"CAR21": A Thinking Exercise (or New Ways of Owning and Using Cars in the 21st Century)

 

From the World Carshare Consortium:  I would like to offer a "thought experiment" with anyone here who may wish to jump in with their ideas. criticism and/or proposals -- or perhaps only to pull up a chair and see what happens in a case like this. The short story is that I would like to see what, if anything, happens with a simple change of title and focus for this group -- the World Carshare Consortium at http//worldcarshare.com + + World Streets on Carsharing at http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/category/sharetransport/carshare +  Facebook page on carsharing http://www.facebook.com/groups/worldcarshare/ + YahooGroups discussion forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldCarShare  -- which for almost 15 years now has been focusing its attention strictly on the varieties of carsharing that are fast multiplying and taking an increasingly important role in the mobility options of people in cities around the world.  Carsharing has a brilliant, in many ways surprising and certainly very different future, which in fact is already well in process.  But there is more to our story than that.

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Weekend leisure: Piano Stairs

Take a break. And in case you missed them the first time around check out the Piano Stairs from Stockholm this weekend.

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Brief: Paris - Ambitious mobility plans for economy, efficiency and equity.

Paris: Ambitious mobility plans for economy, efficiency and equity.
This ambitious effort on the part of Paris's mayor and his team is well worth following, even if for some it is may be a bit inconvenient for those not able to easily read in French. The original article appears here. And here in the event is the Google translation. (You may note that this article appears in a journal loved and run by the French Right, the mayor's fierce opponents, so caveat lector.)

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Importance of Gender Parity in Transport Planning and Policy

[polldaddy poll=6674381]

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Who is reading World Streets today?

 

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Achieving the goals of the EC White Paper on Transport: How civil society can help with delivery

The European Economic and Social Committee is organizing a conference on "Achieving the goals of the White Paper on Transport: how civil society can help with delivery". This one day conference will take place at the Committee's premises on 7 December. The principal document under discussion is entitled "Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource-efficient transport system". It is available here . We are inviting comments on this document since it is at the core of the meeting. But first some background:

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Congratulations!

That's great. But just because we voted today does not mean that we are done with our duty as a citizen in a true democracy.

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Bogota 21: Toward a world-class transit-oriented Metropolis (with commentary)

This report sponsored by Siemens under a program initi­ated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and De­velopment (BMZ) recommends "that about 4.2% of the national Gross Do­mestic Product (GDP), needs to be spent annually to develop Bogotá into a world-class transit-oriented metropolis". The report has been  implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für In­ternationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, active in Colombia for almost 50 years, and Siemens, a German global corporation present in Co­lombia for nearly 60 years.  And to see it for yourself,  click here for the full report that has just been released. http://despacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Bogota-21-english.pdf

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John Pucher reports on "City Cycling"

John Pucher (cycling guru and Professor of Transport Policy at Rutgers university) gave a public lecture on cycling in cities in LA earlier this week, introducing his new book "City Cycling" to an attentive audience.  Kent Strumpell of the City of LA Bicycle Advisory Committee was there taking notes.  Which he kindly shares with us here:

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"What are the top 3 things Paris has done in the last 10 years to deliver a genuinely sustainable transport system?"

The other day the phone rang and I heard the voice of my long time friend and valued collaborator Professor John Whitelegg telling me: "on 8th November I am giving a presentation in London at a conference organised by SNCF.  It's all about London and Paris and what the cities can learn from each other.  I will go further (as usual) and argue that both can make a lot more progress on things like bike use, traffic reduction, getting rid of air pollution, zero deaths  and injuries  etc if they get a lot bolder and start engaging with the vision thing.  I will say that Paris can learn from London on congestion charging but I want  something quite big that I can say in what ways London can learn from Paris.  What are the top 3 things  that Paris has done in the last 10 years to deliver a genuinely sustainable transport system?"

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Young Scholars/Future Leaders Fellows Program: Kaohsiung World Share/Transport Forum 2010

The Young Scholars/Future Leaders program organized in association with the inaugural Kaohsiung World Share/Transport Forum provided a highly  innovative and useful component of the 2010 event, which we are keen on build on and extend in the future. To this end, we publish here today background information taken from the original  event, as a stepping stone in the direction of bringing the entire program up to date and making it one of the key building blocks of the still to be decided 2013 World Forum.  More to follow on this shortly but for now read on here.

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NEW MOBILITY AGENDA/GETTING AROUND

WEB, BLOGS & SUPPORTING SOCIAL MEDIA

When it comes to the multiplicity of internet sites and media that together make up the at-times somewhat labyrinthine New Mobility Agenda, there is a certain if not always immediately app[rent underlying logic in our gameplan.  Here in summary how things look today in the hope that it will help you make better use of the considerable potential of these tools. in your work.

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New Mobility Strategies from the ground up - Supporting local commerce and enterprise

It is well established by now, in leading circles of knowledge, policy and practice at least, that mixed use is the fourth dimension of the tetraptych of the four interlocking axes of Transport/Mobility/Access/Presence. And in this case namely presence.

To my thinking, the concept of mixed use in a society that puts a premium on job creation and local entrepreneurship as well as sheer mobility per se, has not until now gotten a fair run, either in the literature or in practice. And yet it is vital to the future well-being of our cities and all those who live and work there.

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Op-Ed: Why things are not good for UK citizens — and how to make them better

* Click here for latest daily postings to and from World Streets on Facebook

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Do It Like The Dutch & Danes: Guide To Becoming A Bike Friendly Mecca

Why are some European cities cycling mad? And how can other cities copy their infrastructure? ECF spoke to Kalle Vaismaa, co-author of the book “Best European Practices in Promoting Cycling and Walking”. (Article source: European Cyclists’ Federation ECF)

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World Streets actively supports the International Day of the Girl

11 October 2012: World Streets supports the full and active citizenship, rights and participation of women of all ages in every home, corner, school and  street of every city and every nation of this planet. See PLan International for today's announcement and a first round of background information on this important day.

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World Transport Policy & Practice – Vol. 18, No. 4

The three articles in this Autumn 2012  issue make an important contribution to transport de­bate and point clearly to different ways of viewing some of the key public policy issues currently underpinning transport and urban planning thinking.

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Op-Ed: Why things are not good for UK citizens -- and how to make them better

- By John Whitelegg

We are not doing very well in the UK on things that matter to most people.  We are the 6^th richest country in the world and yet we come very near the bottom of most rankings on things like child poverty, inequality, pensioner poverty, excess winter deaths, teenage pregnancy, NEETS, percentage of electricity generated from renewables, levels of cycling and quality of public transport.  None of this is necessary and it is safe to assume that local and central government did not set out to achieve these poor quality outcomes.  So what is going on?

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The "Real Economy" vs. the Financial Economy (And then I rembered Laputa)

The Greek Formula One idiocies of late -- see http://goo.gl/E64Tp for ample backgrouknd there -- have me asking myself, on what planet do these good souls and their ilk live? Or think  they live?  And then I remembered Laputa.

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Paratransit for mobility impaired persons in developing regions

- Now available at http://www.globalride-sf.org/paratransit/Guide.pdf

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Third International Share/Transport Forum - Jiaozuo China

This International Forum, the third in the series which got first underway in 2010 in Kaohsiung and met  again in Changzhe in 2011,  is once again, this year on 21/22 September in Jiaozuo China, bringing together leading thinkers and sharing transport practitioners from  the People's Republic of China, Asia and the world, to examine the concept of shared transport (as opposed to individual vehicle ownership or established forms of public transport) from a multi-disciplinary perspective, with a strong international and Chinese-speaking contingent.

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World Streets on Facebook (Check it out)

Why consider joining one or more of these focus groups on Facebook?  Well, because for better of worse social media are here to stay, and warts and all Facebook definitely has its uses -- as we are showing with these fora.  So put aside your reservations and at least check in and have a look for yourself. (And if you don't want to sign in as an identifiable human being, this is no problem. Sign in as your dog (even if you don't have one) and no one will be the wiser for it.)

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Low Carbon Twin Cities Conference 2012 in Tainan : Expanding Horizons with New Mobility Partnerships

* Click here for full presentation    twin-cities-17sep12

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Support the "Getting Around" collaborative project

We have no money gentlemen, so we shall have to think.
– Ernest Rutherford, on taking over Cavendish Laboratory in 1919

If you wish to make a contribution to support the Getting Around: : Cities, Complexity, Indolence and the Sliver Arrow of Equity book project and two-year  research and testing program behind it, here is how to transfer funds to support this work:

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World Streets Reader (First edition)

Here please find a selection of articles taken from the archives of World Streets, each of which reporting briefly on a concept or event that I as editor and author consider to be worthy of the attention of our several thousand international readers. I am reviewing these for ideas, materials and clues in support of a book in progress under the title "The Third Transportation Revolution: Cities, Indolence, Complexity and the Equity Agenda". More will be posted on this project shortly.

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Thinking about Equity-Based Transport Systems: Get Ready to Embrace Complexity (or Get Off the Bridge)

As is or at least should by now be well known, a transportation "system" is well more than a collection of largely free-standing bits of infrastructure, modes, links, agencies, institutions, operators and more, concerning which decision scan be taken on a piecemeal basis. .  It is in fact a textbook example of a disorganized complex system, or more specifically a vast, chaotic but ultimately manageable ecosystem.  And if it is our ambition -- which it should be -- to construct, or rather reconstruct, our city transport systems into functional high-performing sustainable ecosystems. it can help to build up our understanding of the process in steps.

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Op-Ed: Priority for Public Transport in Tallinn

Priority for Public Transport in Tallinn (Probably the Best)

- Eric Britton, 06. september 2012 01:00

Op-Ed from today's Estonian Times: http://goo.gl/7gkFJ (in Estonian)

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Does anybody notice anything weird going on here?

Scenario A: Transport in Cities

In 1951 New York city traffic looked like this:

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What do you think the mayor is thinking about when you walk through the door this morning to talk to her about that very important transport issue?

When I or anyone else with a transportation issue burning in the front of our brain, walk into City Hall  to talk to the mayor about the important topic which bring us into her office, here is what we implicitly assume is her dominant preoccupation behind these exchanges:



If only it were so.

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CFDs: Get the nose of the camel under the tent.

Every day is a great day to take a few cars off the road and think about it

Once a year in mid-summer we wind up the World Car Free Day Collaborative site at www.worldcarfreedays.com as we have done yearly for the last 15 years to get it ready to serve as an information source and contact tool for cities and others who are considering events in the second half of the year.  Most notably among these the numerous Car Free Day events are those that tend to cluster around the end of September, including the annual European Mobility Week and its multitude of CFDs, most but not all of which in Europe, which you can check out for yourself at http://www.mobilityweek.eu/home/.

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On Building New Mobility Ecosystems: The mayor has some questions

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I understand Professor that you are preparing a major public address on new transport ideas for our city tomorrow. My staff tells me you are calling it "On Building New Mobility Ecosystems". Now that sounds quite intriguing, but can you tell me in a few words that you have in mind to talk to us about?

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A Mayor's-Eye View of Sustainable Transportation: Politics as the art of the possible

The letter that follows is, as you will quickly surmise, not an actual communication from one elected official in one case, but rather a composite, a distillation of experience that I have had over these last years of trying to push the sustainable transportation agenda in many parts of the world, almost always in conjunction and in dialogue with mayors and other city leaders. As you will see, it is not that they are uniformly adverse to or not interested in the concepts behind sustainable transportation and sustainable cities. It is just that they have a great many other things on their mind, including staying on top day after day of the considerable challenges of managing their city -- and, in not very long, running once again for reelection. This is the political reality of which those of us who would be agents of change must be aware, that politics is the art of the possible. Now let's turn the stage over to our mayor:

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Editorial: Why are we losing the sustainability wars? In transport, in cities, in our lives? Because we are . . .

Consider these irrefutable unpleasant truths:

There may be successes and improvements in this project, in this  place, in this way, but when we look at the bottom line -- i.e., the aggregate impact of our transport choices and actions on the planet  -- it is clear that we (that's the collective "we" including all of us who have in some way committed to or accepted this great responsiblity, this author certainly included) are failing, big time. And if we are frank with ourselves, we can see that this is quite simply because . . .

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Why are we losing the war on sustainable transport, sustainable cities and sustainable lives?

There are of course quite a number of reasons, but one of them is NOT that we do not have sufficient knowledge and experience in order to figure out and implement effectively a very large number of measures and policies, each of which one step at a time will draw us just one bit more close to our much needed goals. So that is definitely not the problem.

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"They are supposed to scream"

The acrimonious discussions and representations before the highest court of India in which the road lobby is currently doing its best to put an end to the concept of reserved lanes for more space-efficient public transport, with the single stroke of a pen, is something that all of us who are committed to the concept of sustainable and just transport can learn a few lessons. From the other side of the planet this article that appeared last week in Next American City  in its entirety below. It brings to mind the memorable words roared by former mayor Enrique Peñalosa a few years back on the subject of the ever-bitter struggle between the car lobby vs. more effective ways of getting around in his city: "Don't you understand Eric? they are supposed to scream".

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John Whitelegg on "Health in the sustainable city"

Some time back our very long time friend and associate, Professor of Sustainable Transportation and Sustainable Development John Whitelegg, was interviewed in Copenhagen and asked  how changes in transport systems can lead to a vast improvement in quality of life. We need to move from a world filled with metal and concrete to a world of green spaces and clean air, he explained.  Today, two years later, this short video has lost none of its validity or timeliness. Let's have a look.

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No Parking, No Business 3: Walking and cycling perspectives

Continuing  our coverage of the open "No parking, No business" conversation, more on walkability impacts/local economic development impacts, this time  from Todd Litman: selected references  from the "Walkability" chapter of the Online TDM Encyclopedia of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute. 

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No parking, no business 2: What happens in the store.

On 23 June we asked the following open question to our readers "Has anyone out there ever run across a solid report or study showing that local businesses suffer financially when a zone is pedestrianized or made bike-accessible? Or that real estate prices take a nose dive when such improvements are made? Most of us here are familiar with the other side of this coin, but it occurred to me that this such critical references might be useful to us all, given that these local conflicts and claims come up time and time again in cities around the world."

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Public Bikesharing in North America

NEW REPORT: Public bikesharing—the shared use of a bicycle fleet—is an innovative transportation strategy that has recently emerged in major North American cities. Information technology (IT)-based bikesharing systems typically position bicycles throughout an urban environment, among a network of docking stations, for immediate access. Trips can be one-way, round-trip, or both, depending on the operator. Bikesharing can serve as both a first-and-last mile (connector to other modes) and a many-mile solution. 

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A quiet moment on India Streets

The vast editorial staff of India Streets is for the moment tied up with professional obligations and educational projects, so things have slowed down for a while in these pages. No worries, since during this interim you will find a steady flow of  useful information and discussions on our dedicated Facebook site here.  

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SUTP May/June Newsletter

The latest issue of the May/June SUTP newsletter has just been published and reports on the groups recent publications and activities, such as supporting training courses on transport in Malaysia, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and our contributions at Rio+20 Summit. You can pick it up freely here.

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Transportation Innovation and Reform: The Path to Social Sustainability

As wise and balanced a summary as you will find of the fine art of dialogue and engagement when it comes to the hard job of developing and integrating new transport arrangements into a space as varied and in many ways contradictory and conflicted as a  21st century city, in any part of the world.  Bravo! With kind thanks to Christopher Zegras of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, one of the conveners of this event, for sharing this with our readers. (You may also wish to check out the short note of conclusion of the editor.)

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Transportation Innovation and Reform: Finding the Way to Social Sustainability

As wise and balanced a summary as you will find of the fine art of dialogue and engagement when it comes to the hard job of developing and integrating new transport arrangements into a space as varied and in many ways contradictory and conflicted as a  21st century city, in any part of the world.  Bravo! With kind thanks to Christopher Zegras of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, one of the conveners of this event, for sharing this with our readers. (You may also wish to check out the short note of conclusion of the editor.)

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