Review: Urban Mobility India 2010

The 3^rd edition of the annual “flagship event” of the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) of India’s federal government, Urban Mobility India 2010 was held in New Delhi between December 3^rd and 5^th, 2010 with the aim of creating “Accessible and Inclusive Cities”. This article reviews the main themes and happenings of the event, and though it may appear to nit-pick, it does appreciate the effort of the organisers in organising the event, and holds that perhaps the biggest achievement of the event was to be able to have a serious debate on controversial topics (like the Delhi Metro or flyovers).

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The State of World Streets: 2010, 2011 & your imagination (Part I: Intro)

With the new year of 2011 World Streets is entering its third year of publication and we thought that you might possibly  like to have this short report on its status, outlook, and in closing a few points to which you may wish to give some thought for your own personal new mobility agenda in the year ahead.

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Streets are for people.

Roads are for vehicles. Streets are for people.

These are people who are reclaiming their streets.

- Cairo Street scene. January 2011

No man is an island.

World Streets

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Testimony: Science and Technology Select Committee, UK House of Lords

In the last weeks I was asked to provide written testimony and evidence in answer to a "Call for Evidence" for the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee on the subject of "Behaviour Change —Travel-Mode Choice Interventions to Reduce Car Use in Towns and Cities". As can happen in these things, in my remarks I moved away from the chosen topic (instruments for behaviour change),  on the grounds that there are other more fundamental issues that need to be tackled first. In the following you will find my submittal of last Monday to the committee, whom I thank for giving me this opportunity to share my views.

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What is the best way to teach an adult to cycle?

Sustainable transport cannot be separated from sustainable cities. Nor sustainable cities from sustainable lives. Here is a small project from Sweden that takes as its goal to teach people how to balance and move safely around on a bike. But who in Sweden cannot climb on a cycle without a thought and toddle off? Well, among others immigrant women coming from Africa and the Middle East who find themselves living in this very different culture in which they are free to cycle like everyone else.

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Interview: Sharing is important on the World's Streets

On a cold gray Paris winter day Ms Lesley Brown, editor of Mobility magazine, came to World Streets to interview the editor about his noisily stated views on the importance of sharing in the future of the transport sector. Her article made it into the pages of Mobility on 20 January, which you can read in the original here or just below.

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Ridesharing Institute II. If you will, but Public Transport on the first line please

In yesterday's feature which was intended to inform the exchanges at this week's TRB session concerning the eventual creation of a continuing program to support and expand ridesharing as a central sustainable transport policy, the point is made that the project should concentrate whatever resources it can stump up on ridesharing, as opposed to traditional public transport which has its own institutional and support system (for better or worse) while ridesharing from a policy and institutional perspective is still an orphan. But Simon Norton begs to differ:

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Ridesharing Institute – Contribution to today's TRB discussions

Dear Paul, Susan, and other TRB friends having a look at this proposal this afternoon in DC. This is an excellent first-cut proposal and food for thought on a very important policy topic -- and I want to get firmly behind the basic concept right now.

I wish I could be with you for these important discussions because like at least half of you in this audience I am firmly convinced in the potential for ridesharing in its many diverse forms as a vital and critical means in the process of moving from unsustainable to sustainable transportation. [I am sure that much of what you find here is well known to most of you. But here I am at my desk in Paris and I want to share my best thoughts with you on this. So off we go.]

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New tools: Assessing damage of the Queensland Flood - 2

In today from Gordon Price and Price Tags:
Gladys We sends along a link to a remarkable set of dynamic before-and-after shots of the floods in Brisbane posted by ABC News, Australia's broadcaster. These aerials were taken in flyovers on January 13 and January 14 - and then matched up exactly. When loaded, you can use your mouse to hover over each photo, and move the line back and forth to view the devastation caused by flooding.

… Click for full article from Price Tags and aerial maps from ABC News and Nearmap.com

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Sustainable transport in Delhi and Stockholm

This article addresses from an Indo-Swedish perspective issues of the development of transport systems, taking its examples from Delhi and Stockholm. The introduction of the first BRT or bus rapid transport corridor in Delhi and the institution of a congestion tax in Stockholm are presented and discussed in terms of modernisation and sustainable transport. The authors explore the perceptions of politicians and examine the two projects in the search for the driving forces for transport policies. Despite all the differences, some similarities in the development of their urban transport projects have been found.

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Toward a sustainable Queensland - A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Dear Australian friends and colleagues,

We all know this old saw but this is a time and place where it is, I believe, truly worth thinking about. In this context I have three immediate questions for you:

1. Is it possible that the tragic events of the last weeks could now be turned into an opportunity to develop a new and far more sustainable pattern of mobility (and location) in Queensland?

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Reposting exceptional contributions to World Streets

World Streets has from the beginning been defined and run as an open collaborative venture. In addition to its considerable original content, the journal welcomes suggestions  concerning outstanding recent articles and reports appearing in other sources, which in their view our readers would do well to know more about.  After internal review  and selection, we occasionally get in touch with the author or publisher of the selected piece and ask for permission to reprint. All such articles follow the same routines for preparation and publication:

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Delhi Metro - A Transport Planner's Perspective

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Associate editor Faizan Jawed reports from Delhi:  At a time when the Delhi Government, politicos, media and the middle-class is raving about Metro Rail as a panacea to all traffic woes in Delhi (traffic congestion included), an objective assessment of its performance and appropriateness is highly warranted. Built at a cost that could provide free bus-based public transport and high quality non-motorized transport facilities for years, or feed millions of destitute malnourished Indian citizens, the Delhi Metro, now in operations since 2002, seems to not be living up to its promise. Ravi Gadepalli brings us a unique insight in to the planning and workings of the Delhi Metro. [* * * See Comments here.]

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"Carsharing will ease Shanghai's traffic problems"

We very much like this article that has just appeared in motoring.asiaone.com, in that it provides an example of how good new mobility ideas that have enjoyed a certain success in one place -- in this instance the long time carsharing project of the City of Bremen -- can start to make their way into other cities and parts of the world. Will this actually work out for Shanghai? Well at least it's a start.

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Guaranteed Scottish technique for taming traffic

As the whole world knows, the Scots are an ingenious lot.  And  in a highly creative response to my yesterday's "Unfair, unsafe and unwise . . . " call for collaborative ideas for car control, one anonymous Scottish expert has just sent in the following technical  illustration showing how they are able to slow down traffic and otherwise create a better smelling and more natural environment in Scotland.  He recommends it as an efficient, affordable, warm and often delicious sustainability strategy. It has worked for a long time in Scotland and will, they guarantee,  work well on your roads and streets too in the future. Auld Lang Syne.

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Unfair, unsafe and unwise - a major crisis abuilding for sustainable transport in Britain

Dear British Friends and Colleagues,

Forgive me if I am being naïve, but based on what I am reading and hearing it strikes me that there is a major crisis abuilding for sustainable transport in Britain in the months immediately ahead -- as a result of the coalition government withdrawing funding from a lot of mainly small and local (since they really have to be small and usually local and focused if they are to succeed) sustainable transport initiatives This strikes me as a caring if distant observer as unfair, unsafe and unwise.

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World Transport Policy & Practice – Vol. 16, No. 3

The Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice is the long-standing  idea and print partner of World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda since 1995. The Winter 2011 edition appears today, and in the article that follows you will find the lead editorial by founding editor John Whitelegg. (For a more complete introduction to World Transport click here.)

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Democracy: Destination or voyage?

[This thinkpiece comes from my personal blog and while it rambles a bit  from the central focus of W/S, it ponders some issues that are to my mind definitely worth a detour. The excellent article by Pasi Sahlberg on "Learning from Finland" that appeared in Monday's Boston Globe is certainly worth your time. There are many analogies with our troubled sector when it comes to learning from each other. Eric Britton]

Let's hop into the car, fill it up with some cheap gas,  and take a quick tour of historic America with the help of legendary photographer Margaret Bourke-White.  The image you can see just below caught my attention yesterday, arriving here during the festive holiday season thanks to a posting in from the Rebuilding Place blog of urban designer/consultant and activist Richard Layman from Washington DC. As you can see it's … Read More

via Network Dispatches

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From Australia: Community Consultation – A failed experiment

A consistent central theme of World Streets is that without the full-throated participation of an active citizenry, sustainable transport and sustainable cities will remain a distant and unattainable dream. In this article David Engwicht gives us his view on why the usual bottled consultation techniques that often do little to achieve better and safer streets do not make the grade. Then he goes on to share his thoughts as to how we can do better.

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Streetsblog: Doing its job in New York City. In memoriam 2010

Each year our friends over at Streetsblog in New York City publish a heart-rending testimonial to the mayhem that automobiles have wrought over the year on their city's streets and the cost in terms of lives lost by innocent pedestrians and cyclists. Putting names, faces and human tragedy to what otherwise takes the form of dry numbers, faceless hence quickly forgettable statistics is an important task. We can only encourage responsible citizens and activists in every city on the planet to do the same thing, holding those public officials (and let's not forget, we call them "public servants" and for excellent reason) responsible for what goes on under their direct control.

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