*** WORLD STREETS INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL *** (to be updated, with full approval) _ _ _

With one eye to laying the base for our work and collaborative programs , we are currently in the process of updating and extending this list of distinguished international colleagues, each of whom is hard at work day after day on challenges, projects and programs, alone and with others, all in support of the principles of sustainable development and equity, in cities and countries around the world.  It is our intention to have the revised and expanded version of this panel listing online by end May 2019, as part of our celebration of the first ten years of our collaborative work in support of World Streets.

Since our work program is being totally shifted to the the challenge of achieving sharp near-term decreases in gases causing global warming —  CO2, CH4, N2O, PFCs, etc., — and in particular those emanating from the local mobility sector, we hope to encourage shorter or longer contributions from the members of our advisory panel on this critical topic

The revised version of this posting (end April 2020) will include some explanatory materials  to clarify the process by which this “New Mobility Majority” is in the process of overtaking the old attitudes, approaches and policies which have been largely responsible for our gross under-performance in the sector,  all the more important as the 21st century noose tightens in terms of climate, local environment, energy supply, scarce resources, the economy, congestion, poor service quality for the majority, and the long list goes on.  (In the meantime we want to hear from you with your ideas and outstanding nominations for the panel.  And if you spot errors or omissions on the following or anywhere in our work, yes please do get in touch and let us know.)

DECARBONIZING TRANSPORT : SETTING THE CHALLENGE (UK 2050)

Climate crisis: UK Government unveils ‘unprecedented’ vision of future travel with focus on walking, cycling and public transport, targeting  ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

UK MINISTERIAL FOREWORD

Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP

Secretary of State for Sustainable Transport

 

Climate change is the most pressing environmental challenge of our time. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that we need to take action, and doing so is a clear priority for the Government.

That is why in June 2019 we became the first major global economy to pass a law that requires us to achieve ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. Transport has a huge role to play in the economy reaching net zero. The scale of the challenge demands a step change in both the breadth and scale of ambition and we have a duty to act quickly and decisively to reduce emissions.

 

The associated benefits of bold and ambitious action to tackle transport emissions are also significant. We can improve people’s health, create better places to live and travel in, and drive clean economic growth. The UK is a global centre for world leading science, technology, business and innovation and we are perfectly placed to seize the economic opportunities that being in the vanguard of this change presents. The faster we act, the greater the benefits.

 

Through the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, 2020 will be the year we set out the policies and plans needed to tackle transport emissions.

Thinking Exercise: What happens when VKT goes up? Down?

This flowchart as it stands  gives us a good idea of what happens in today’s dominant mobility pattern in most cities,  where each year the net impact of transport policy (or lack thereof) is to nudge up VKT .  (Actually that should better read MVKT — MOTOR Vehicle Kilometers Traveled , since that brings us right to the main core of the challenge.

Which, if we turn it around and look at it closely, gives us a number of good ideas and targets for our 2020 Five Percent Challenge .  Figure out how to reduce VKT and all sorts of good stuff happens!

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To contact the editor with your observations and eventual questions, drop a line to Climate@newmobility.org.  We answer our mail. 

Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France

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

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COMMENT: AND IF WE FAIL THIS FIRST TIME . . . ?

Zero emissions mobility at lunch time in a pedestrian street in Tokyo

From: 原佳代 <kayohara@itej.or.jp>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2019 5:05 AM
To: eric.britton@newmobility.org
Subject: RE: Next steps – Japan

Dear Eric,

. . . .  (Following extract from email  of 1 April 2019, letter in French with translations)

• En même temps j’ai bien évoqué que c’est aussi très important de ne pas avoir peur de rater : même si c’est tombé en échec, ça peut être le premier pas du lancement du projet, et bien ça peut être une trace de la vie.

• Now in Google Japanese » : 同時に失敗したとしても、プロジェクト立ち上げの最初のステップになることもあれば、痕跡になることもあります 人生の

• Or, why not, even in English : « At the same time it is also very important not to be afraid to fail: because even if it failed the first time, it could become the first step of launching a fully prepared demonstration project– and so, it is a first step to show the way.

Archives: Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities: 2002

A hero is someone who does what he can: the others do not.
– Romain Rolland, Nobel in Literature, 1915

From the editor : EcoPlan International, Paris, 28 September 2018.

Back in 2002 I was invited by the mayor of Stockholm and the team behind the Stockholm Partnership for Sustainable Cities to join them as Senior International Adviser and Jury Chairman, working together with team leaders, Adam Holmström and Gregor Hackman, to prepare, conduct and follow-up on this major collaborative  international event. We thought you might find some interest on how these challenges of sustainable cities were being looked at and dealt with (or not) sixteen long years ago. For the full program you can click here to   http://bit.ly/2xZgpvP . In this brief extract, we introduce the international jury: outstanding thinkers and leaders working in many different ways on the challenges of sustainable cities, most of whom are still, happily, continuing to work on these challenges today.

The New Circular Economy: Vision, Strategy, Policy, Practice – An Introduction

– Eric Britton, ISG, Paris, 15 November 2017.

An Open Collaborative Policy Research Program

Making some progress in exploring the Circular Economy/Public Policy interface, in the context of our master classes and advisory program on Sustainable Development, Economy and Democracy. Here is how things are starting to shape up at this still early point.

Sustainable Transport: Declaration of Dependence

Out there in the real world life is a complex interactive system in which things do not exist in isolation but depend heavily on each other.  As Miller and Scott put it: “A complex adaptive system is a system in which a perfect understanding of the individual parts does not automatically convey a perfect understanding of the whole system’s behavior”.  Which means that if our goal is to create a strong and wise policy for sustainable transport in and around our cities we need to change our tools and perspective  as well as our behaviour.  As the Brundtland Report, “Our Common Future” told us already a full generation ago . . .

The following is taken from the peer review  edition of the forthcoming book “BETTER CHOICES: Bringing Sustainable Transport to Your City“. For a copy drop a line to betterchoices@ecoplan,org.

A New Mobility Strategy for your City

Basic principles and strategies of the New Mobility Agenda

The shift from old to new mobility is not one that turns its back on the importance of high quality mobility for the economy and for quality of life for all. It is not and should not be seen as a step down in terms of life quality.

What if the circular economy were the future of transport?

The transport sector still has a good way to go to be in tune with circular economy and sustainable development principles. But solutions are emerging.

The transport sector tops the CO₂ emissions ratings in France. By 2015, for the first time in more than 10 years, greenhouse gas emissions from transport increased by 0.9%… Transport is also one of the highest consumers of fossil fuels (produced from oil, coal or natural gas). To develop a greener approach to the environment and find better ways of getting around, four areas are now emerging and shaping the transport of the future.

Circular Economy: Symposium, Master Class and Peer Review

Circular Economy: The Future of Business

Symposium  of 23 June 2017 – https://goo.gl/af5oEU
École des Ponts Business School

Closing commentary, Eric Britton.
Professor. Sustainable Development, Economy and Democracy.
Institut Supérieur de Gestion, Paris
eric.britton@ecoplan.org | Twitter @ericbritton | Skype newmobility

INTRODUCTION: I was invited by the Dean and faculty of the Ecole des Ponts Business School to participate in a full day Symposium on the Circular Economy at their campus on 23 June 2017,. The objective of the event was to introduce  and invite peer comments on  a new program of  graduate seminars and faculty research exploring the boundaries and potential of this relatively new, environmentally sensitive planning and process technique, which takes as its starting point to scrutinize and reorganize productive units to eradicate waste  systematically, throughout the life cycles and uses of products and their components. I was invited to provide a brief  closing summary of what I had observed and heard over the day, with a certain number of recommendations if that should prove useful. My closing remarks are summarized below.  For background on the program click to  https://lineupr.com/ecole-des-ponts-business-school/circular-economy.

Sustainable Mobility’s Bitter Pill (And why most politicians do not want to swallow it)

(BC) A New Mobility Strategy for your City

Basic principles and strategies of the New Mobility Agenda

The shift from old to new mobility is not one that turns its back on the importance of high quality mobility for the economy and for quality of life for all. It is not and should not be seen as a step down in terms of life quality.

Transport minimization: Bridging time and space in different ways

The TMAPP Planners Toolbox:

Transport/Mobility/Access/ Proximity/’Presence’

To take full advantage of the fundamental structural differences between Old and New Mobility, it can help to reflect on the five necessary different steps of analysis and action suggested by the expression TMAPP – which sets out five alternative views or ways of bridging space, which of course is what transportation is supposed to be all about. These are the essential building blocks of a full-function sustainable transport plan for your city.  If you have not integrated the best of each of these essential steps into your plan, it is time for a bit of continuing education.

Planning and Policy Objectives for a Real Strategic Transport Plan for Penang

Again and again and again, when it comes to “transport master planning” in Penang, it seems as if we always end up circling to the same old structurally wrong thing. And in the process allowing the undertrained proponents of the Big Bang “solution” of the present government package, to occupy the center of the debate. This is a huge mistake.

It is my position that the starting place for responsible and effective transport planning and policy in Penang is NOT to link it to land deals —  but to look at the challenge in and of itself. From a well defined, explicit strategic perspective.

Some will say that they do not have enough money to accomplish their objectives — which quickly become wild, pharaonic, costly and not related to the real problems and priorities at hand. Remember, transport for people and not for cars (infrastructure included)

Here is the simple question that the policy makers need to ask and resolve.

(a) What is it that they can accomplish for the people of Penang,

(b) working with available resources in order to

(c) alleviate the day-to-day mobility problems of the people of Penang – with

(d) especial attention to the needs of the poorer half of society and the vulnerable populations (elderly, handicapped, poor, isolated, non-car owners, and

(e) above all women of all ages and stations of life, and in

(f) in the coming four years, i.e., 2017-2020.

How hard is that? And why is no one minding this store?

Please someone, tell me why this is not being done?

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About the author:

Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France

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

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Protected: Book review: Urban Transport Crisis in Emerging Economies

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Mobilien: Better, Faster, Cheaper. . . than BRT (for Penang)

While Penang is thinking once again about its transportation arrangements, we are hearing a lot of late about BRT and tramways — and rightfully. Both a huge improvement over earlier proposals for a mad spaghetti mix of intrusive monorails, elevated LRT/LRV systems,  Sky Cabs hanging uselessly in the horizon, over-built road infrastructure projects  to serve and encourage yet  more car traffic, and a backbreaking  proposal for a sea tunnel that would bring yet more traffic into the island and in the process extend and multiply today’s traffic mess and associated inconveniencies

But before we make up our minds let’s also give a thought to another less well known mobility option, the Mobilien.  It may be just what you were looking for.

STEP: Sustainable Transport Environment for Penang (Archives)

How were the leading minds  in Penang looking at the challenges of sustainable transport back at the turn of the century?  Did you know this? In many ways considerably better than is the case today. They were lucid, they had focus, and they stuck with the issues at hand..

To bring you into the picture (above)  let’s have a look at a presentation made back in 1999 introducing a collaborative civil society program at the time, called STEP – Sustainable Transport Environment for Penang. If you look closely you will note that just about all of the issues and recommendations that were being discussed back then, are every bit as topical today. But somehow we lost almost two decades.

What happened? Why did not this enlightened program take off at the time.  We shall be looking at that closely in the coming weeks and seeing if we can learn at least some of the lessons of the past.

Sustainable Penang/New Mobility Agenda Publications

For those of you who do not know it, we do have a “publication arm” that works rather effectively, a collaborative blog which we set up in 2013 during my first visit to Penang, under the title Sustainable Penang: Toward a New Mobility Agenda. It is freely available at https://sustainablepenangagenda.wordpress.com/.  A section of the home page is shown here, and to get the feel for how it works I recommend that you start with . . . START.

I mention this now because the blog invites contributions from those with useful knowledge or questions to share with our 173 international readers, while each posting is picked up by parallel social media sites on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/SustainablePenang , 153 readers), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/5084715), and Twitter (https://twitter.com/SustainPenang). Selected articles are also posted in World Streets (https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/), for the attention of our 4403 international readers).

Cars in China Today: What does this little picture say to you?

This little picture gives us a few ideas about cars in China today.  Important if we bear in mind that today is the first day of the future.

Dutch Carshare Operators in 2014

More than three quarters of the municipalities in the Netherlands are currently served by carshare operators (as opposed to 11% in 2002). The following listing has been compiled with the help of several friends and colleagues in the Netherlands, helping us  to identify all of the carshare operators currently offering “traditional”, P2P or one-way services. This listing is part of the in-process “Going Dutch” project which got underway in December 2013 and  has been introduced here on World Streets.