SUPPORT WORLD STREETS: Who? What? Where? How? Why?

We have no money gentlemen, so we shall have to think.
– Ernest Rutherford, on taking over Cavendish Laboratory in 1919

World Streets is an independent, collaborative,  public interest platform working daily in support of sustainable transport, sustainable cities and sustainable lives and 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 the important issues of sustainable development and social justice.  To ensure our full independence we do not accept advertising. We depend on the support of our readers, concerned public agencies, foundations and actors in the private sector to keep going. (Which is quite a challenge as you can well imagine.)

Contents

1. Your donation
2. How to donate
3. Five excellent reasons to support our work
4. Work together
5. Recent visitors’ map
6. Reader comments

1. Suggested guidelines for donation levels?

There are none. (Our monthly operating costs for our public interest work are on the order of USD 2,500. Every little bit helps; it also sends a message.)

2. How to . . . transfer funds to support our work.

To make an immediate contribution via PayPal or credit card:

* For US Dollar contributions, CLICK HERE.

* For donations in Euros, CLICK HERE.

For 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

Or if you prefer, send a check to:

Association EcoPlan International
9, rue Gabillot
F69003 Lyon, France

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

Top

3. Briefs: Five original collaborative projects making a difference

Here are five of more than twenty ongoing long-term collaborative international sustainable transport projects that somehow are moving ahead but which have not yet received one nickel of public support. Have a look. Maybe you will find something you might like to get behind. And if you do click here to see how you can do this easily.

 

The Third Force – Sustainable Development, Economy and Democracy

This is the vital central core of our work, our chosen angle on the challenges of sustainability and social justice. There is a strong argument that the true wealth of the city lies in what we call The Third Force, also referred to as civil society and participatory democracy in all their many variants.

In the three main forces shaping the city – the actions of governments, private enterprise and civil society – one thing that differentiates them are their very different time horizons: Governments go about their work and make their decisions with a close eye to the next election, say anywhere from two to six years on average. The private sector responds to the constraints of economic viability, with horizons varying between quarterly results and a two to three year decision horizon being the usual standard.

This pretty much means that civil society is the force that is there in place year after year to look out for the very long term interests and health of the city.  The Third Force program behind World Streets and our many collaborative projects looks at, works with, and reports on these longer-term social, economic and environmental issues and priorities in the transport and land use sector, often looking out at a generation and more. Exciting stuff!

* Program start-up 1988. 381 articles in W/S. Link – https://goo.gl/GujKt4.

World Streets: The Politics of Transport in Cities

Say goodbye to Old Mobility with its stress on more supply, more vehicles and more infrastructure as the auto-pilot answer to all our mobility challenges. World Streets has since 2009 offered an open platform for new thinking and collaborative problem solving, sharing information and experience with the full range of problems and eventual solution paths that constitute the global challenge of sustainable and just transport in cities.

* 2009.  4,483 registered readers. 1565 articles. http://wp.me/PsKUY-45W.

Sustainable Penang: Better, Faster, Cheaper

Supporting civil society and democracy in the small city/state of Penang, Malaysia, in the push to sustainable transport. High public dissatisfaction with a proposed and largely secret $12 billion government program the net impact of which will be to increase traffic without serving key unmet mobility needs of the population. If you are not familiar with Penang or Malaysia, you may find our Sustainable Transport Primer for a Battle of Ideas in Penang a useful way to dig into the complex and highly conflicted situation. A real battle ground for civil society.

Working together to finding the delicate balance between government, the private sector and active citizenry – between sustainable development, economy and democracy.

* June 2013. 220 registered readers   http://wp.me/p3GVVk-xJ

Gender, Equity and Transport: The Best Place to Start

If you want a transport system that is efficient, affordable, clean and equitable, the place to start is with women, and at the top then all the way down. (La femme est l’avenir de l’homme – “Woman hold the future of mankind”.) Does that seem simple and far fetched? Read on:

A community of practice and public policy program addressing the problems of women, particularly Southern women and girls, facing the everyday reality of gender inequality in the transport sector. The program deals with specific problems in specific places in Africa, Asia and Latin America, both cities and in very poor outlying rural areas where safe and fair access is an enormous problem of day-to-day life, often falling especially hard on women and young girls.

* Since 2004, 3,146 readers. http://wp.me/p1bevG-7K

 

Sustainable Mobility in Moldova:  Better, Faster, Cheaper

Working with a pick-up group of partners, experts and volunteers to see if we can together make a strategic, timely and low cost contribution that would not only be a life enhancer for people’s mobility in Moldova’s capital city – applying all the lessons so painfully learned in the “West” over the last half century — and in the process show the way for other cities in Eastern Europe and indeed elsewhere in the world who are in need of a New Mobility model: “Better. Faster, Cheaper”. A very challenging initiative.

• June 2016, 4483 readers http://wp.me/p7K06T-35

Top

4. Work together

*  CONSULTANCY/ADVISORY. You can bring in our specialised strategic consultancy/advisory capabilities to support, cross-check, review  your new project or plan, on a confidential in-house basis or as an open public review.

* JOINT PROJECTS. Joint projects/project support in collaboration with some of the most capable consultancy groups working in this area.

* TRAINING: In-house training programs lasting several days or up to 2 weeks

* PRESENTATIONS: Public presentations or keynote speeches in support of your conferences or events.

* CONFERENCES.  You can bring us in to help you organise significant conferences or events on the broad theme of sustainable transport, but with tightly focused high profile themes and some of the very supporting international speakers.

* CITY TOURS. We organize and lead study tours and missions in Europe, looking into some of the leading cities,  projects and innovations in our field.

* ENCOURAGE your library, city, public agency or private sector group to support World Streets.

* MASTER CLASSES. We organise Master Classes for young professionals and university students in the various areas in which we work. Get in touch and we can talk about it.

* AWARDS. Consider recommending us to a foundation or eventually an award program for outstanding contributions in our field.

* BOOK SUPPORT. Foundation, university, thinktank  or other support for my book in progress – Late Night Thoughts: The Art of Living Together. (Click here for background information on this project in process.)

Thank you for helping World Streets to continue in 2016 and beyond. We could not do it without you.

Eric Britton, Editor

Annex A: Recent visitors’ map: Who/where read World Streets this morning?

This map, for better or worse, tells us a great deal about who is pushing the leading edge.  And, sadly,  who is not. How can we pretend to be making our contribution if we have next to no readers in China, the Russian Federation, and saddest of all Africa. As you can see, we have miles to go before we sleep.

Annex B: And what did they have to say about World Streets, when we asked  . . .

* . . . 100 readers asked, and 101 responded – see  http://wp.me/psKUY-4oI

Annex C: Some reader faces from World Streeets Online – https://www.facebook.com/WorldStreetsOnline/

*   A note of kind thanks to Alsmie Alias for the above lead photo on Better Faster, Cheaper  — done in support of the on-going Sustainable Penang/New Mobility Agenda collaborative Third Force efforts in Penang (see above).

# # #

About the editor:

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.)

View complete profile

 

# # #

And about each of us: