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:

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.)

Op-Ed: What/who keeps holding back New Mobility reform?

If you get it, New Mobility is a no-brainer. However, while the New Mobility Agenda is a great starting place, it is not going to get the job somehow miraculously done just because it is the only game in town when it comes to sustainable transport. There is plenty of competition for all that space on the street and  between the ears. We have a few potential sticking points here that need to be overcome first. Let’s have a quick look to get this exchange off the ground. After some years of talking with cities, and working and observing in many different circumstances, here is my personal shortlist of the barriers are most frequently encountered in trying to get innovative transportation reform programs off the ground, including even in cities that really do need a major mobility overhaul.

The New Mobility Agenda gets a hearing in Barcelona with a “Come argue with me” session

This is to invite you to “attend” at least part of a session of a conference that is to take place next week in Barcelona on the topic of “Smart Cities”. You can find full information on the conference here, along with links to all working papers and videos that will be presented over the four days  The particular bit I would like to point you to is my keynote talk and challenge which opens the plenary on “Urban mobility: Achieving social efficiency”. A full set of working notes and background materials for my presentation is available here. As you will note I have serious reservations about pushing the concept of a “smart city”, which to my mind is a pretty loaded phrase, complete with tandem mindset. I invite your comments and critical remarks on any of the points that appear here, and I shall try to deal with them as possible. Thanks in advance. The final talk will be available on video, as will the presentations for all the speakers in this interesting session.

Public audit and transport budget transparency: Pune India

Parisar is a civil society organization in Pune India working on lobbying and advocacy for sustainable development. Its work focuses mainly on sustainable urban transport, since it recognizes that unsustainable transport policies and systems are the foremost threat to urban environment and quality of life. This article, kindly shared with us by their blog team at http://www.parisar.org/, reports on an activity the likes of which we would like to see in every city in the world — a continuing citizen audit of the city’s budget, and in particular those aspects that relate to transportation investments and expenditures.

On expertise and public participation

It appears that the folks at the Lucknow Municipal Corporation have a curious notion of the meaning and purpose of public participation. When their funding proposals under the centrally sponsored scheme for urban development (JNNURM) were rejected due to the lack of public participation, they came up with the brilliant idea of a “city volunteer technical corps” that would participate in the planning process. Members will be chosen by the city corporation based on “expertise” in planning and related areas. The newspaper also reports that a prior attempt to constitute such a consultative body was aborted when “undesirable” persons who were not “experts” entered the consultative group. The corporation promises only to include “desirable” persons this time round. Read More

via India lives in her cities too!

We have no money gentlemen, so we shall have to think.

This is a personal call to those of you who have over the years participated in the rather numerous programs and working groups we have since 1988 carefully crafted and maintained in support of worldwide peer collaboration and exchange in our tough but important field: under the New Mobility Agenda, World Streets or one of its sister publications (see below), or who have of late plugged in to our pages on Facebook or Twitter. I feel pretty quite comfortable in doing this since you know what we are trying to do, and who better for me to turn to at a time of need. (And oh yes, for those who may not recall, that citation above was  by Nobel Prize winner Professor Ernest Rutherford, on taking over the quite broke Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, in the wake of the First World War.)

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.

Car Free Days 2010: Part 2. Thursday: A breakthrough strategy for reducing car dependence in cities

This is the full unedited text of the original presentation to the Ciudades Accesibles Congress in Toledo Spain organized by the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, Transport and the Environment, with the participation of Car Free Cities Initiative of the EuroCities program and the Direction General XI of the Commission of European Communities.

This week’s Social Space image – De Portugal, com amor

The power of images. We need a lot more than walls of words, reports and books to turn the world toward sustainability.  So to help our case we invite our readers to jump in and share with us striking “social space” graphics which illustrate the world’s streets and all that takes place thereon in many places and in many ways. And lo and behold, from time to time some very nice stuff pops up on the screen in our challenging 990 × 180 pixels pixels format . This morning for instance we had the luck to receive and to be able to share with you the splendid street scene you see above, showing an intersection of bus services right in the middle of the beautiful city of Lisbon. And all this thanks to our colleague Miguel Barroso from Lisbon.

World Carfree Day: Interview with Eric Britton

September 22 is an important date to remember – it’s World Carfree Day (WCD). Celebrated in towns and cities all over the world, it’s a day when streets are closed to cars and open for pedestrians, pedalers, parties and pleasure. Eric Britton, a sustainability activist, international adviser and consultant on sustainable transportation, is recognised for his work promoting and propelling WCD to  international attention. Much of his work involves co-ordinating the collaborative New Mobility Agenda and World Streets online journal, which encompass a number of possible transport solutions, including public transport, bike sharing and shared space projects. In an interview with Carbusters, Eric shared his thoughts about the problems, popularity and prospects for WCD, and points out the importance of bringing it into the policy agenda of governments in order to improve urban transport sustainability.

“The Weekly Carnage” (A template for your city)

True democracy is only possible with the daily participation of vigilant and active citizens. Periodic elections and public administrations are of course critical building blocks for a democratic society; but without an active citizenry the full benefits of democracy evade us.  As active citizens we are obliged to act as “a thorn in the side of possibly hesitant administrators, politicians and businessmen in denial; and through our joint efforts, energy and personal choices, placing them and ourselves firmly on the path to a more sustainable and more just society.”

Honk! The greenest thing about the budget was knotted around the Chancellor’s neck

Strong environment reporting from the UK.(From the editor)
To move to sustainable transport in our cities, we need to create a strong citizen consensus for change — a tough call since the issues and necessary remedial approaches tend to be quite complex and unfamiliar to many of us who are so accustomed to what we see out on the street every day that it effectively tends to freeze our minds. While there have for years been examples of outstanding environmental reporting, the mainstream media by and large have not yet been brought around to our side. However this is changing, and while certainly more slowly then one would wish we are increasingly hearing from a growing culture of investigative journalists and commentators who are showing that they are ready to dig in and deal with these complexities.

World Streets 100% Answer to Oil Spills, Geopolitical Dysfunctionality, and the Running out of Oil Syndrome

Courage. Not all that terribly hard actually, and certainly not impossible. The leading international edge of policy and practice in our field have over the last two decades developed the tools, experience and technical competence needed to cut fossil fuel dependence by 50% in one year. And if we can do that – if we can come even within shouting distance of this great and obtainable goal – that is going to change everything. But to get the job done we are going to have to challenge our brainpower and collective ability to influence leadership, policy decisions and investments in our chosen field. Lazy folks, bought souls and fatalists kindly abstain.

Songs without Words. (Or trying very hard to get a commentary on reversing sprawl)

We invite our readers to write the words to the following “song”: 150 words max please, signed with your name, email, affiliation if any, city, country, and URL if you wish. You may either place your contribution just below clicking the COMMENTS link, or by email to editor@newmobility.org. At one point a selection of these comments will be sorted and integrated into a collaborative piece on this theme. Sorry, no other clues.

Population footprints: Barcelona vs. Atlanta

Now what?

Editor’s note: 22 May 2010 I have been scolded by several of our number who make the point that the above “song without words” title/proposal is far from clear. So with apologies, let me try to put it right.

The idea is that the graphic strikingly demonstrates one of the most important, and close to intractable, challenges of the move from Old to New Mobility, the huge dispersion of populations and activity that has been caused by the totally unthought-out shift from city living to a car-based hyper-spread life style. I was hoping to elicit comments on that, which is, it must be admitted, something like the proverbial challenge of getting the toothpaste back into the tube. There are responses, of that I am entirely sure, but it is going to be a tough job. So now, hopefully, your comments and clues?

Kind thanks to Lois Sturm, New York City for the heads-up on the graphics. (And to Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for the inspiration.)

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Supplemental figure and food for thought:

Urban density vs. transport energy consumption

New Mobility Partnerships – What’s going on this summer?

Two or three times a year your editor sits down and does his best to compile a readable synopsis of some of the more important things going on in World Streets, then to be communicated in one magical shot to the close to four thousand friends and colleagues around the world who have been involved in some way in these dialogues and projects over the last several decades. Here you have today’s best seasonal effort, to which as always, comments, criticism and suggestions are warmly welcome.

Judged from a planetary or Kyoto perspective, or from an individual or public health perspective, or an economic perspective, or … or … our present arrangements for transport in cities are seriously damaged. As things stand today in city after city around the world, they threaten health in the city and on the planet. They are dangerous. They are costly. They are disruptive. They are thoroughly dysfunctional. And they are howlingly unfair. It does not have to be like that. We can do something about it, and we should. But we need to join forces to get the job done.

New Mobility Partnerships in Brief

Unconstrained by bureaucracy, economic interests or schedules, New Mobility Partnerships was launched in 1988 as a wide open international platform for critical discussion and diverse forms of cross-border collaboration on the challenging, necessarily conflicted topic of “sustainable transportation and social justice”. There are no easy answers – but there are answers . . . if, that is, you are willing to take off the blinkers and get to work.

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World Streets in Brief
Insights and contributions from leading thinkers & practitioners around the world
World Streets is an independent, internet-based collaborative knowledge system specifically aimed at informing policy and practice in the field of sustainable transport, and, as part of that, sustainable cities and sustainable lives. Edited by Eric Britton, founder and Managing Director of the New Mobility Agenda.

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This Month on World Streets
Most of our busy readers do not have the time to check into World Streets on a daily basis. For that reason we offer our subscribers and sponsors, in addition to the daily edition, monthly summaries which bring together in one place all postings in a manner in which the reader can review each in a few lines and make a decision as to whether or not to call up the full article with a single click. Time-efficient communication in an overload world.

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New project: World Streets on Facebook
We are not Facebook experts, but nonetheless, and with reservations, we have concluded that this is a legitimate communications tool that can be put to work to increase the worldwide reach of the sustainable transport agenda. So with the help of our colleague Anzir Boodoo, we have set up a first stage site/interface which you can now access via www.facebook.WorldStreets.org. We invite you to have a look, use as your interest and skill level permit, and, better yet, lend a hand and help us to do better.

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Latest reader map
And here you can see where our last eighty visitors came from. Generally representative of overall pattern, but from day to day with considerable variations. Our goal for 2010: bring in all those great white swaths.

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Frugal Transport
Our sector has been notably profligate in terms of its use of public money, while at the same time also offering a generally poor deal in terms of quality of service per dollar spent by the citizens who use the system. This past profligacy is further compounded by the fact that for reasons of the complicated international economy, many countries are going to have to be far more careful about how they spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars in the years immediately ahead. We are not going to need another round of high cost, low impact investments to make it work. We simply take over 50% (your figure here) of the transport related budgets and use it to address projects and reforms that are going to make those big differences in the next several years. This is where the action is going to be in the years immediately ahead and where Frugal Transport kicks in. (This section just getting underway.)

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Slow Down
As most of our regular readers are well aware, World Streets is no friend of speed in cities. To the contrary, it is our firm position that a considerable number of the basic objectives associated with sustainable mobility and sustainable cities can be achieved if we do no more than to reduce top speeds in and around our cities in a strategic and carefully thought-out way. The great technological virtuosity of traffic engineers and technical planners permit us to do this, while at the same time retaining a well working transportation system, a healthier city, and a viable local economy. This is a major target of World Streets and many of our associates worldwide

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Share/Transport: The Third Way of Getting Around In Cities
Share/transport – the largely uncharted middle ground between the familiar mobility poles of “private transport” (albeit on public roads) and “public transport” (scheduled, fixed-route, large vehicle services) at the two extremes. Comprising a very large gamut of services of which among the best known are shared taxis, carsharing, ride sharing, and small private bus systems, it offers a form of mobility service that works when everything else fails or is simply not there. However it is one that until now has been poorly understood by policymakers and is badly in need of informed perspectives and policies. A first international conference is being planned for Kaohsiung Taiwan from 16 to 19 September 2010, with full information available in early June.

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Women as the Metric for Sustainable Lives: Leadership Role
World Streets, and the New Mobility Agenda directly behind it, have long held the position that our sector suffers badly from the lack of female perspective and female leadership. Rectifying this should be one of the major targets of policymakers and citizens at all levels of society and in all countries. We have pursued this recommendation vigorously since the founding of this program in 1988, and firmly believe that a reasonable target for female participation in leadership groups at all levels is in the area of 40%. In our publications and conferences, we go into detail as to how this can be done and why the strong leadership role is critical.

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The Hundred Faces behind World Streets
We firmly believe that the move to sustainable transport and sustainable lives is a very personal matter. For that reason every article that appears in World Streets is accompanied by a short bio note and photo identifying the author. We want you to know who they are and what they look like. To this end we have assembled for your viewing pleasure small photos of 160 of our authors and collaborators. Have a look.

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National Partnership Programs/Language Editions
True, English is a widely spoken and read language. But true too that most of the activity carried out at the working level in countries whose language is other than English is in the language of the place. So if our goal is to have a worldwide impact, we must find ways to reach the people who count, in ways which efficiently and fully engage them. To that end we have initiated a series of collaborative projects which are already reaching out to key actors in several language areas, starting with a highly successful Italian edition and a different approach to reach the key actors in Swedish. Others presently under discussion. Would YOU like to talk about it?

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Now . . . what about you?
Because this is an important set of issues and you can make a difference. So consider this an open invitation to lend a hand in making World Streets a more useful and successful tool and source. We need your help both (a) to improve the technical product, but above all to identify and (b) to take direct contact with eventual collaborators, subscribers, sponsors, and organizations at the national or international level whom you may know and who can help support this unique public interest enterprise and help it make an even more effective contribution. You will be surprised at how much you can do to make it happen, if you choose to.

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Eric Britton is Managing Director of the New Mobility Partnerships and founding editor of World Streets. Contrary to what you may surmise, he is not alone. You can reach him at editor@worldstreets.org , Tel. +331 7500 3788 in France or +1 (213) 984 1277 in the US. Or via Skype at newmobility.

Chengdu China looking at caps on cars

“You can’t not notice the horrid traffic in Chengdu. But it seemed authorities had turned a blind eye to the situation, hoping that the construction of pedestrian overpasses and the opening of the subway later this year would resolve the problem. In the meantime, traffic is only getting more backed up. Late last month, it was announced that the Chengdu government is drawing up plans to address the situation by placing limits on the number of new license plates it issues.”
- Jane Voodikon reports from Chengdu.

International Women’s Day . . . and World Streets

Today is the ninety-ninth anniversary of the first International Women’s Day, a day well worth celebrating. And while we are at it a perfect occasion to remind ourselves of what we need to be thinking about and trying to do over the next twelve months to make sure that when 2011 and that important 100th anniversary roll around, we have made our own best effort for a better and brighter future for all. Because. . . women hold the key to the future of not only sustainable transportation but also to a sustainable and just world. It’s that simple.

World Carshare Consortium 2010 Operations Plan: Coming to a bend in the road

Since 1998 we have actively supported the development of carsharing projects and programs in cities and countries around the world. Over that time the concept of sharing a car has grown from a largely unknown transport option, to the extent where today there are more than one thousand cities in the world where you can find a shared car this morning. The main instrument of our collaboration has been something we called the World Carshare Consortium. But as you will see here are a few changes in store for the way in which we run this part of our sustainable transportation initiative.

Short introduction: The World Carshare Consortium which you can handily access at www.worldcarshare.org has been run on an open and free basis, much like World Streets, over all these years. However for reasons of hard economic realities we are now constrained to start to change that formula, which is the purpose of this posting. This may interest you, since it is relevant to how all of us can go about combining our knowledge, energies, and resources to advancing good sustainable transportation ideas. And good carsharing is certainly one of the best.

If you have any questions or require further background, a great starting point is the world carshare site itself, and in addition you can address them to the editor here at World Streets.

New Mobility Partnerships, Paris. 18 February 2010

Dear members and supporters of World Carshare,

After twelve years of long and faithful service to the concept of carsharing as a great and even noble way of getting around in our day-to-day lives, today is the day in which I am obliged to change the rules of the game for World Carshare. As most of you know, after more than a decade running this as a wide open shared enterprise, I do this with no little regret. But as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tze reminded us so long ago: after ten years of notoriety even the greatest poet in China should change his village and change his name. So in this Year of the Tiger and with his good counsel in mind, I will keep my name but today is the day we make a few changes in our village.

The new rules of the game: Rather than being free and open to all, from this day on our World Carshare will be run along, let us say, more “commercial” lines. No not commercial really, but nonetheless as I have indicated in an earlier note on the subject, for reasons of necessity we now have to get better at sharing the load. You understand of course that world carsharing simply cannot be a one-man job.

Now while my earlier calls for support have gone pretty much ignored by the great majority of the close to five hundred people currently signed in to this forum, happily several handfuls of you have stepped forward to help share the burden: something like two dozen individuals, a total of one carshare supplier, and as of yesterday a generous grant from one of our national partners who shares our belief that carsharing is something that is really worth supporting. These are good steps forward to help us make this work, but until all this work is fully and fairly supported, we now have to move to our new and somewhat more austere rules set. It works like this:

As of this morning, all standing subscriptions of our close to five hundred members are being canceled. In exact parallel with this, I am sending out letters of invitation to those people and groups who have recently been in touch either with individual (subscriptions) or collective support — or as volunteers indicated that they will continue to be ready to share with us their information and insights on the sector. In addition to this, we will continue to maintain free access to anyone coming in from the developing countries, unfunded local environmenal and similar public interest groups, and of course students and others of limited means and high interest.

Several of our number have indicated their willingness to work with us to identify and eventually secure more substantial support from public agencies in their country who share our interests. This would be extremely important to guarantee our future viability, and I hope that others of you will now get in touch so that we can discuss how we might work together to tailor and put this approach to work in your country. If we can get a handful of committed public sector partners behind this, we will be able to return to our former wide open working context, which to my mind is far the best way to get the job done.

The months ahead are going to be extremely active ones in our slice of the sustainable transportation puzzle. This work is going to be led by the communications within and collaboration from members of the consortium. I very much hope that you will be among us to take part in this process of building knowledge and consensus on a literally worldwide basis, and in an area in which both are much needed.

So there you have it World Carshare friends. 2010 is the Year of the Tiger and if we are going to make sustainable development work in our cities and daily lives, it will not be because we are docile little pussies. I hope to hear from you and that you will join us as part of the solution. I promise you, the world needs us.

Best from Paris — a city incidentally where when World Carshare just getting underway there were zero carshare operators and zero understanding of the part of the city as to what their role in this might be. And where today there are a handful of highly competitive firms offering more cars, more rides, to more people every day, and all that under the benevolent eye of city authorities who have got the message and have shown themselves ready to do their bit to bring these great services to more and more people everyday. And you can take my word for it, that was no accident.

Eric Britton

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Attachment:

Some final words of background and a few reminders just in case it may have escaped your attention:

1. The World CarShare Consortium (1997 text):
“This free, cooperative, independent, international communications program supports carsharing projects and programs, worldwide. Since 1997 it offers a convenient place on the web to gather and share information and independent views on projects and approaches, past, present and planned future, freely and easily available to all comers.”

2. Why we support carsharing (1998 text):
“Why does The Commons support a concept that may to some appear to be so off-beat and marginal as carsharing? Simple! We think it’s a great, sustainable, practical mobility idea whose time has come and whose potential impact is quite simply huge. Carsharing: the missing link in your city’s sustainable transport system.”

3. Comments and accolades from readers of World Carshare – www.acknowledgments.worldcarshare.com

4. Ditto from one hundred and one readers of World Streets – http://tinyurl.com/ws-101

5. Entries over last year on World Streets concerning carsharing – Click here.

6. Who came into World Carshare today:

Carsharing: The last nail in the coffin of old mobility.

I rest my case.

Eric Britton
Editor, World Streets

World Streets Collaborative Program – 2010 Contribute, subscribe, support, get invovled

World Streets is an open collaborative program, and is entirely dependent on the support of readers, subscribers and others who share our deep concerns about sustainable transportation, sustainable development and social justice. Subscription is free for all who cannot afford it, and as a matter policy we do not accept advertising. We count on your counsel and support to be able to continue to do our part.

_________________________________________________________
World Streets has one job: to inform and support sustainable transportation projects and groups around the world. After a first year of proving its worth, edition after edition, five days a week, bringing hundreds of carefully selected news items, expert views, questions, comments, inspirations, and leads to the desks of more than one hundred thousand visitors from more than seventy countries on all continents (that was our “business plan”), World Streets is now reaching out to get active sponsorship and support for 2010. We need your help to continue. Here is how it works:

Contents:
1. Individual subscriptions
2. Institutional subscription/partnerships
3. Foundations
4. Personal gifts, donations
5. How to make your contribution
6. Seven reasons why this is a good idea

Individual subscriptions

World Streets is a public interest publication which, as a matter of policy, we make freely available to all who are looking to understand, support, and contribute to the sustainability agenda anywhere in the world. We firmly believe that there should be no barriers, and especially not commercial ones, to the free circulation of news, tools, counsel and peer exchanges when it comes to important issues of sustainable development and social justice.

Subscribers have full access to the members-only World Streets Forum, Library and Archives – Click here for details. For those who use it and can afford it, we ask that you step up to do your part. (For payment procedures, click here. And

* Suggested contribution: EUR 29.00 (USD 39.00)

Students, people working in the developing countries, volunteer organizations, unfunded local or public interest groups and others of limited means are invited to come in and enjoy the benefits of the journal without payment. To receive your free subscription, we would ask you to email a short note to editor@worldstreets.org with your name, institutional affiliation if any, city, country and URL if any. And, please, a few words about your work and interests in this area.

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Public agencies, ministries and funded NGOs and associations
At the state, national, regional or international level, these key institutions with broad responsibilities to guide policy, education, communications and investments in the fields of transportation, environment, cities, energy, or climate can provide valuable support for all concerned by making Streets available to their members, staff and associates. Subscribers have full paid-in access for their staffs and other associated agencies, groups and personnel within their country or region, to all deliverables and services of the subscription program as follows:

1. The Journal
Subscription provides full access to the world’s only sustainable transportation daily, and includes daily updates and references which are automatically channeled to the subscriber and their team in daily digest form, complete with easy one-click links to the full text and media content of all articles and commentaries.
– - > Summary overview at http://tinyurl.com/ws-sum

2. World Streets/Monthly Report
Developed to serve the busy reader. Reserved for subscribers and presented in a form suitable for their in-house and other distribution. Each reference is directly clickable to the original article or commentary. Some subscribers prefer to work with World Streets team to prepare the monthly edition in their working language.
- – > Click for sample edition in English– http://tinyurl.com/ws-feb2010
– - > And here for Italian monthly report– http://tinyurl.com/nm-feb2010

3. World Streets Forum
Reserved for subscribers, active collaborators and correspondents. For subscribers, participation is extended to all nominated individuals, agencies and groups within the country or region served — giving each forum member full access to the journal, daily updates, monthly reports, peer discussion, shared library, shared library, and databases. The Forum is also an excellent place to ask questions or launch discussions of current topics to get different points of view based on experience in other places.
- – > More: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldStreets

4. New Mobility Agenda: Working groups/peer programs
Subscribers have full access to the peer networks and focus groups set up under the New Mobility Agenda over the last two decades. These include the World Transport Journal, World Carshare Consortium, Global South Forum, City Bicycle Forum, World Car-Free Days, Value Capture/Taxation Forum, Share/Transport Forum, New Mobility Kids, etc. Each forum serves an international expert community working in the given area for collaborative exchanges of information and views. Participants receive regular updates on events, discussions, and issues in their active topic areas.
– - > More: www.program.newmobility.org.

5. Supporting subscriber services/Outreach program
The principal challenge in this collaborative project is that of finding a way to efficiently channel the considerable content of World Streets in a form in which all concerned can quickly scan, select, access and make good use of it in a time-efficient manner. The target group for national sponsors often includes not only their own staff but other agencies and organizations in the country whom they choose to keep informed. We refer to this as the “last kilometer” component of the subscription.
- – > More: http://tinyurl.com/ws-2010sub-support.

* Suggested subscription: EUR 5.000/10,000 (USD 7,000/14,000)

– ->Click here for program details – http://tinyurl.com/ws-2010sub

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Cities, Local government.
Local government are the ones closest to the issues and who make the decisions that count. Via the daily journal and the monthly edition we supply them with a carefully selected, easy to digest, steady flow of exception information, insight, clues and feedback from world experts that would cost them many times more than the annual subscription to develop on their own. It also gives them a chance to make their voice heard on a worldwide forum. Depending on size of city and available resources . . .

* Suggested subscription: EUR 2,000 (USD 2,800)

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Public transport operators, other service providers and management groups
World Streets provides an efficient way for their officers and staff or these groups to stay on top of the issues, challenges, and accomplishments at the leading edge and from an international perspective. Again depending on size and resources . . .

* Suggested subscription: EUR 3,000 (USD4,200)

Private sector suppliers to the sector (goods and services)
This is more delicate, but this form of open public support is appropriate for companies and organizations who are firmly committed to the sustainable transport agenda. Suppliers of goods and services in such areas as insurance, non-motorized transport, carsharing, liftsharing, strategic parking, logistics, buses, delivery services, locational systems, integrated multi-modal ticket/access systems, transport logistics, spatial planning, and specialized consultancy, management and research groups are appropriate. Depending on size of enterprise . . .

* Suggested contribution: EUR 500/5,000 (USD 700/7000)

Universities and research institutions
World Streets offers a good fit and tool for university teaching and research programs at all levels. Various forms of collaboration and mutual support are possible. Get in touch so that we can discuss.

Incidentally, we have been told that the most efficient way to get universities support for this is to handle it as a standard subscription to a scientific or technical journal. In addition and if your time permits it, we would be grateful if university subscribers would toward the end of the academic year drop us a couple of lines telling how they have used these materials and what kind of reaction they may have gotten from professors as well as students. Also this would be a good occasion for you to give us suggestions for future extensions and improvements.

* Suggested subscription: EUR 700 (USD 1,000)

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3. Foundations
Until such time that we have developed the necessary firm base of support for our continuing operation, once-off gifts and donations will go a long way to help us fund our early operational and start-up costs in these crucial first phases. We are particularly hopeful for the support of foundations, groups with such budgets, and well-to-do individuals who share our sense of mission. If you are among them, please contact us for more information. And if you have a lead or know someone we should contact for discussions, please let us know.

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4. Private donors, personal contributions, gifts
We hope to get support from individuals and families of means who share our concerns, and who are ready to reach into their pockets to give proof that the struggle for sustainable cities must engage us all.

World Streets is going to need significant financial support if it is to continue through 2010. Despite the many volunteers pitching in with ideas, articles and encouragement, our programs are still costly to run and require an annual budget on the order of EUR 100,000 to get the job done. (There is a lot going on here, the iceberg under the tip, which is needed to get the journal out each day and which of course you never see, including management and oversight of all that goes into maintaining the New Mobility Agenda focus programs and sites – see www.program.newmobility.org to get an idea on that.)

This level of funding normally can come only from foundations, public agencies, or well-to-do individuals. But there is plenty of scope for smaller, more strategic donations as well, and here is maybe where you will have some ideas. Your counsel and initiative will be helpful in several ways.

• By making a contribution – large or small – you are sending us a strong signal that what we are doing has value.

• Your contributions will help us to fund the diversity of our existing programs at the quality level and frequency you are used to.

• An active contributor base helps us equally to turn to the foundations, agencies, and individuals that can make more sizable contributions to help us make-up a budget shortfall.

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5. How to transfer funds:

Make immediate payment via Paypal or credit card:
Payment by Paypal is simple and fast:

(1) Click www.paypal.com.
(2) Enter your account (or set one up quickly (and safely) as indicated).
(3) Click “send money”.
(4) Address: association@ecoplan.org.
(5) Amount.
(6) Click “Personal”.
(7) Click “Gift”.
(8) Thank you for helping World Streets to continue in 2010.

PayPal also has provision for paying by credit card. It is fairly well explained on the site.

To make direct bank wire transfers:

Account Holder: Association EcoPlan International
Account no. 00010465401
Crédit Industriel et Commercial de Paris
Succursale BR (Montparnasse)
202 Blvd. Raspail / 75014 Paris, France
SWIFT: CMCIFRPP
IBAN : FR76 3006 6106 2100 0104 6540 105

If you prefer to send a check direct our mailing address is:

Association EcoPlan International
8/10, rue Joseph Bara
F75006 Paris, France

Kindly make your check payable to “Association EcoPlan International”.

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6. Seven reasons why you should pitch in and help us guarantee 2010:

1. Your vote for the future: Because if you are a parent or active citizen it is the right thing to do for your children, for your city, for your nation, and yes, for the planet. (And it is simple and cheap.)

2.Act now: Getting behind World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda demonstrates publicly that you give high importance to the critical climate/transportation link and the need for acting now — and not waiting about for some kind of long term deus ex machina that may or may not solve your and the planet’s problems.

3. Worldwide focus: It gives you an efficient way to track some of the things going on at the leading edge not only in your own country or regional grouping. Its genuine worldwide focus — North/South, East/West (and South/North) — reporting from source, brings to your attention projects, ideas and clues which otherwise you are just about certain to miss.

4. Re-defining the mainstream: By stepping forward you provide proof that you are part of the growing movement that is in the process of transforming sustainable transportation from a marginal activity, into the defining mainstream of 21st century transportation policy and practice at the leading edge.

5. Share with others: By doing your bit, you are helping make these ideas and materials available to cities, researchers, activists, and others all over the world, including many others who otherwise cannot even afford it on their own.

6. Make your voice heard: As a colleague and supporter, you and your team are in a position to work with the editorial staff from time to time to let the world know about your leading projects and accomplishments.

7. Step forward: And finally, if you do not step forward to do this, if we do not step forward to do this . . . who will?

For the rest, thank you in advance for your contributions, your counsel and your support. And if you wish to talk about any of this, here is how you can get in touch. Believe me, we will not be able to do this without you!

Eric Britton
Editor, World Streets
Tel. +331 7550 3788 • Skype newmobility
eric.britton@newmobility.org or fekbritton@gmail.org

PS. Have a look at who visited World Streets today. They have to be coming here for a reason.

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It’s time you too rolled up your sleeves and got involved.

World Streets, it says right at the top of the page, is a collaborative, sharing effort. After a first year of proving its worth edition after edition, five days a week, bringing hundreds of carefully selected news items, expert views, questions, comments, inspirations, and leads to the desks of more than one hundred thousand visitors from more than seventy countries on all continents (that was our “business plan”) , World Streets is now reaching out to get active sponsorship and support for 2010. We need your help to continue. So it’s time for you to dig in and lend a hand. (And this is not only about money – keep reading.)

Year 2010 started in Copenhagen on Friday, 18 Dec 2009 And now World Streets gears up for 2010 (Special edition)

The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has given us ample reason to reflect not only on the climate/ governance and the climate/transport links – the latter which we have taken as a pillar of transport policy for some years now – but also on our own contribution here at World Streets to the strategic re-thinking and institutional re-tooling process that must now be engaged. A challenge for which every fair person, lively mind and capable pair of hands is needed.

COP15: A bit of good news for a change Copenhagen’s Climate-Friendly, Bike-Friendly Streets

Now for a bit of good news from that is for the rest of this week the sustainable development capital of our gasping planet, Copenhagen. And there she goes again, the redoubtable Elizabeth Press of StreetFilms who follows Mikael Colville-Andersen, bicycle advocate and filmmaker around while he gives us a guided tour of the cycling scene — and in the process helps us understand why we can do it too. And why we should. Thanks Michael. Thanks again Liz – our eyes on the street.

- Click here to view the video

From StreetFilms today:

Tens of thousands of people from nearly every nation on earth have descended on Copenhagen this month for the UN climate summit. As the delegates try to piece together a framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they’re also absorbing lessons from one of the world’s leading cities in sustainable transportation. In Copenhagen, fully 37 percent of commute trips are made by bike, and mode share among city residents alone is even higher.Come see “the busiest bicycling street in the Western world”, and lots of other you-gotta-see-them-to-believe-them features including bike counters (featuring digital readouts), LEDS, double bike lanes (for passing) and giant hot pink cars.

Copenhagen wasn’t always such a bicycling haven. It took many years of investment in bike infrastructure to reclaim streets from more polluting, less sustainable modes. Last week, I was able to squeeze in a whirl-wind tour with Mikael Colville-Andersen, the bike culture evangelist behind Copenhagenize and Copenhagen Cycle Chic, to get a taste of the city’s impressive bike network and cycling amenities. Watch this video and see how Copenhageners flock to the streets by bike even in December, when average temperatures hover just above freezing.

# # #

The city of Copenhagen was did not just wake up one morning and find itself one of the cycling capitals of the world. They were headed here, just like the rest of us. A bit like this.

What happened then, starting in the second half of the sixties is that the city combined openness to new ideas, civic participation and wise governance. Mix and shake hard and long. A great recipe for a great city.

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Mikael Colville Andersen is most well-known for his bicycle advocacy with the Cycle chic movement based on the Copenhagen Cycle Chic Movement, a streetstyle blog having launched a global trend of cycling in normal clothes. Called The Sartorialist on Two Wheels by The Guardian he is Denmark’s leading bicycle culture ambassador.

Elizabeth Press is a media maker. Since 2007 she has been documenting the livable streets movement in New York City as a videographer for the online vlog Street-films.org. As part of Streetfilms advocacy, Elizabeth has traveled to make videos that demon-strate best practices for better biking, walking and mass transit.

November 2009: World Streets This Month

Another busy month on World Streets, our ninth since beginning publication in March 2009. This month we present news and views from colleagues, contributors and sources in Italy, France, Taiwan, Britain, India, Iceland, Canada, Netherlands, the US, and of course Denmark and the city of Copenhagen. Check out World Streets This Month and see for yourself if we have managed to combine information and leads on matters of interest to you, which otherwise you might have missed: and each day in a form which is brief and engaging. World Streets’ goal is not only to inform but to challenge and to stretch your mind. Read on to see what the planet’s only sustainable transport daily had to offer this month.

World Streets This Month, November 2009:
10,688 visitors from all continents dropped in to pick up a total of 21 original articles and opinion pieces, touching on such exotic topics as Green Transport in Taiwan, influencing traveller behaviour, honking strategies to drive pedestrians off the road, mobility hints for meeting nice people, politicians who can’t count, another guest appearance by the relentless Ms. Veronica Moss, AUTO lobbyist, and a continuing drumbeat about the importance of sharing in transport as a strategy for more and better service, better economics and a lighter footprint on the planet. All that with a continuing cycle of articles, questions, images and alternate thoughts on the most troubling run-up to COP15 next month in Copenhagen. A busy month and an important time for our cities . . . and our planet.

To obtain the latest World Streets This Month, in one click. And free!

* Click here to directly call up on-line November postings

* Here for the PDF covering the full month.

* And here to go to the archives which contain all past monthly editions.

Who in the world reads World Streets?

This map identifies the last eighty points that downloaded the journal as of this date. From it you can see where we are hitting: mainly in North America, Europe and increasingly in Asia. That of course is very gratifying.

Gratifying yes, but the hard truth is that we are not reaching much of Africa, Latin America (language problems?), the Middle East or with one exception (a regular reader in Kazakhstan) the countries of the former Soviet Union. There are lessons for us all in this and we here are today trying to work out what to do about this. We have questions.

One of these is to ask: how can we expect to get the necessary broad international agreements needed to cut back on emissions and to create more sustainable cities, if the news, the understanding and the basic engagements are not there? This is no less than the dilemma of Kyoto, past, present and future. So how do we penetrate?

Stay tuned, we have a few ideas on this. Starting with this.

Clue: language editions. The language of the streets of the world is what you hear and read in that place. Sometimes English, more often something else. So to get the message out we need to be truly and deeply polyglot (and interesting and relevant). We have already started.

So for a first step we invite you to check out our new collaborative Italian language edition Nuova Mobilità at www.nuovamobilita.org to see how that works. Next stops, we hope: Spanish and Chinese. With more to follow. But we will take them one at a time and always in close partnership with talented people who care about their streets, their cities and our planet.

SOS. If you care about World Streets read this!

We have yet to find the sponsorship which is needed to keep the journal afloat in 2010. The situation is extremely serious and may well require that we are going to have to close down the journal in December on the last day of the COP15 negotiations, unless we get some support before then. That’s December 18th.

So if you would like help us raise funds or otherwise brainstorm on this, please get in touch. I am sure that with energetic collaboration of those of you who come here with interest and appreciation, we will solve this problem and go on to do better yet in 2010. I rather think the planet needs us. Do you agree? Don’t be shy now. Get in touch. Lend a hand. After all, it’s your planet. We can do it together.

Eric Britton
Editor

The Transportation Majority. Can’t politicians count?

Public transport? Cycling? Walking? Car pooling? Car sharing? Stuck at home? Elderly? Handicapped? Spend my hard-earned money for them? Bah! Who needs it? Why bother if it’s just for a few marginal people? Let’s concentrate on the big problems, those of the majority of people. Us drivers and our cars. We are the transportation majority.

In the world of human mobility there is, as it turns out, no one “big problem”. And hence no big solutions. There is, for better or worse, just an ever-changing confluence of a very large number of different problems, different people, different desires, different daily life realities, different needs, different constraints, different priorities, different possibilities, and different decisions. And different actions. And different consequences.

The old mobility vision of society is essentially one of striding workers, with secure jobs, fixed hours, well defined trips, leaping into their car and then buckling up for “safe driving”. Very nice.

All of whom well served by our “normal transportation arrangements”, that is the huge and hugely expansive infrastructure that we continue to build and repair to support automotive transportation (and those largely empty cars).

Something like eighty percent of the local transportation funding in most cities of the world goes for that car-supporting infrastructure: roads, bridges, cloverleafs, tunnels, supporting elections, policing, accident prevention, and the long list goes on. Life is sweet.

Then there are “the rest”, among them: the old, disabled, poor, rural, etc., etc. And of course the poor old disabled rural.

They too of course need to be catered to as well. Fair enough. Let’s give them a bit here and a bit there too. But most of our hard-earned tax money is still going to be spent on providing high quality mobility arrangements for “normal people”. That’s right, isn’t it?

Sorry but no, it’s not at all right. It is in fact 100% wrong. It is wrong because it is grossly unfair and uncivil. And beyond that, it is also based on a false precept. Why?

Because that splendid vision of society with thee and me at the wheel with the wind blowing through our golden hair, simply does not jibe with reality. It never did in the past, and as our societies age it increasingly is absurdly contrary to reality. Here is the surprise, the kicker:

The “transportation majority” is not what most people think, transportation planners and policy makers among them.

The transportation majority are all those of us who increasingly are poorly served by the mainline, no-choice, car-based truncated service arrangements that eat up most of our taxpayer money and take away our choices. And each year, as our populations age this majority grows in numbers.

Here is a generic short-list of the people who make up this till-now all too silent majority:

1. Everyone in your city, country or electorate who does not have a car

2. Everyone who cannot drive

3. Everyone who cannot afford to own and operate a car of their own (And remember that costs a lot of after-tax money)

4. Everyone who should not drive (for reasons of a variety of impediments such as limitations associated with age, psychological state , , , ,)

5. Everyone who lives in a large city and for reasons of density, public health and quality of city life needs to have access to a non-car mobility system

6. Everyone who would in fact prefer to get around by walking, cycling or some form of shared transport who cannot safely or readily do so, because all the money is being spent on the car-based system which is fundamentally, and financially, incompatible with these “softer” and more healthy ways of getting around

7. Everyone who suffers from some form of impairment that makes driving or even access to traditional public transit difficult or impossible

8. Everyone who cannot responsibly take the wheel at any given time (fatigue, distraction, nervousness, some form of intoxication. . . )

9. All those who are today isolated and unable to participate in the life of our communities fully because they simply do not have a decent way to get around.

10. And — don’t lose sight of this! – in a few years you!

How do we work our way out of this? Simple, get out there and vote!

Vote for mayors, counselors and legislators who are ready to work for the transportation majority.

Vote for mayors, counselors and legislators who are ready to join the transportation majority and get to work and around their city by public transport, walking, bicycle, carpool, or carsharing. Or better yet some combination all of the above.

And don’t vote for the other guys.

They will get your message.

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Editor’s note:

Several of our readers have pointed out that while this may be interesting, the only way to make the point is to put numbers to it. Exactly! But this has to be done on a place by place basis, so one can hope that this will be done and that we shall be seeing the results of this important metric here and in many other places.