Editorial: World Transport Archives-- and how we read in 2013

We have recently set up a collaborative program entitled the World Transport Policy and Practice Archives, which you can find at http://worldtransportarchives.wordpress.com/.  The goal of this project  is to prepare and publish in easily readable form the content of all of the editions of the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice  that have appeared since its founding in 1995, and which until now have been available only in hard-to-reach print or more recently PDF form.

The thesis behind this excercize is that all too often valuable information and insights that appear in book or journal from tend over time to disappear from the scene, as much as anything because they are bound between the covers of the publication. Now in many instances this may be a blessing, but there are others in which it can be a real loss. And in this particular case it is my personal position that in the case of the quality of insights contained within the seventy volumes that have been published over the last eighteen years, many of the articles are worth a second or more read. Hence the Archives project, which you can now find handily at http://worldtransportarchives.wordpress.com.

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Editorial: John Whitelegg on Planetary Boundaries

Planetary Boundaries

This is an unusual editorial.  It is entirely concerned with one book published in 2012 called “The Human Quest”

To say this book is important is an understatement.  It is hugely important because it shows that the current trajectory of the human species on this planet is on automatic pilot with the self-destruct option initiated.   This may sound rather dramatic but the book is based on a very traditional scientific analysis and a strong evidence based logic rooted in the best scientific tradition and especially Swedish scientific traditions.  It is a solid, objective, scientific analysis.

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What are the World Transport Archives and how do they work?

Dear Readers,

We have been hard at it supporting and contributing to the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice under the leadership of John Whitelegg since 1995. We are now in the 19th year of publication with seventy editions already in circulation, offering close to three hundred original articles by contributors from every continent on the planet. An extremely valuable and unique resource.

But a book or journal is not only a valuable source of information, but to an extent it also works as a kind of prison. This may not be immediately self-evident. But if you look closely you will see that once something gets published and a few years pass, the individual articles tend, no matter how brilliant and insightful, all too often to get lost in the rush of time.  And particularly of course if we are talking about a collection. And that is what this project is all about. (And if you think "Free Willy" you actually do have a point.)

The WTPP Archives are intended to serve anyone who may have missed these articles the first time around, and in particular younger researchers, academics, activists and people working with transportation/environment/cities groups and agencies in cities and countries on all continents.  At the same time this site and its several social media extensions provides an opportunity for comment and discussion.

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World Transport Policy & Practice – Vol. 19, No. 1

In this issue of World Transport we once again fo­cus on intelligent solutions to future trans­port that have the potential to shift us into a way of thinking and doing that avoids transgressing planetary boundaries. To­mas Björnsson draws attention to the ur­gent need for improved cycling facilities in southern Sweden that cost a small frac­tion of what is spent on highways. Martin Schiefelbusch shows how rural transport problems can be solved by community transport initiatives. Stephen Knight-Lenihan reveals the extent to which de­sirable sustainability objectives can be undermined by a lack of will at national level. His account of the situation in New Zealand will resonate strongly with the situation in many other countries. The ar­ticle by Serena Kang describes a “flexible bus utility model” that has the potential to more closely match the supply of bus services with the demand for those serv­ices and thereby increase levels of use of public transport.

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Before cars ruled the road

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WPD - Pedestrian overpass in Manila Philippines

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WPD - Selected Worst Practices images from WP Facebook site

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Worst Practices Department: Grand Opening

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Program Announcement: World Carshare 2013 Policy/Strategies Program for Local Government

Carsharing has a brilliant, in many ways surprising and certainly very different future -- a future which is already well in process. Carsharing is one of the fastest growing new mobility modes, with until now almost all services occurring in the high income countries. But it is by and large new, unfamiliar and does not fit well with the more traditional planning and policy structures at the level of the city. This is a problem. And addressing this problem is the goal of this cycle of reports and events in the year ahead.

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Planetary Boundaries and Low Carbon Urban Mobility

Useful presentation and overview of the issues and trends by  Professor David Banister (University of Oxford) in a three part series "The Future of Sustainable Mobility".  The following introduces his presentation but for the full text please click here.

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Weekend musing: If you like anything at all about World Streets, please make sure you go see Wadjda.

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Support for women and leadership in transport. This time from Hong Kong.

The latest news about increasing support of women in leadership positions in transport just in this morning from Hong Kong.

World Streets is firmly behind the movement to bring more women at all levels of society and in all countries into the heart of the process of understanding, planning and implementing fair mobility for all. Since 1973 the editor has been actively engaged in the movement to increase the role of women in the highest levels of leadership in public, private sectors and into the volunteer and NGO movement. At times this has been a lonely vigil, but as the French poet Louis Aragon told us some two generations ago: "La femme est l’avenir de l’homme" (Woman is the future of man). If you believe that, it makes you very hard to stop.

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Can you judge a city by its street furniture?

Street furniture.  Put it like that and it sounds a bit banal, like a detail. A choice that may or may not seem to be of much important.  Not really "necessary" and perhaps even an unaffordabel luxury for a city at a time of limited budgets. But good street furniture -- and even more great street furniture -- is a sign of a city that cares. A public space, public comfort  project that anyone can use without having to pay a dime.  And with it we suddenly are moving into a new social space.

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Seven wishes from World Streets for China in the Year of the Snake

Gong Xi Fa Cai Transport in Cities:

May the Year of the Snake be the year in which China no longer follows the old tired paths of the twentieth century, but shows the world new ways to tackle city mobility improvement with striking on-street examples of affordable and efficient ways to move into a new era of harmony and transportation with a human face.

Here are our seven wishes for efficiency, harmony and mobility in Chinese cities in this Year of the Snake.

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Current conditions for cycling STOP Britain cycling!!!

Transport in cities is a steep uphill affair. If we ever are to transform the quality of the mobility arrangements in our cities, there are certain basic truths about it that need to be repeated again and again. By different people, in different places and in different ways.  Until we win.

Cycling in most cities:  You and I know it. It is broke. It cannot be "fixed".  It needs to be reinvented from the street up. All of which is easy enough to say, but what in concrete terms does that mean? This article which appeared in the Guardian a few days back by Peter Walker,  reports on the testimony of Dave Horton a cycling sociologist who pounds the table on five basic truths of cycling in cities.

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Congestion Pricing: Neoliberal approaches and their results in three world cities

In 2013 we shall be giving quite a lot of attention to congestion pricing or charging by its many names and variants, all of which sharing the goal of finding ways to make drivers pay for entry and use of a scarce resource, road space in city centers . This fascinating article by Themis Chronopoulos which is introduced here takes quite an original point of view in his thorough analysis of three of the most recent and widely followed  projects (or in the case of New York City, would-be project). (Note: A quick search of Google this morning called up some 4,370,000 references under the single term of congestion pricing. Something must be going on.)

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Driverless cars: There they go again

This fine common sense article by Ron Kilcoyne, an expert on pubic transportation from Eugene Oregon, appeared a few days ago in Jarrett Walker's blog, Human Transit. The lively Walker blog is giving space to articles and reader comments on this latest technology star candidate  which is being touted energetically as a cure to a very long list of things.  Well, maybe. Let me get out of the way and let Ron Kilcoyne tell you what his view is on this latest bit of techno-excitement.

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Op-Ed: Zurich's Parking Revolution

Parking policy and practice in a city is a marker, a litmus test  of its collective commitment to an efficient and beautiful city.  More than that, the policy has to be carefully thought out, agilely negotiated and executed with long-term commitment.  Stop-and-start policies in such important areas are the mark of political immaturity. So if your city does NOT have such a policy, and is NOT applying it with continuity and consistency, then sorry to say you are far from the front rank of sustainable cities.

It's a choice, a political choice, not only of those public servants and elected officials who are during their term responsible for transport, public space and life quality matters in the city, but above all, and ultimately far more important, the citizenry. The active citizenry. So with that behind us, let's see what the fresh eyes of a visiting American academic and transportation engineer spotted and have to say about parking policy and performance in the beautiful city of Zürich.

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The future of the car in the city: Vol. 1., No. 1. Carsharing Policy Guide for local government

Dear Reader,

The future of the car in the city is morphing fast and is going to be very different from the suddenly long gone 20th century. But this we here are all well aware of. After all we have been swapping information and insights on these issues and challenging each other for more than a decade on a number of New Mobility fora.

Today we want to share some information with you on a new collaborative project that is just forming up, namely to create an expert  guide for mayors and local government specifically  in the field of carsharing.

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Rosie the Riveter, on Wheels

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