities and sustainable lives” Internet traffic already strong. More . . .

4. The Right to Mobility for All: Decision-making and investment has been traditionally dominated by males who own and drive cars for daily transport and enjoy a certain level of economic security. This historic imbalance needs to be corrected: and the starting place is a shift to policies of Mobility for All. More . . .

5. City Dialogues/Peer Reviews: The role of these collaborative peer projects is to provide efficient, cost-effective ways to tap the lessons of international experience at the leading edge for your city, More . . .

6. Knoogle: Our specialized (‘vertical’) search engine draws on more than one million pages of content on the web and >1000 leading sources worldwide for our specific sector. Part of a program aiming to create more active links between the many groups and programs working in this area. More . . .

7. Eyes on the Street – World Peer-to-Peer Observatory: This new project (5 April start-up) will give you an idea of how fast some useful things can be achieved if you have the right starting place. The underlying idea is to harness 21st-century tools to bridge the global/local gap in some useful ways. More . . .

Seven actions we are working hard to achieve, and with which we think you can be proud to be associated. Get in touch and let's discuss how we might get together to advance this unusual sustainability initiative.

Eyes on the Street - World Observatory – http://www.worldstreets.org

New Mobility Partnerships – http://www.newmobility.org

Europe: 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France T: +331 4326 1323 Skype: ericbritton

USA: 9440 Readcrest Drive Los Angeles, CA 90210 T: +1 310 601-8468 Skype: newmobility

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Videos

To give our visitors a feel for the breath of coverage and potential of these new and freely available communications tools, we present here several small "video bars" each of which selects at random and in rotation for clips from the various sources and topic categories. We have selected the following, each of which you can pick up toward the middle of the left bar menu:

Streetfilms Videos: Very interesting and in many ways leading the way, these are videos called up from random from the full selection which you can pick up at the main Streetfilms address at http://www.streetfilms.org/. You will note that we occasionally pick up some of their offerings to share with the readers of World Streets. Thanks Streetfilms.

New Mobility Videos: Called up at random from our stock of going on one hundred videos recorded and selected over the last several years is in support of various aspects of the New Mobility Agenda and its various programs. For additional information on other films and videos, you are invited to go to www.media.newmobility.org.


Sustainable cities: Nothing more, nothing less than a call up from YouTube of what they have in stock under this important heading.

Brainfood: Clips and extracts of talks and presentations by some of the most challenging thinkers and practitioners in the sustainable transportation field. Not intended to be comprehensive.

* * *

Have any clips that you would like to share with World Streets? Send us a note via editor@worldstreets.org and we will be glad to have a look and see if it would be a good subject for a posting. Thanks.

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Today is Monday 3 March 2009

Today is 2 March 2009, the grand opening day of World Streets: your concise international journal reporting on leading edge developments of sustainable transportation, sustainable cities and sustainable lives world wide. If this is your first visit here, we invite you to take a minute to check out the Welcome note by clicking here. Recommended! But if you are impatient to dig in right now, let's start with a look at 2017. You remember 2017, don't you? _________________________________________________

Some Reflections from 2017

Looking back at 2009 from the closing days of Barrack Obama’s presidency, it is sometimes surprising to appreciate how much has changed in the relationship between people, places and traffic, and to grasp the effect of the dramatic policy change that took hold back then. Aware that successful cities are judged on the quality of their public realm, policy makers began to transform city streets from soulless arteries for vehicles into spaces shared equally by pedestrians, cars, taxis, buses, bicycles and every kind of social activity. Given the huge benefits that sprang from the multiple use of public urban space for safety, movement, accessibility, and economic vitality, it is now hard to recall how different typical streets once looked.

Until 2009, they looked like everywhere else. In those days. the roadways providing running space for vehicles were carefully separated from pedestrian spaces. Kerbs, steel barriers, bollards and paint markings reinforced this separation. Different organisations looked after the two worlds that this segregation created, one managed by “traffic engineers”, the other by “urban designers”. Traversing this divide required specific crossings controlled by traffic lights, buttons and beeping signals. Standardised signs, traffic islands, poles, control boxes and illuminated bollards littered the spaces between buildings. Behaviour in the roadway was controlled by the state via cameras, and normal social courtesies were discouraged.

Inspired by pioneering examples from Europe, and particularly by the work of Hans Monderman from The Netherlands, people suddenly realised that all this highway clutter was no longer needed. Without traffic signals, signs and markings, traffic flowed slowly and more smoothly. Congestion diminished. Casualty rates, particularly for children and vulnerable pedestrians, declined sharply. Shops flourished as pedestrian footfall increased, with people negotiating their way through slowly moving traffic using informal communication and courtesy. Bus companies reported more reliable running times. Every street in America began to reflect its history, context and purpose, reflecting the richness and diversity of the country’s huge geography and infinite variety.

Only the most busy traffic arteries remained segregated, such as the freeways and major arterial highways. All the remaining city streets became “shared space”. Back in 2009, most found the change surprising and a little daunting. It seemed almost perverse and counter-intuitive to take away rules and regulations, signs and signals, and to rely on people’s commonsense and adaptive skills. And yet, just as crowds seem to develop an intuitive choreography in busy complex spaces such as railway station forecourts and departure lounges, so drivers and pedestrians engaged in a new respectful relationship at busy intersections. Speeds remained below 20 mph. Delaying a bus or lorry became a serious social gaffe. Eye contact and hand signals became more sophisticated. Driving behaviour adapted to the times of day and rhythms of the city, with quite different styles when schools were coming out, when the bars were closing, or when streets were empty before dawn. Pedestrians walked where they wished to walk. Bicycling became the norm in the low speed, smooth flowing streets. Taxi drivers still grumbled. Traffic signal engineers were retrained as park keepers and window cleaners. Civility flourished.

So many changes in the past eight years, but none more significant for the quality of everyday life in America as the moment when engineering merged with creativity and commonsense.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie, ben@hamilton-baillie.co.uk
Hamilton-Baillie Associates Limited, www.hamilton-baillie.co.uk
Bristol, United Kingdom

Contribution by the author to the world wide collaborative project “Messages for America: World-wide experience, ideas, counsel, proposals and good wishes for the incoming Obama transportation team”. See www.messages.newmobility.org for latest version of this report of the New Mobility Agenda.

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National Journal Panel: Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived? Part II

"Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived? Part II"

- by Eric Britton, 11 January 2009
New Mobility Partnerships, Paris and Los Angeles


I have been getting some pretty rough treatment from some of my most distinguished transportation colleagues concerning my earlier contribution to this panel under the heading of "Has mass transit finally arrived?" (22 December, see http:// nationaljournal.newmobility.org). I have no doubt I deserved it, but let me see if I can respond here to their three main challenges.

• The first is that they assure me that my harsh words about the role of "mass transit" will serve to work against the important interests of improving public transportation at a time when it truly is a priority for public policy.

• The second is that I appear to be pushing the service concepts behind the new mobility agenda as a substitute for public transportation as generally practiced and understood.

• Third and last, they charge me with being unnecessarily contentious in my statements, and thereby running the risk of alienating many people and interests who after all should be part of the solution.

Let me comment briefly on each of these in order as part of the ongoing dialogue here:


1. The role of traditional mass (heavy) transit

Yes there is a role, an absolutely critical role for public transportation. Of course there is. But for transit to be fully effective this is going to take a lot of hard thinking and a pretty massive overhaul right down to its foundations.

My comments and recommendations here and in all my work are based on a common underpinning: namely that there is a relatively single central argument and focus behind all this. And that is my sincere belief that the primary goal of public policy in the sector over the coming four years has to achieve very sharp traffic (VMT) reductions across the map and those as fast as possible.

What we have to understand is that this is the only policy that will allow us to move from what we have today to a more responsible, sustainable, and effective transportation system. Sharp, rapid VMT reductions has to be the central acid test of public policy across the sector.

As you can well imagine this is going to prove very uncomfortable for many of the traditional transportation interests, which often are based on encouraging and supporting investments which in fact underwrite and expand vehicle movements as their basic underlying priority. This is the way in which we oriented public policy over the last century, and while it worked wonders in many cases, we are now very much aware of the limitations of this approach.

So what I'm saying is that if your favorite project or investment is going to lead to more vehicle traffic, then the responsible policy maker has to have a very hard look at it indeed. Some people, some interests are going to find this very uncomfortable, but what I can say is that there can be no wise transportation policy in which all of the traditional players find themselves equally comfortable. Comfort for all is not what responsible governance is all about.

This acid test leaves a very important role for public transportation in all its variants, though it also implies that if they are to be able to respond to the full challenge then the people responsible for them are going to have to be far more innovative and entrepreneurial in the future than they have been in the past. Pouring more taxpayer dollars into outmoded organizational structures and services is not going to give us the results we so badly need.

Again, the position is that where you have the good luck of having a mass transit system already in place, the challenge is not only to improve it in terms of its economic and operational efficiency per se, but also that you start to see it and integrated as part of a much broader range of mobility services. A variant if you will of the "no man is an island " theme.


2. The role of new mobility services

My main point here wasn't his that for most Americans today there is a no-choice situation when it comes to how they can get around in their daily lives. It's a car or nothing. But this poverty of choice is not worthy of our great country and our great democracy, democracy being incidentally all about choices. And it doesn't have to be that way.

The core of what some call "new mobility" is precisely one of choice. Americans should be able to choose from a variety of transportation arrangements and not be prisoners of the present car-or-nothing situation. Enhanced public transportation is going to have a critical role in the new multilevel mobility system, but there are many other proven ways of organizing mobility which can be developed and integrated into a multimodal transportation menu of many parts.

The common ingredients in the cookhouse of the new mobility agenda include innovation, entrepreneurship, participation, performance standards, and smart use of technology. And every city, every community, will draw on and put these ingredients together in its own way. Again, making their own choices.

It is often argued that when we start talking about things like demand management, restructured street access, BRT, fast-track LRT, carpooling, carsharing, cycling, public bicycle systems, shared taxis, improved support for safe walking, tele-solutions, integrated access systems, land use changes, and the like, that none of these are going to solve all our transportation problems by themselves. Correct! They are not in themselves "solutions"; rather they are parts of the solution, parts of the much broader package of services and choices which we are now in a position to make available to Americans in cities, towns and rural areas across the country.

The goal of public policy should be to support the diffusion of the best of these ideas and practices.


3. A contest of ideas

My reading of this panel is that it's true usefulness to the incoming Obama team will not be as a collection of pre-set announcements of positions and recommendations even if they come from the quite wide range of interests and groups concerned . Of course it's important to hear all the voices as part of the process of understanding the full range of issues that need to be grappled with. But rather as I see it, we have come together here under the common roof provided by our friends at the National Journal in order to put our heads together to see if we can come up with something that is more than the sum of the parts.

To get to this we need to engage a dialogue among all these interests and encourage vigorous debate. A real contest of ideas.

As I see it this is not a politically correct beauty contest from which all of the participants will go back home with identical first prize ribbons and an equal place in the public policy of the new administration. That might be comfortable but it's my reading of the urgency situations that we currently are facing in this and other sectors that we need to make choices and in the process create a new and far more powerful and creative agenda for transportation in America.

I think that the issues and the outcomes are important enough for each of us to say what we really think. The best ideas will surely rise to the top.

So let’s keep going.

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National Journal Panel: How should the infrastructure stimulus be spent?

- by Eric Britton, New Mobility Partnerships, Paris and Los Angeles

- Prepared for the Transportation Panel sponsored by the National Journal. See footnote below and http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/contributors/Britton.php for details

Summary:
The author argues first that the key to infrastructure is to concentrate our brainpower and resources on not physical objects . . . but on people and their varieties. On demand, not supply. On services, not products. On performance, not raw quantities. Second, that the transportation system we are lumbered with today has been designed almost exclusively by males -- and, worse yet, by and for males of a certain exclusive, privileged category of our society (including that most are full time car owner/drivers). As a result of this historic imbalance at the top, those responsible for public policy have failed to create a system which serves the majority of Americans in a full and fair way. To rectify this without delay, Britton urges that we immediately start to adopt a policy of gender equality in all transport planning and decision making processes, beginning with this distinguished expert panel. And in the process he argues for bringing in a greatly expanded skill set at the top to ensure better decisions and future performance. The new administration’s transportation team can do a lot to make this happen.



Contents
1. What is infrastructure? 2
2. Why transport in cities? 3
3. Who are we? (This panel) 4
4. Why the Year of the Woman in Transportation? 5
5. Conclusion and recommendation: 6


Before writing this piece, I gave quite a bit of thought as to how I can make the most useful contribution to these important discussions. And I have made the decision that probably the most useful thing I can do at this early stage in this process will be to swim a bit against the current here.

For starters I have two big problems with what I am seeing here by the way of policy counsel thus far. And so once I have sketched out for you my understanding of these briefly , I would like to go on to propose one big, if not remedy, at least a path toward a remedy or solution.

First let’s take a few steps back and look to see if we can spot some underlying patterns in all this.

1. What is infrastructure?

When I look at the twenty eight thoughtful contributions and recommendations for the incoming administration thus far logged under this question to the panel, the first thing that strikes me, right between the eyes, is that all but one or two of the people who have checked in on this topic thus far have interpreted the key word "infrastructure" as primarily a physical entity. So to an extent, this being a common interpretation of the word by many of those working in the transportation sector, the cards were a bit stacked in advance.

This is not only problematic, it is fundamentally biased against most forms of social and behavioral "infrastructure". However it is precisely these values that we need to bring to the fore when we consider a future in which virtually all of the historic patterns are being challenged. One thing we can say for sure about the future, it will be very, very different from the past. So let us make sure we are peering deeply into these foundation issues and making the fundamental adjustments needed if our transportation arrangements are to be sustainable, fair, and contribute to a healthy economy.

To get a better feel for this I ran a quick word-frequency check this morning of those first 28 contributions. Here are the handful of words that turn up most often and which, I believe, give us a fair feel for the focus and concerns of the group:

1. Infrastructure >100 references
2. Highways/roads/bridges –102
3. Aviation/Airport/airline/aircraft – 79
4. Trucks/trucking/freight/goods – 59
5. Energy/gas/oil – 53
6. Investment – 46
7. Billion – 46
8. Public transport/mass transit – 12
9. Marine/river/water/canal – 12

Interesting, and it sure does get one to thinking. For my part it certainly leads me to wonder if the physical infrastructure is really the appropriate starting place, when we have been asked to provide policy counsel for the incoming administration at this extremely important time and have an opportunity to change historic patterns and come up with something better. Let’s keep scratching.



2. Why transport in cities?

Let’s take this are our starting place since that, after all, is where the people are. Today more than 80% of all Americans live in or around our towns and cities. And that's where all those people move most in their day to day lives, which makes it to my mind the main target of transportation policy and practice, now and for the future.

In our collaborative work under the New Mobility Agenda over the last two decades, work which has been informed by the active contributions of transportation planners, academics, policymakers, activists, and those who create and operate the transportation systems themselves not only in North America but also in more than thirty countries around the world (see www.newmobility.org), we have consistently taken as our starting place not the physical underpinnings of the transportation system , but rather people and community. This leads to some very different results when it comes to public policy.

It really does matter what you take as your starting place. Just to give you a feel for what happens if we shift this basic focus, I ran the same 28 first commentaries through frequency counts for the kinds of people-oriented issues which my international and leading American colleagues believe to be the real starting place. We really cannot afford to ignore these issues at this time, especially given that we now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine our transportation system.

Here is what I come up with:


1. Bicycle/Bike/Biking/Cycle – 16
2. Green – 12
3. Climate – 10
4. Congestion - 7
5. Bus – 8
6. Walking – 7
7. Injuries/death – 5
8. Sidewalk – 4
9. Pedestrian – 3
10. Urban – 3
11. Suburban – 3
12. Bus rapid transit/BRT – 2
13. Street - 2
14. Transportation Alternatives – 2
15. Child, children – 1
16. Land use – 1
17. Equity – 1
18. Multimodal – 1
19. Carshare/ carsharing – 0
20. Demand management/TDM – 0
21. Elderly – 0
22. Free – 0
23. Handicapped – 0
24. Interdependent – 0
25. Isolated – 0
26. Job creation – 0
27. Livable – 0
28. Needy – 0
29. Neighborhood – 0
30. Poor – 0
31. Public space – 0
32. Quiet – 0
33. Small – 0
34. Subway/metro – 0
35. Taxes – 0
36. Telecommuting/ telework – 0
37. Tram/LRT – 0
38. Woman/Women – 0

Hmm. Don’t you find this absence of attention to daily life concerns and practices highly disturbing?


If we have learned one thing about our sector over the last decades, it is that only a portion of the solutions of the transport related problems can be solved within the sector itself. This means that we must be aggressively inclusive in all respects. It means getting out of that box.

Fair enough, but how do we get from here to there? From where we were, to where we want to be? I have an idea which I would like to propose to all of you for your consideration and critical commentary. But first let us have a good look at our panel and then ask ourselves one more question.



3. Who are we?

This seems like a fair place to go next. Above, we have started to get our arms around the job to be done. Now we should probably take a few minutes to exchange ideas as to the kinds of people who are best qualified to get it done right.

Let’s start by considering our list of contributors thus far weighing in on this topic: 28 in all, of which 24 male. Oops!

This is no once-off phenomenon. It’s not just us. It’s more or less exactly in line with prevailing practices in our sector. Transportation policy and investments up to now has been shaped almost exclusively by males – and not just any males but males with jobs, more or less decent university educations, a full place in the community, and a generally serene view of the future. And oh yes, to a man, owners and drivers of cars. (A word of self-disclosure here: I have just pretty well described myself.)

Is this really the way our panel should shape up if we are to be up to our mission? Should we not shake ourselves hard right here at the start and set out to rectify this as quickly as possible ourselves, so as to be able to provide wise and balanced counsel to the incoming administration? I would say yes and yes -- and I am sure the majority of you will agree (but if you have any doubts just ask your wives and daughters).

If we take a people-centric view of transportation, and of the infrastructure whether physical or social, it is clear that what we need to expand our mix of "transportation insiders" so as to better reflect the complex realities of our communities and day to day lives.

How to rectify this imbalance? We could make this very complicated if we wanted to, but there is also a solution which is at once obvious, easy and ready for implementation as soon as we decide to do it.

Here is my proposal: Let us come together to make 2009 the Year of the Woman in Transportation and use that to set off the much needed transition process.


4. Why the Year of the Woman in Transportation?

How to move from this fine sounding idea to concrete operational reality? For starters we can take it upon ourselves to try to ensure full and fair representation of women in every transportation planning and decision forum we are involved in, starting with this fine panel.

As to exactly how to achieve this I am less clear at this point. I am tempted to say that either we have full gender parity or something close to it (say, no less than 25, 30% female participation or whatever is the threshold you propose), or the event gets canceled. But that may be too blunt a weapon for s situation as deeply inculcated as is this one. After all, our goal is not to please ourselves, but to win.

One great advantage of taking the full year of 2009 to grope with these issues is that by joining forces we will have the time and brainpower to be wiser about this than can be a single author writing on a single day.

However it works out however, I would hope we do not need yet another law to make this happen. But we will need a strong public commitment by leaders and a growing culture which accepts that there is simply no other way of going about this. (And if that doesn’t work, well there is always the law. No reason to be excessively timid about this.)

Surface parity, while a start, is unlikely to be sufficient. Many women who do get into key roles very rapidly begin behaving like or reflecting the behavior and values of men. Examples would be very dangerous ... but try to think of women in such powerful positions who HAVE acted differently to the males in previous or similar positions of influence and power. It’s just that the worldviews and values of our sector at the top are in general, very male! And this is precisely what we need to change to realize our very different future.

This forced, high-priority network expansion can open up another priority need that also requires rectification. Specifically it can help us to increase greatly the range of backgrounds and skills we bring into the various decision fora. This therefore gives us a golden opportunity to rectify some of the debilitating historical inadequacies in the sector that have led to its underperformance in so many areas.

So as we look to bring in more women, we need of course to bring in more expertise in the entrenched professional skills such as transport planning, traffic management, engineering, financial planning, technical modeling and the usual array of “hard skills” which have the front stage in the sector. But that is not enough.

But to get the job done right we also need greatly enhanced competence in such areas as environment, climate, land use, public health, cities, rural areas, community relations, demographics, local government, social services , behavioral psychology, education, childcare, job creation, poverty reduction, communications and all those other key areas of our daily lives which thus far have not received the necessary attention in the transport discussions and decision-making process. And in these, we need both women and men to enhance our understanding of these mission-critical issues and to inform policy and practice in the sector.

Now, is it that I really think that women are for some reason better, smarter or more noble than we Y chromosome-encumbered males? That’s not the point. Rather it is my experience that women often have a different view of the world in many respects. It is this differentness that we need to bring in and profit from.

However to give this full scope we need to go beyond the usual token representation. We need their strength. And we need their numbers. A scattered handful of females does not appear to suffice to force the change. Put enough women into a forum and they will keep us on our toes. I promise. (The key being the ”enough”.)

There is an analogy with our recent experience with the expanding role of cyclists in some of our cities. If there are none out there on the streets, few people even think about it. If there are a few, this makes no great difference. But once there is a strong quorum, strong presence, this starts to change everything. And not just for the cyclists. There is ample proof in this in city after city where this transformation has started to take place.

One important wrinkle on this is provided by a singing phrase of the Gender and Built Environment collaborative program at http://www.gendersite.org/ who advise us: “Don't treat women equally”. Hmm. Something I think that is important for each of us to think through for ourselves.

My own long experience of trying to achieve some form of decent parity in the projects that I have led under the New Mobility Agenda over the last two decades has shown to me that it is no easy task. Try as I have in the projects that I have led or been able to influence, we have rarely got anywhere near full parity. Shame on me. But now, on to the future. This is clearly a job for a team, for a crowd, for new leadership, for a new culture. That could be us.

With this I think we are ready to roll. And since we have such a terrific collection of thinkers and doers here, of such high reputation, what could be better than starting with this right now ourselves? To this end I invite each of you to reach out into and beyond your networks to find at least one qualified female colleague, especially those who have worked directly with less advantaged people, groups and communities, including in the developing world. Within a few days, weeks at most, we will have our balanced panel and surely some very different ideas and counsel for our new administration.

I will start making my nominations this morning. Please join me.


5. Conclusion and recommendation

I hereby move that we now make this a major discussion topic for this panel in the weeks immediately ahead. Ladies? Gentlemen?

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The above was an invited contribution to an ongoing "insider policy discussion" sponsored by the National Journal In Washington DC , which has as its intention to provide counsel to orient and guide the incoming Obama administration on matters involving policy and investments in the transportation sector. This piece specifically in response to Discussion Topic: “How should the infrastructure stimulus be spent?” Which opens with the statement (Lisa Caruso) ::” President-elect Obama has made a hefty economic stimulus the first item on his legislative agenda and signaled that he wants a significant infrastructure component. How should the money for transportation infrastructure be distributed to maximize job creation in the short run while ensuring that the projects deliver the greatest benefit for the public? And who gets to decide which projects move first?”

• To access the discussions http://transportation.nationaljournal.com.

• To access the author's panel page: http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/contributors/Britton.php

• To contact the author: +1 310 601-8468 in the States or +331 4326 1323 in Europe. In either place eric.britton@newmobility.org for email or Skype: newmobility

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National Journal Panel: Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived?

"Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived?"

- by Eric Britton, New Mobility Partnerships, Paris and Los Angeles

- Prepared for the Transportation Panel sponsored by the National Journal. See footnote below and http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/contributors/Britton.php for details

Summary:
The author argues first that this is a dangerous way to frame the issues. The phrase “mass transit” is freighted with implicit and usually untested mental images automatically pointing up the need for building new systems, urban rail, more buses on the road, and all of that heavily deficit financed and paid for by taxpayer contributions. He goes on to point out that this is one of the great historical weaknesses of public policy in our sector, one that we cannot afford to repeat: the tendency to rush to “answers” before having sufficiently probed the key underlying questions. Britton goes on to recommend a more strategic approach to mass transit in cities where it is already in place, but for those cities who do not have heavy systems already in place he argues instead for a broad range of available alternative mobility modes which are . . . better, faster, cheaper. He pleads for greater support of the dynamic partnership role bringing in new services which can often be provided by the private sector and in some cases by well prepared local non-profits, as well as taking advantage of these new services to provide good employment opportunities, combined with programs of continuing education to upgrade the skills of the individuals and the labor force as a whole.


Contents
1. Let’s try a better question. 2
2. Mass transit triumphs, limitations and strategies for 2009/2012: 2
3. The target: “Better than a Car” 4
4. The New Mobility Agenda 5
5. It’s all about cities (and land use) 7
6. Entrepreneurship and Operational Models 8
7. Jobs and New Mobility 8
8. Neglected Options for Urban Mobility. 9

"Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived"?

“Mass transit”? I for one certainly hope not. And since I may be the only voice here that expresses this view, I better be ready to justify it.

1. Let’s try a better question.

"Has mass transit finally arrived" . . . is an example of a good kick-off question But as everybody knows one of the most useful attributes of a good question is that it opens the way for something better, for example to a great question. In this case the great question is "Have viable new mobility options finally arrived"? There is a huge difference between these two questions and it is important that we understand what they are. After all, language counts.

To set the stage, a quick comment on that ringing phrase "mass transit". Before rushing out to pour many billions of dollars into this particular concept, we will do well to recognize that as a phrase, as a strategic response, it is a relic of another day, another way of thinking about cities. And indeed another way of thinking about people (mass?).

To the extent to which our mission here is to inform the incoming administration about transportation policy drawing on experience at the leading edge, American and international, we are honor bound to do our best to present the new team with ideas and perspectives that are fully appropriate to the highly challenged situation we face in the last years of this first decade of this very different 21st century.

We have a long way to go. Old thinking about transportation was never weaker, never worse than when it divided our choices into two and only two principal mobility options: that is, either(a) the private car of (b) "mass" or public transportation. It has been this basically binary, either/or, basically no-choice approach which has led to the altogether unsatisfactory situations which exist in most towns and cities across America. It does not have to be that way.


2. Mass transit triumphs, limitations and strategies for 2009/2012:

The largely unseen trap of using a quickly said phrase like "mass transit" to kick off these discussions is that it has the unfortunate effect of immediately narrowing attention to what has to be one of the least appropriate service responses to the challenges of our time. It would be a terrible thing indeed if we were to miss this rare opportunity to bring about much needed change, simply because we chose to call attention to the wrong approach.

Mass transit has indeed had its glory days. But truth to tell it is more a vestige of the past than an instrument of the future. To get a proper feel for what it is all about, let’s focus briefly on the “mass” of mass transit. If our goal for the next four years is to spend great wads of public money to build and operate heavy industrial systems built on 19th century principles and capable of channeling large volumes of people on schedule from a reduced number of origins to a small set of destinations, that might well be the way to go. However if we do that, we are going to be way out of step with the realities of our epoch. One way of saying this is that it offers an industrial solution to a postindustrial world.

The mobility pattern of the places in which more than 80% of all Americans live, work, study and play today has little in common with this kind of outmoded delivery approach of another age. We live in a world not only of many origins and many destinations, but also of many times.

The services we create and reinforce with ever scarcer public money are going to have to correspond with our needs and desires as they are playing themselves out in this new century. A very different pattern than the one that the old mass transit systems were designed to serve.

The word mass transit conjures up a bustling world of crowded subways and metros, screeching urban and commuter rail, chock-full tramways and LRT, and incomplete patchworks of scheduled, fixed -route bus services -- all overseen by public agencies and deficit financed through the ever-mounting contributions of hard-working taxpayers. Did anyone say a "great sucking sound"?

It also tends to conjure up some pretty big numbers: for example new subway systems costing billions, expensive hardware which gets used only a few hours a day, with the whole apparatus heavily subsidized not only for the original purchase and construction but also for day-to-day operation.

If you wish to start up a new subway or metro in most cities today, better be prepared to fork out something on the order of $1000 an inch to bring it to completion. That is a lot of money, and it does not take into account the cost of the years of traffic disruption which inevitably goes with such projects. Nor the steady flow of public subsidies that are going to be needed to keep it in operation for the decades to follow.

Beyond this, all those heavy rail systems not only take decades to plan and bring into operation, but once they have been laid they have of course zero flexibility. This is worrying if we consider that the economic and locational dynamics of our cities are evolving very rapidly and in ways which even our very smartest planners and PhD modelers cannot accurately forecast today.

We live in a world of rapid change and non-stop pattern breaks. So if the idea is to put a system in place which corresponds with our present perception of needs and priorities, the odds are awfully slim that 10 or 20 years hence these will still be the dominant patterns in place. That is likely to be a very costly mistake.

Mass transit was a great 19th-century solution which corresponded with the basic logistics, economic realities and social conscience of that era. Throughout the 20th century, especially as the dynamics started to change rapidly, the formula has been marked by some successes, and more failures. All at very high cost.

There are better ways of spending these hard-earned taxpayer dollars than rushing off to build costly new mass transit systems. And likewise for any strategy which has us pouring more public money into lots more buses which at the end of the day end up spending more time in traffic, as well as being substantially underutilized most of the time.

Of course there is a real role for more effective public transportation services of a more conventional nature, though if you look closely you will find that as a result of a steady flow of technological and organizational innovations these services become increasingly less "conventional" as our cities become ever more innovative and flexible.

Here is what we can counsel with confidence to the incoming Obama team about "mass transit" and its appropriate role for the critical 2009-2012 period.

1. If you have it already in place, your main challenge is to get a lot better at using what you have in a cost-effective manner. Even at the leading edge we're only starting to understand how we can build on existing mass transit systems to create a far lower per passenger cost higher qualities of service than offered by the old operations and funding approaches

2. If you do not have it, forget about using scarce taxpayer dollars to build yourself a new one from scratch, because there are far better ways of getting the job done. Let's have a look.


3. The target: “Better than a Car”

The challenges before the new administration to create transportation systems which correspond to the needs of all Americans and the special circumstances of the 21st century are sufficiently great that we really have to make sure we use all of the available tools in our toolkit. And while the concept of traditional mass or public transportation gives us an initial impetus and a bit of a starting place, if that’s as far as we take it we will have failed in our task.

A radically different approach is needed, one which is increasingly called "new mobility". The critical underpinning of this approach is the acceptance that our goal has to be to create a wide variety of alternative ways of getting around the city which correspond better to people’s actual needs and preferences. New mobility is all about choices, choices made at the end of the day not by governments but by people..

A quick look first though at why so many of us think that having our own car is a great way to get around can help to set the scene. If we abstract from such minor inconveniences as steadily increasing traffic congestion, escalating costs of car operation, and the enormous environmental and social costs of an exclusively, or primarily, car-based transportation system, you have to admit that having something like your own car without all the hassles is a really great way to get around. It is a form of auto-mobility which corresponds in at least one fundamental way to our aborning 21st century, offering as it does a magic carpet of sorts on which you hop, go there, hop off all with great ease and even a certain sort of elegance.

So if auto-mobility is not so much a mortal sin as a decent human desire, the question becomes how can we accommodate this legitimate desire for auto-mobility -- or perhaps we will do better to call it first class transportation -- in our 21st century cities? Now that is an interesting question.

And one to which there is no single answer to it. Specifically in this context what we need and what we have in hand everything we need to create is a rich package, a spectrum of transportation services which combine great choice, sensible economics, greater environmental integrity, and solid business sense. All while working together synergistically to complete and reinforce each other.


4. The New Mobility Agenda

There is a long list of new mobility alternatives which we now need to better identify, improve, and bring to our towns and cities across America. The catalog includes considerable number of variations on services such as ridesharing, car and van pools, carsharing, premium and shared taxis, public and private bicycles, improved systems for safe and agreeable walking, community or small bus systems, smartcard paratransit, and the long list goes on.

Let me quickly sketch out three broad examples among many of how these new policies can be put to work in our cities to see if I can make this clear:

1. New concepts of public transportation.
Building on the traditional concepts of scheduled, fixed route bus services, we are seeing that a great deal can be accomplished if we combine improved access through reserved lanes and streets with the latest in logistical and communications technologies so that these public vehicles are able to move more smoothly and efficiently on our streets. There are in fact quite a range of ways of handling it, of which the most talked about these days go under names such as BRT or bus rapid transit. But what these services really have in common, and what makes them effective, is that they combine new thinking, greater flexibility, new technology, and improved management techniques to get us away from the old syndrome of ever more buses stuck in ever more traffic, to a transportation system capable of holding up its end of the bargain.

The operational models and technology for are there and are already working just fine in many and diverse places. We know how to do it. So we should

2. New concepts of "intermediate transportation"
Here we have a considerable range of service types but just by way of example let us think in terms of something like 21st-century taxis. The great advantage of taxis is that in principle at least they provide highly flexible demand responsive systems which will pick you up where you are and take you to where (or near to where) to you want to go. There is no reason that such vehicles need carry only a single passenger, and indeed if they are to be part of a sustainable transportation system they must be able to respond to the need for affordable and convenient small group transport as well as offering premium service to those who are ready to pay for it. There are two tricks to making this work. The first is to create a fully flexible system of regulation, ownership and operations which will be able to respond to these new service patterns. The second is to load in state-of-the-art technology into these operations so that they can do the job that is needed. Every city will have its own way of approaching these challenges.

The operational models and technology for are there and are already working just fine in many and diverse places. We know how to do it. So we should

3. New concepts of automotive transportation.
No this is not about electric cars or hybrid engines or new fuels. It is about new ways of using cars both in cities and in lower density areas as well. There are number ways of going about this, but for the moment let us consider just that of carsharing, but only as one example among many, mind you.

Carsharing is one alternative system of car ownership, access and use. The costs and troubles of vehicle purchase, ownership and maintenance are transferred to a central group. One way or another you join a club and as a member have the right to take one of their cars and use it when and as you need it. Today there are more than a thousand cities in the world in which you can walk out on the street and pick up a carshare vehicle. What is most interesting about carsharing is not that all by itself reduces traffic -- after all there is still a car and a driver out there in traffic -- but that people who choose for their own reasons to use shared cars also tend to make considerably more use of public transportation, cycling, walking, taxis, and yes, believe it, even rental cars.

So what of the end of the day is most interesting about the carshare option is that it gives us a trigger or pattern break and that it thus facilitates the move from a no-choice car-only transportation system, to a new mobility system which is more appropriate to the 21st century. And all that based on people's personal choices together with low or even no public investment. The operational models and technology for are there and are already working just fine in many and diverse places. We know how to do it. So we should

But finally and to keep this in context, we need to bear in mind that carsharing per se is no more than what we call a “one-percent solution”. Which means that even if we get it right, there are still remaining 99% which we somehow need to figure out and working to the total solution package.

A parallel path combining an array of technologies and private cars which has yet to be fully engaged has to do with ways in which the system can be extended to help drivers get to where they are going with far fewer negative environmental and resource impacts. This is a rich path of innovation thought and if we were to single out just one example of how this can work, consider the use of communications technology to facilitate guaranteed no-fooling parking in advance so as to rule out the endless searching for that free parking slot.


4. The hard technology core
if you step back and look at these three basic pillars of the new mobility system of the future, you will see that they all have some very important common points, of which can be the most striking is that the only way that any of them can realize their full potential is through extensive and imaginative use of technology in all senses of the phrase. Both information and communications technologies combining to bring on an age of new logistics, important because the transportation system of the future is going to depend as much on getting information to where it is needed both to make the systems themselves work to their full potential, as well as smoothing the interface between user and service. If you're looking for a striking example of how this is probably going to work its way out in the next year is immediately ahead, let me suggest that the main interface between the user and the system will quickly become the mobile telephone or something very much like that.

It is hard for me to try to bring together all of the key confidence of this new and very different approach to the challenges of the sector in a few pages, but I hope that this plus materials that you have access to on our several websites treating all of this will serve as a reminder that there really is something of value here.



5. It’s all about cities (and land use)

A successful city is a place in which people live, work, play and get about in a vibrant and choice-rich environment. And a first class mobility system properly adapted to its unique environment is an essential ingredient of the city's success.

At the outset of this piece I repeated the well-known point that a bit more than 80% of all Americans today live in cities. True and not quite true with the same time. While there is a certain overall statistical justification for such a statement, anyone who spends any time traveling around in that 80% area of our cities is going to see only a relatively small proportion of what one might call legitimately urban environments ,and a far greater proportion of sprawl or suburban environments. From a transportation perspective these present very very different kinds of challenges for public policy and investment decisions. There is no one size fits all approach possible, especially when it comes to well-working 21st-century transportation systems.

The other indispensable half of the new mobility coin is the underlying issue of population density and mixed-use, which brings us right up against that critical building block of land-use policy.

Over the second half of the 20th century our transportation choices combined to gut much of to the urban quality of daily life for many Americans. This however need not be irreversible and so if we combine wise transportation policies on the one hand with a better understanding of what makes city life attractive and economically viable on the other, we can have the makings of a full and interesting future ahead of us.

This brings us right smack up against the challenges of balanced mix use and redensification, the challenge for which Americans are uniquely qualified because we are a mobile nation in all respects. Each year something like 20 % of all Americans change either the place they live or work, which means that if our planning horizon is four to five years for short-term impacts, a properly devised public-policy along with taxation and other incentives will help us integrate this critical portion of the solution package.

There was a time in which public policy was made with much tighter links between those agencies responsible for transportation on the one hand , and cities and their development on the other. As we look ahead to a new era of public policy at the federal level, it would, I submit, be desirable to tighten this link considerably.




6. Entrepreneurship and Operational Models

These new systems are sharply from the traditional models of management and operations which have generally characterized the transportation sector in the past. There is going to be a greatly expanded role for entrepreneurship and flexibility, and much of this is, if we are lucky, likely to come from the private sector.

But the private sector alone is not going to be able to come up with the right solutions for our cities by itself. It is one, a critical one at that, of at least three partners who need to be engaged and brought together to make these new systems work at their best. The now-old concept of public-private partnerships gives us the beginning of our model, but in the future we are going to have to step well beyond practices in this area as well.

If we look carefully at the leading examples around the world, we will see that there is on the one hand an expanded role for governance (and strategic thinking), which in most cases will devolve to local and regional government. There is also a greatly increased role for user and public interest groups of all kinds, who in our modern cities are becoming ever better organized and ever better prepared to participate in these partnerships.

What national and state organizations can do to help in this process is to use their legislative and financial means to provide a rich supportive environment for innovation and adaptation in the field. They can be at the leading edge, or lagging edge. It will be their choice.

7. Jobs and New Mobility

Let’s not forget about this aspect of the transportation challenge as we move toward record levels of unemployment which are being taken by the incoming administration as a major target for public policy.

For most of the last half-century the primary goal of innovation in the transportation sector, particularly in cities, has been to reduce costs. And since more than two thirds of all of the cost of running a city service relate to labor, the consistent trend has been to introduce technology and organizational techniques so as to "save labor". With the results that are there for all to see.

As the new administration sets out to "reinvent transport in America" to correspond with the special circumstances of this new century, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that a modern high-performance transportation system need not be "job-free" or "job-lite”. In fact what these various new mobility modes have in common is that not only are they loaded to the gills with new technology -- indeed to a system their performance keys on new logistics and medications technologies -- but they also need people to support those technologies and offer possibilities for higher skill, appropriately compensated jobs.

This is a rich area of public policy which until now has not been sufficiently explored, but with the incoming administration accepting the challenge of creating millions of new jobs for Americans, our sector is one in which there are not only many new ideas but also the potential for many new jobs. I very much hope we will explore this opportunity together.



8. Neglected Options for Urban Mobility.

We are now starting to get a feel for what the transportation systems of our cities are going to have to look like, and with it a number of clues as to what the new administration and transportation policy and to make it happen at its best.

The question that we have reflected on here asks about a transportation option that has “finally arrived”? This give one the impression that there has been something we were perhaps supposed to have done.

A report was published a full generation ago by a team at the Urban Institute in Washington DC under the title Paratransit: Neglected Options for Urban Mobility. It is interesting to think about it, a book that came out in 1974 which already set out many of these ideas. What is happened in all these years since?

While this concept has never entered into the mainstream of public policy in the United States, I am happy to be able to report however that there are quite a number of programs and projects around the world that are showing the way in terms of these innovations. (For more on this you are invited to consult the materials that have been gathered into the New Mobility Partnerships and website at www.newmobility.org. And from there to be extensive catalogues of programs and sources all over the world.)

And though there are large numbers of projects and services, businesses and technologies that correspond quite nicely to this title, the fact is that they have not as yet entered into the mainstream of American transportation policy and practice. So now is the time to start.

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The above was my second invited contribution to an ongoing "insider policy discussion" sponsored by the National Journal In Washington DC , which has as its intention to provide counsel to orient and guide the incoming Obama administration on matters involving policy and investments in the transportation sector. This piece specifically in response to Discussion Topic: “Has mass transit finally arrived?” which opens with the statement (Lisa Caruso) : “With mass transportation ridership at record highs (even as gas prices plummet) and public concern growing over greenhouse gas emissions and energy security, has the time come to devote significantly more federal funding to mass transit relative to highways? And do public transit supporters have the political clout needed to make that happen in the next surface transportation bill?”

• To access the discussions http://transportation.nationaljournal.com.

* The author's panel page is at http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/contributors/Britton.php

* You can contact the author at +1 310 601-8468 in the States or +331 4326 1323 in Europe. In either place eric.britton@newmobility.org for email or Skype: newmobility work just fine.

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National Journal Panel: Dollar Gas?

"What Does $1.67 Gasoline Mean for the Future?"

- by Eric Britton, 6 January 2009, New Mobility Partnerships, Paris and Los Angeles

- Prepared for the Transportation Panel sponsored by the National Journal. See footnote below and http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/contributors/Britton.php for details

What about one to ten dollars a gallon?
$1.67 is an interesting number, but suppose we look instead at a broad range of possible prices -- for example something in the order of anywhere from one to ten dollars a gallon. Now that is an interesting question. What does spread like this mean for national policy? And If you are uncomfortable working with that huge range, well you better get used to it because it is just one example of what we call the New Normal. That's the kind of thing that we need to be prepared to look at, understand, and work to make wise policy. That's our future. And we can either make it or wait for it to happen to us.

To make some sense of this and lend what I hope will be a helping hand to the incoming transportation team, I would like to look at the future of continuing large swings in the price of gas at source and at the pump from two very different perspectives. The first is that of someone born and raised in a rural small-town environment in northeastern Mississippi, which today looks a great deal different from how things were when I was a child there. The second is from the vantage of a strategic planner with a special interest in the politics of transportation from both a sustainability and global perspective. I would then like to see if we can find a way to put our heads together in order to piece the best ideas/opportunities of these two presumably polar positions together for policy purposes for the incoming administration. I am sure we can do it.

Let's start with the Mississippi perspective. In many ways a typical citizen's-eye of what this is all about.

Letter from Mississippi

Today down in the lightly settled rural areas around my hometown of Amory Mississippi there are at least three unyielding realities which most of our friends and neighbors have to figure out how to live with every day.

• First, that the time in which our town was a lively place which served to provide both the people who lived in town and surrounding communities with a wide range of goods and services all within walking or biking distances somehow disappeared in the closing decades of the last century. No one here is quite sure of how or why it happened -- but it did and it was a great loss. One that we really start to feel as the price of gas climbs.

• The second harsh reality is that as the town emptied out the only possible way of getting around today is . . . if you have a car. A very American phenomenon. But there is more to it than that.

• The third is that most of us down here are not particularly rich, meaning that when gas prices double, triple worse, it hits us a lot harder than the average American. We are not only one of the poorest states in the Union, but today more than 20% of our neighbors live below the official poverty level. And a lot more than that if you are a rural white and sadly worse yet if you are a rural black.

So as an average citizen from northeastern Mississippi I have some questions about how the new team in Washington is going to deal with the harsh realities we face both now and will surely have to face in the years ahead. This is one problem we can be sure is not going to go away by itself.

To be perfectly frank certainly the most comfortable solution for us would be a return to dollar gas. One of the great conveniences of that is that it would allow us to keep going as we have over all these last years without changing. Nobody really likes to change, at least when they feel it's being forced on them. But we look around and we know that the world is changing, and I guess that includes us to.

So the question becomes: how do we live down here with three or four or five dollar gas? I guess we had to start thinking about that now. And at five dollars a gallon we are definitely going to have to be thinking more about transportation and access, and less about cars per se -- at least as we always have in the past.

A lot of ideas come to mind as to how to deal with this, but since most of them are kind of unfamiliar, we're probably going to need some help in developing basic organizational and even legal support in order to make them work.

Here are a couple to think about which would be important for us and for many people who lived in small towns and rural areas across America:

1. We don't have very many taxis around here, and the ones we do things To cost a lot. But if we can figure out how to get more people into the taxis so as to drive down the costs and at the same time put more of them on the road, well that might be the start of something interesting.

2. Much in the same spirit, we have a lot of people who have both cars and plenty of time on their hands to serve as informal but still effective taxi. If we could only organize to find a system to make this work.

3. We used to hear something about car and van pooling which was used by some of our local industry employers, back when we had still local industry. That has to be an idea we could revisit, both for getting to work and for other important trips as well.

4. Likewise we have a fair number of church and school buses in the county, most of which sit around empty 95% of the time. Surely we can do something more with them.

5. And then what about working out some things where people want to share a car when they need it, and not have to pay the full expenses involved in owning and operating your own car.

6. There is almost no provision for cycling in this area, and there surely have to be some interesting things we could do to encourage and support this form of low-cost healthy transportation. That plus better and safer sidewalks and other protection for people who want to walk.

7. We used to walk a lot before we started to depend on cars, and I know there are a lot of people out here who would like to be able to do it again, if only there were a place to go to within walking distance.

Maybe I should add in closing that we have figured out that there is more to it than just cars, transportation and the price of gas at the pump. Maybe some of you up there should be telling us how we can get back to towns and small rural centers that offer something more than an empty street and closed storefronts. That has to be part of our solution strategy, wouldn’t you say?

Back in the days of the War Between the States, our part of Mississippi for a long time resisted pressure to secede from the United States of America. We were and are to this day proud and independent people. But what we now need from Washington are some clear signals and a good understanding of the realities we face every day.

We're waiting to hear from you. And you will find that we are ready to do our part.

From a global perspective

My fourteen distinguished colleagues who have already weighed in with their views and counsel on this question here have covered a lot of the most important bases for which I'm grateful. They make a good read so no reason for me to try to cover the same terrain.

Instead, let me now take a couple of steps back from the heat of the action and share with you my thoughts on how this looks from a global and more strategic sustainability perspective. When we step back from the stove a couple of important things become clear:

1. We are going to see continuous, at times violent and in any event uncontrollable swings in the price of fossil fuels in 2009 and in the years ahead. This is the inescapable reality of the future, the New Normal.

2. At no time in the past have we seen such wide, rapid and unpredictable fluctuations. This suggests to me that whatever our future policy is, it better be very different from the past. In other words if it looks familiar we can be pretty sure that it is not going to work.

3. So we have to know that we have to innovate and we have to dare.

4. It is my firm belief that this high volatility can be turned toward to our advantage if we tackle it in a sufficiently strategic and politically savvy manner. I and a thousand others have written in the past that "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste". And since this is an excellent case in point, I hope that we will now find a way to put our brains together to make sure we don't waste this one

5. However unless there is a tidal change in our approach, the likelihood is that we are going to lurch from one hapless piecemeal “solution” to another and in the process show ourselves as unable to assume the responsibilities of good governance. This is no time for complacency and wait-and-see or more of the same. I would say that we have done enough waiting and seeing for at least the next eight years.

6. The reality is that we have all the tools needed to engage a policy based on strategic, steady and significant increases in price at the pump. This is needed for all the reasons which my colleagues here have pointed out very well and which I therefore need not repeat, while at the same time ensuring that those who today are both highly dependent on their cars will not suffer – excessively, unnecessarily, inequitable -- from the necessary strategic price increases.

So we know what we have to do, and that is to work out and implement a clear game plan for these steady price increases and everything that is needed to soften the edge, beginning immediately. If Europeans can live with gas at close to $10 a gallon, Americans can too. And this can be achieved moreover without a sacrifice in life quality.

All we need is leadership to show the way.

Eric Britton

PS. I'm reading a fine book by James M. McPherson on the leadership challenges that then-new president Abraham Lincoln faced when he arrived in Washington, DC in 1861. The book, "Tried by War”, which I strongly recommend to you, offers a number of striking analogies to the situation and the stresses that President-elect Obama is undoubtedly going to have to face and deal with when he takes office in less than two weeks time. President Lincoln had plenty of advisors and plenty of generals, but things began to move in the right direction only when he took charge of it himself. That’s leadership.

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The above was my third invited contribution to an ongoing "insider policy discussion" sponsored by the National Journal In Washington DC , which has as its intention to provide counsel to orient and guide the incoming Obama administration on matters involving policy and investments in the transportation sector. This piece specifically in response to Discussion Topic: “What Does $1.67 Gasoline Mean for the Future?” which opens with the statement (Lisa Caruso) : “When gasoline hit $4 a gallon last summer, many Americans started driving less, buying more fuel-efficient cars and taking public transportation. But now that gas is much cheaper, Americans may make different choices. With fuel prices and consumer demand so variable, what is the best way to encourage investment in greener, more fuel-efficient alternatives, and what does this uncertainty mean for long-term infrastructure planning?”

• To access the discussions http://transportation.nationaljournal.com.

* You can contact the author at +1 310 601-8468 in the States or +331 4326 1323 in Europe. In either place eric.britton@newmobility.org for email or Skype: newmobility work just fine.

--> Read on: