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.

To support the Tallinn FTP project, World Streets readers comment on Free Public Transport

In June of 2012 your editor was invited by the mayors of Tallinn to give a public talk to comment on how some of the policy concepts developed  over the last two decades under the New Mobility Consult program might be put to work to support their decision to take new approaches to transport policy challenges starting in 2013.  Subsequent to that visit we signed with the City of Tallinn a public agreement of strategic cooperation over 2013.

The first transformative event they were considering for 2013 was  the first-ever Free Public Transport project in a European capital. After careful planning their project went into service on 1 January.  In the run-up to this important event World Streets in cooperation with our readers has been developing and drawing to the city’s attention a broad repertory of expert comments on FPT, all of which you can see at http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/category/free-public-transport/. We invited contributing editor Anzir Boodoo to read through  the various comments and see if he could put them in some kind of order for our busy readers in a single article, which you can now read here.

Editorial: No FPT without SCR (Systematic Car Reductions)

This is a simple fact! Free Public Transport (FPT) has no possible justification whatsoever unless your governing officials are willing to do something about adjusting the modal mix and bringing down car ownership and use in the city strategically and as quickly as possible SCR – (Systematic Car Reductions).

The tools for achieving these necessary adjustments in the modal split are well known, experience-proven and widely used in cities of all sizes in many parts of the world. There is no possible justification that competent public authorities not be aware of these proven tools and policies. They include most notably:

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.

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 . . .

Editorial: Will the real PRT please stand up

Somebody wake me up on this please  on this discussion. (See references at end).

1. If we look on the streets of any city in the Global South, we see de facto PRT, personal rapid transport, all over the place.

Dear Reader. May we rent your brain?

World Streets iwill on 1 May close down regular publication until we have managed to resolve our challenging financial situation. If you share our deeply felt goals concerning the up-hill push to sustainable transport, sustainable cities and sustainable lives, read on and consider how you could lend a hand. We need both near term and more solid longer term backing in order to be able to continue to make our contribution. And for this, your ideas and contacts can be of real help. If you like what we are doing with World Streets, let me ask you to read on.

Whence Social Media on World Streets

If anyone knows where this whole business of balancing what just might be highly useful linking with the constraints imposed by a seriously time-challenged 24 hour day, I hope they will let the editor of this journal know. True there is a great deal that is out there, and every bit of it is in constant kaleidoscopic evolution. My first temptation is to stick to what I know works, and give the rest a pass. But another part of my brain tells me that this could be a big mistake.

Are the telework, telecommuting guys way behind the curve?

I have the feeling, but admittedly in some ignorance. . .  that the telework, telecommuting guys may be way behind the curve. That is, quite possibly not quite up to the challenge of the times.

To fix Sustainable Transport: Ensure Full Gender Parity in all Decision and Investment Fora (QED)

Today is International Women’s Day. And not only that, 2011 marks the one hundredth anniversary of this great and necessary idea. So what better occasion for World Streets to announce publicly, loudly and yet once again our firm belief that the most important single thing that our society, our nations and our cities could do to increase the fairness and the effectiveness of our transportation arrangements would be to make it a matter of the law that all decisions determining how taxpayer money is invested in the sector should be decided by councils that respect full gender parity. We invite you to join us in this challenge and make it one of the major themes of sustainable transport policy worldwide in 2011.

What do Tunisia, Egypt, Libya . . . and World Streets have in common?

We try very hard to stay on topic in World Streets, not always easy since our bailiwick is so vast. But there are times when, if we are to do our self-assigned job, we need to look even broader yet.

One of the fundamental tenets of World Streets is that the decisions that in the past have shaped the streets and mobility arrangements of our cities now have to be sharply revised and brought into the realities of this very different 21st century. In the past the shaping decisions and investments in the sector were made in more or less closed committees manned (I chose my word carefully) by a very narrow range of social-economic groups (mainly more or less educated males, with secure jobs, fast cars and fat pensions). With the utterly unsurprising results that the mobility system they ordered up was the one that served them best: i.e., lots of roads for fast driving, cheap gas, and plenty of free places to park. Bien sûr mon ami.

Editorial: The Seven Simple Truths of Sustainable Mobility (Come argue with me)

Sometimes in life things can be simple. Let’s look at one case.

Doubtless the most severe single problem holding us back in the hard up-hill struggle for “sustainable transport” in cities and countries around the world is that so far everyone seems to have a different definition and a different agenda.  Google offered 947,000 entries under this phrase this morning and all it takes is a quick tour of the Google News rubric to  get a quick education on the enormous range of interpretations of what the phrase means to different people, places and interests.

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.)

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.

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:

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.

The World – the Climate – the Strategy. Come argue with me.

Part I: Ten steps to get the job done:
Let me sketch out an easy to understand (or reject) climate/transport foundation strategy that presents some stark contrasts with the ideas and approaches that are getting the bulk of attention when it comes to targeting, policy and investment in the sector — and which in a first instance is quite likely to earn me more enemies than friends (that goes with the territory). At least until such time that these basic underlying ideas are expressed in a manner which is sufficiently clear and convincing that we can with confidence put them to work to turn the tide. So here you have my first brief statement of the issues, the basic strategic frame and the key pressure points to which I invite your critical reactions and comments. In a second piece in this series, to follow shortly, I intend to have a look at the package(s) of measures, policies, tools, modes, etc. which can be sorted out, combined and refined to do something about it. Or maybe not.

- Eric Britton, Editor

Will the real British local transport policy please stand up.

About two weeks ago I sent out a red flag to a short list of my most respected British transport/environment colleagues with a cry for help in preparation for a keynote speech I had been asked to deliver to a conference scheduled to take place this Thursday, 2 December, in Liverpool, and where the speaker just before me is a respected ministerial representative of the latest British government. I confessed to my distinguished British friends that I was at best half-educated in terms of the current policy and practice debate in Britain and needed a fast tutorial before exposing myself to a critical audience. They responded fast, generously and most usefully as you will soon see here in a follow-up piece to the conference; but one of the responses opened up his perceptive comments with an amusing analogy which I thought you might enjoy this morning.

2011 Work Plan: First we have to pay for it

Paris. Thursday, 25 November 2010

Subject: Heavy traffic on the way to sustainable cities and sustainable lives . . .

Dear friends and colleagues,

With the harvest now safely in the granary, the livestock firmly locked in the barn, the muskets loaded and plenty of wood chopped to see us through a long and surely hard winter, it is time to cook up a big meal and invite everyone within shouting distance to come to celebrate that we all have somehow made it through one more year and have at least a fair shot at the one to come.

So on this special day for Americans, wearing my hat as founding editor of World Streets I decided this morning to pick up pen and write a short note to you (and approximately one thousan d f riends and colleagues in cities and countries literally all over the world) to see if they, you that is, might have some ideas as to how this thing we call World Streets can now organize to deal with the challenges and the opportunities of the year ahead. For, as you will see in our and other pages, there are surely plenty of both.

Editorial: World Streets Profile Guidelines for Contributors

Preparing a World Streets Profile
(Program, Project, Event, Tool)

World Streets welcomes well written articles that report in a balanced manner to our international readers on the work and accomplishments, and hopes and plans, of outstanding groups, projects and programs in various corners of the world leading the way in face of the tough challenges in our chosen sector — looking for exemplary approaches and tools that have potential for very broad, hopefully universal application.

Antidote: Why one American liberal suggests that there are viable options to your car

In the wake of the sheer madness, no that’s too kind, outright stupidity, flagrant self-satisfaction and puerile cuteness of yesterday’s “Why Leftists want to pull you all on mass transit” piece, we offer you some brief words of respite taken directly from Paul Krugman’s 7 October piece in his “The Conscience of a Liberal” blog from the New York Times. Our bottom line: Don’t give up on America yet. We may be in the slow lane, but with a lot more hard work and hard thinking we just may get there yet.

Kaohsiung pause

Our esteemed editor in chief (also the only editor but happily not the only contributor) is tied up for this and most of next week in Kaohsiung for the first meeting of the World Share/Transport Forum.  He has taken the entire staff of World Streets with him, so it will be a bit lights-out on this street for the next few days. Our hope is that you will miss us and in the meantime be thinking about articles, authors, programs, problems, solutions, links and useful tools  that we can all share together in these and other good pages.  In the meantime come to Kaohsiung with us via http://www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org.   It will be well worth the trip.

What/who keeps holding back New Mobility reform?

If you get it, New Mobility is a no-brainer. However, while newmob 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. We have a few potential sticking points here that need to be overcome first. Let’s have a quick look.

After some years of talking with cities, and working and observing in many different circumstances, here are some 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 Changing Context for NGO Campaigning

The consistent two-punch theme of World Streets is that (a) we are losing the sustainability wars (no argument there, eh?) because (b) we are quite simply not very bright. Look, how complicated can it be? When it comes to the issues of sustainable transport we really do know what to do (i.e., get our act together and start to rip carbon out of the system, and do it now). But we are somehow not able to get our fundamental messages across. We also have this communication problem. So when someone like Keith Sutter from Sydney has an idea for us, well we listen and try to learn. Let’s have a look and see if we can learn something.

New Politics, New Economics and New Mobility : Frugal Transport comes of age in Britain?

John Whitelegg, Editor of World Transport Policy and Practice, offers up a lead editorial in the latest edition of the Journal which was published today and is freely available here. His proposal makes particular economic sense at a time of great economic uncertainty, and of course not only in the UK. His core recommendation: (a) Cancel systematically all public investments that do not pass the sustainability test. What goes? (b) £10 billion for unnecessary road building. (c) £32 billion for uncalled for high speed rail. And (d) elimination of all but a handful of domestic aviation subsidies and investments. And with those frugal savings, the new government team can really go to work to guarantee the sustainable transport agenda.

A New Deal for British transport:
A beginners guide to sorting out fiscal, social, economic and health problems through transport measures
- John Whitelegg, Editor, World Transport Policy and Practice

On Thursday 13th May 2010 a new government in Britain began making its first decisions. Amongst these decisions was the abandonment of a 3rd runway at Heathrow Airport and the cancellation of any new runways at Gatwick and Stansted. The fact that the new government is the first coalition government since the second world war has excited fear and uncertainty as well as hope for a “new politics” but we shall see.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition labelled somewhat unkindly as the “Con-dem” coalition by the Labour Party has enormous potential to get things right so here are a few tips in the best tradition of World Transport Policy and Practice and its 15 years of efforts to inform policy:

1. Cancel the complete road building programme and motorway widening programme and use the (approx) £10 billion to reduce public expenditure and/or reallocate to highway maintenance so that road conditions improve.

2. Cancel the complete high speed rail programme. 1% of all trips in the UK are longer than 100 miles and there is no satisfactory rationale for spending £32 billion of public money to encourage rich people to travel faster and more often to and from London.

3. Implement full internalisation of external cost on domestic aviation through emission charging and implement strict noise and air quality regulations around airports to protect local residents from health damaging environments.

4. Announce that it is the view of the new coalition government to eliminate domestic aviation apart from those services connecting remote Scottish Islands and similar communities elsewhere in the UK.

5. Implement system-wide reform in all UK urban areas to deliver a “202020” vision for cycling – 20% of all trips in all urban areas will be by bicycle by 2020. System- wide reform means general 30kph/20mph speed limits, road closures to reduce rat running and highly connected public services and destinations. All UK cities can be like Freiburg, Basle and Copenhagen. The missing ingredient is political will.

6. De-commission 50% of car parking spaces in urban areas and reallocate the released land for high quality, car free, affordable housing.

7. Implement a serious road user hierarchy so that every junction and every highway link delivers absolute consideration for pedestrians and cyclists and puts car users at the bottom of the list. The road user hierarchy is illustrated and described in the Department for Transport Manual for Streets (DfT, 2007).

8. Introduce land value taxation to produce funds for new public transport infrastructure.

9. Require a year on year increase in accessibility by foot, bike and public transport to all health, education, employment and recreational facilities.

10. Set a target of achieving the rule of one third for urban areas: all efforts will be made to deliver a modal split in urban areas of one third of trips walk/cycle, one third public transport and one third by car.

11. Set high standards of public transport provision for rural public transport and establish the position that the car is not the default option for rural areas. In case of doubt please will Ministers visit Dornach and Gempen near Basle in Switzerland to see what is meant by “high standards”.

This list has been sent to the new Minister of Transport of the new UK government. We await his answer with great anticipation.

DfT (2007) Manual for Streets (para 3.6.8)
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/manforstreets/pdfmanforstreets.pdf

Note to the reader from the author:
“Let’s invite comment, rebuttal, ask for other ideas out there. Why not do some role playing along the lines “OK so its the morning after the night before and you are the new Minister of Transport and you have the support of your prime minister and all the cabinet. What are you going to do to sort out our long term transport problems and the way they interact with a wide range of health, social and economic problems? The time for dithering is over. You must act! What will you do?”

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World Transport Policy and Practice. Volume 16. Number 1 May 2010

A free copy of this latest volume is available here.

Abstracts & Keywords

Cycling in New York: Innovative Policies at the Urban Frontierf

John Pucher, Lewis Thorwaldson, Ralph Buehler, and Nicholas Klein

New York has made impressive progress at improving cycling conditions and raising cycling levels in recent years, especially in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The number of bike trips has almost doubled since 2000, thanks to vastly expanded cycling infrastructure, including innovative treatments such as cycle tracks, buffered bike lanes, special bike signals, bike boxes at intersections, and bright green lane markings.

Cycling safety has improved, with steady or declining numbers of cyclist injuries and fatalities in spite of rapidly rising cycling volumes. Some serious deficiencies remain, however. Integration of bicycling with public transport is almost nonexistent. There is not nearly enough bike parking, and virtually no secure bike parking at all. Moreover, the police and courts in New York have failed to enforce the many traffic laws intended to protect cyclists.

Comprehensive traffic calming is needed in New York’s residential neighbourhoods to reduce travel speeds and thus encourage more cycling, in particular, by children, seniors, and women. Cycling has come a long way in New York, but it still has a long way to go before it becomes a mainstream way to get around.

Keywords: bicycling, cycle paths, infrastructure, cycling safety, policy, New York City, gender, bike parking, sustainable transport

Youth transport, mobility and security in sub-Saharan Africa: the gendered journey to school

- Gina Porter, Kate Hampshire, Albert Abane, Alister Munthali, Elsbeth Robson, Mac Mashiri and Augustine Tanle

This paper draws on empirical data from a three-country study (Ghana, Malawi, South Africa) of young people’s mobility to explore the gendered nature of children’s journeys to school in sub- Saharan Africa. Gender differences in school enrolment and attendance in Africa are well established: education statistics in many countries indicate that girls’ participation in formal education is often substantially lower than boys’, especially at secondary school level.

Transport and mobility issues commonly form an important component of this story, though the precise patterning of the transportation and mobility constraints experienced by girl schoolchildren, and the ways in which transport factors interact with other constraints, varies from region to region. In some contexts the journey to school represents a particularly hazardous enterprise for girls because they face a serious threat of rape. In other cases girls’ journeys to school and school attendance are hampered by Africa’s transport gap and cultural conventions which require females to take on this burden (by pedestrian head loading) before leaving for (or instead of attending) school.

Our evidence comes from a diverse range of sources but, for reasons of space, we draw principally here on a survey questionnaire conducted in each country with approximately 1000 children aged 7-18 years across 8 sites. We aim to draw attention to the diversity of gendered travel experiences across geographical locations (paying attention to associated patterns of transport provision), to explore the implications of these findings for access to education, and to suggest areas where policy intervention could be beneficial.

Keywords: children’s journey to school, sub-Saharan Africa, gender, threat, transport, mobility, cultural conventions, education, policy

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John Whitelegg is visiting Professor of Sustainable Transport at Liverpool John Moores University and Professor of Sustainable Development at University of York’s Stockholm Environment Institute, and is founder and editor of the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice. John is a local councillor in Lancaster.