What went wrong with "Old Mobility"

In order what needs to be done to create a healthier and better performing set of transportation arrangements, World Streets make a consistent distinction between what we call “old mobility” and “new mobility.” The difference between the two is quite simple. And substantial.

Old mobility was the form of transportation policy, practice and thinking that took its full shape and momentum starting in the mid twentieth century, at a time when we all lived in a universe that was, or at least seemed to be, boundless and  free of constraints. It served us well in many ways at the time, albeit with exceptions, though we were blind to most of them most of the time. It was a very different world back them. But that world is over. And it will never come back.

The planet was enormous, the spaces great and open, energy abundant and cheap, resources endless. The “environment” was not a consideration, “climate” was the weather, technology was able to come up with a constant stream of solutions, builders were able to solve the problems that arose from bottlenecks by endlessly expanding capacity at the trouble points, and fast growth and the thrill of continuing innovations masked much of what was not all that good.

Fifty things that were wrong with Old Mobility

Old Mobility policy and practice  does not work well in the realities that constitute the 21st century, because it is . . .

1. Destructive
2. Inefficient
3. Unfair
4. Murderous
5. Unhealthy
6. Noisy
7. Profligate
8. Unneighborly
9. Socially destructive
10. Unimaginative
11. Unquestioning
12. Inertial
13. Based on essentially closed system thinking  (i.e., looking at “transport” in isolation from the rest)
14. Hierarchical
15. Top-down
16. Centralized
17. Statistics based (i.e., bound by the past)
18. Bounded
19. Reductive
20. End-state solution oriented
21. Authoritarian
22. Supply oriented
23. Oriented to maximizing vehicle throughput and speeds
24. Expert based
25. Engineering-based (i.e., working “within the box”, albeit often with high technical competence)
26. Binary: i.e., either “private” (i.e., car-based) or “public” transport (and nothing of importance in between)
27. De facto car-based
28. Costly to the community (unnecessarily)
29. Costly to individuals (unnecessarily)
30. Costly to the planet
31. Resource intensive (unnecessarily)
32. Total dependence on costly imported fossil fuels (unnecessarily)
33. Highly polluting
34. Massive public health menace
35. Destroys urban fabric
36. Hardware and build solutions, technology oriented
37. Treats ex-car solutions as (very!) poor cousins
38. Offers poor service/economic package to elderly, handicapped, poor and young
39. Sharp divide between planning, policy and operations
40. Obscure (to the public) decision making processes
41. Focuses on bottlenecks impeding traffic flows (i.e., builds for increasing traffic)
42. Attempts to anticipate them and build to forestall
43. Searches for large projects to “solve” the problems
44. These large projects and the substantial amounts involved often lead to corruption and waste of public moneys
45. Still too much separation from underlying land use realities.
46. Inadequate attention to transportation substitutes or complements
47. Increasingly technical and tool oriented (this to the good)
48. Anachronistic,
49. Not doing the job that we need in 2005 and beyond!, and finally and worst of all. . .
50. Creates a climate of passive citizenry and thus undermines participatory democracy and collective involvement and problem solving

But this does not reflect the priorities and the reality of transport, our needs, and our potential in the 21st century, and above all in our cities which are increasingly poorly served by not only our present mobility arrangements; but also the thinking and values that underlie them. Our rural areas are likewise suffering and without a coherent game plan. We now live in an entirely different kind of universe, and the constraints which were never felt before, or ignored, are now emerging as the fundamental building blocks for transportation policy and practice in this new century.

It’s time for a change. And the change has to start with us. You see, WE are the problem.

 

But we can also be part of the solution. Let’s see what it could look like if we started with the theme of equity.

 

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Some World Streets references to help dig in on this:

Sustainable transportation’s Dirty Secret

We badly need a new American transportation model (because the one you sent us is broke)

Why transport planners need to think small to tackle climate change

The Old Mobility impasse (PDF)

Honey, you got to slow down

What/who keeps holding back New Mobility reform?

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Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France

Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)

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