WORTHY MOUSE FAMILY TRAGICALLY LOSES HOME: SLEEPS IN CAR

– – – – – – – – > by Eric the Crow, Reportng for World Streets, from Reykjavik Iceland

Someone a lot wiser than me, once told me many years ago: when you are facing a really difficult problem, why don’t you see if you can step back a few paces and put it in a form that you can discuss with children and hear what they may have to say.

I recalled this in the early nineties when in the face of the many mind-bending complications of sustainability and mobility — such as we are facing here today — I decided to write a Haiku which gradually expanded from seventeen syllabes into a wandering draft scenario for a children’s story on the topic, which eventually became, with the great shaping inputs of two of my friends (Wolfgang Zuckermann for the words, and Roget Tweet for the music (artwork) ).  After much thrashing around we decided to call it  Family Mouse behind the Wheel (Wolfgang’s candidate).

Want to check it out?

To read this tragedi-environmental tale with backstrory all you have to do is click here – – > https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/family-mouse-behind-the-wheel/

THE FIVE PERCENT CHALLENGE: WORLD CLIMATE/MOBILITY CHALLENGE PARTNERS FOR 2020

DRAFT FOR COMMENT AND EDITING

— to be contacted and integrated into program from the beginning as full partners designing and monitoring the 2020 Five Percent Challenge.

Please share your contact information, addresses, names to that we can bring them into the project from the beginning.

Transport Infrastructure — Car, roads, streets, parking — on- and off-street

Public transporters — Public transport, school and works buses, taxis, free circulator bus services

Automobile lobbies — Owner/drivers, supporting services

Shared mobility — ridesharing, car sharing, shared bicycles, scooters, hitchhiking, slugging, bus pools, etc.)

MicroMobility (bicycles, scooters, very light vehicles, electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycles and electric pedal assisted, pedelec, push scooters.

Mobility substitutes — Proximity, Telepresence, Telework, peak reduction measures

THE 2020 FIVE PERCENT EMERGENCY CHALLENGE: (Cross-cutting issues, measures, sources & startup strategies)

Executive Summary:

QUESTION: Is it going to be possible to cut greenhouse gas emissions resulting from day to day transport in your city by five percent next year?

RESPONSE: Yes *

___________________________________

* But you have to be very smart

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?  (Attributed to A. Einstein)

THE FIVE PERCENT CHALLENGE (continued)

 * * Very rough first draft.  Requiring careful rewrite for content and clarity.   * *

CLIMATE/NEW MOBILITY  2019-2020 EMERGENCY ACTION PLAN

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?  (Attributed to A. Einstein)

 

Working Notes: Building Blocks:

The sources,  references and links that follow here – we call them building blocks or parts of the much larger puzzle – are presented here in first working draft form and are intended to be useful to inform and guide students, researchers, concerned citizens and others interested in getting up to speed on the wide range of challenging topics that need to be brought in to the analysis and eventual work plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the local transport sector by a radical target and in a single year . These references include a considerable variety of issues, hints and developments (examples, free public transport, economic levers, value capture, full gender parity, etc., etc.) which have important roles to play in this wholesale reconstruction of the new mobility ecosystem.

WORLD CLIMATE EMERGENCY

Online List of 219 Available World Climate Change Initiatives *

Climate Action Plan (CAP)

A Climate Action Plan (CAP) is a framework of strategies intended to guide efforts for climate change mitigation. More specifically, a climate action plan is a detailed and strategic framework (ecosystem) for measuring, planning, and reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and related climatic impacts. It can be scoped and carried at any of a wide range of geographic or government levels: national, regional, cities or even neighborhoods or eco-districts.  No less, such an action plan can be carried out by and at the levels of large or smaller companies, employers, cultural centers and events, schools and universities, and even families or individuals.

As an example: Municipalities design and utilize climate action plans as customized road maps for making informed decisions and understanding where and how to achieve the largest and most cost-effective emissions reductions that are in alignment with other municipal goals. Climate action plans, at a minimum, include an inventory of existing emissions, explicit reduction goals, targets, and timetables, and analyzed and prioritized reduction actions. Ideally, a climate action plan also includes an implementation strategy that identifies required resources and funding mechanisms.

Help from Wikipedia

* Useful tools and references from Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/2Bre9A1

WORLD STREETS CLIMATE COLLABORATIVE PROJECT PHASE 1: TIME FOR A COMMUNICATIONS CHECK

* * * WORLD STREETS 2019 CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK * * *

 

As we gear up for this open collaborative world-wide Climate/Mobility Challenge 2019 project — see http://bit.ly/2D8DNJR for some first references — this would seem like an ideal time to ensure that the roughly fifteen thousand-plus international colleagues are efficiently connected, taking advantage of the free communications packages which are at our disposal. So, this is to invite you to get online at your convenience with Skype and WhatsApp, both of which we have used extensively and easily for some years and for both free one-on-one and group communication. Quickly now:

START HERE

Greetings:

What you have here is an independent web platform aimed at two somewhat different but related objectives.  For starters . . .

v. 1.0 World Streets: The Politics of Transport in Cities (Since 2008).

In the first place, you have before you here the full content of World Streets as a collaborative independent  “journal of record”, since March 2008 reporting on the winding, often tortuous but often too highly rewarding path toward sustainable transport  in and around  cities .

Mission: Creating  and supporting open, generous, international peer networks to improve our city streets and public spaces for all.

To date: Offering as of early Spring 2019 more than two thousand articles and five thousand illustrative photographs, renderings and graphic image)

Contribution: Is World Streets doing its job?  (We asked one hundred of our readers for their views.) And one hundred and one responded: CLICK HERE – http://bit.ly/2tmjZOI 

Next Steps: Continue publication of World Streets in its current form, but to refocus its central function over the coming decade to the mobility/climate nexus.

2.0   World Streets Climate/Action/Plan, 2019-2020

– – – > START HERE: World Streets Climate/Action/Plan:  http://bit.ly/2SGXWNu

For further information: Project Coordinator and managing 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

 

 

Policy pathways towards achieving a zero carbon transport sector in the UK in 2050

The effective decarbonisation of the transport sector will play a large role in achieving the UK government target of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases, from the 1990 baseline, by 2050. This paper presents a vision of a ‘zero carbon’ future for the UK transport sector.

Vallack, H. W., Haq, G., Whitelegg, J. and H. Cambridge (2014). Policy pathways towards achieving a zero carbon transport sector in the UK in 2050. World Transport Policy and Practice. Volume 20.4. Published by Ecologica.

WIKIPEDIA CHECKLIST OF KEY TERMS, CONCEPTS AND REFERENCES FOR THE CLIMATE/NEW MOBILITY TRANSITION

Intended as a research aid, checklist and reminder for professionals, students, researchers and others digging into the Five Percent Solutions and related technical and policy challenges. A certain level of familiarity with these concepts is essential. Anyone prepared to work in the field will (should) already have familiarity with 9 out of 10 of the concepts identified here. It concerns the stuff of sustainable transport, sustainable mobility and sustainable cities. (The listing is of course not complete, but it does offer a good start)

EUROPEAN MOBILITY WEEK: 2018 MANUAL AND USER HANDBOOK

CLIMATE IS THE ULTIMATUM BEFORE OUR GENERATION

2018 EUROPEAN MOBILITY WEEK MANUAL:

          Including thematic guidelines, handbook for local campaigners, and Car Free Day organizer benchmarks

Introduction

This Manual contains all the necessary information for towns and cities planning to organise  EUROPEAN MOBILITY WEEK from 16-22 September 2018.  It includes:
• the Thematic Guidelines for an explanation of the 2018 theme: ‘Multimodality’
• the Handbook for local campaigners presenting the requirements for taking part in this
European initiative.

The Manual starts with background information about the campaign. It also includes a list of useful links at the end of the document, and an extensive se of cautions and guidliens for the organizing of Car Free Days in your city.

The aim of this publication is to inspire local campaigners to organise attractive campaign activities, to implement relevant permanent measures and to celebrate Car-Free Day. There is also a chapter on how to apply for the EUROPEAN MOBILITY WEEK Awards. Towns and cities are free to adapt these guidelines to the local context. The information included here is not exhaustive; new ideas are always welcome to complement this Manual.

ITS@The New Mobility Agenda Innovations Challenge

[This critically important section to follow.]

AFRICA STREETS 2018: LETTER OF INVITATION TO AN OPEN COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

Another day in morning traffic in Lagos

AFRICA STREETS:

Stories of New Mobility Projects in Africa: Successes, Failures and Work in Progress

World Streets. Paris. 21 April 2018

Dear African friends and colleagues,

I’m in the process of trying to gather my thoughts on a book bringing together a collection of lively real world stories of attempted new mobility — what I like to think of as “pattern break” – projects that have been carried out in cities and rural areas in a dozen or so African countries. I want to emphasize here the choice of the word “stories” as opposed to when we hear more often in the literature, titles such as “case studies” or “best practices”. I think it is important to try to reach in and understand (Anyway, I do not believe in the concept of “best practices”, and tend to prefer the less blatant wording of better practices.)

DEVELOPMENT URBANISM: Brainstorming another kind of urban development

Vertical kitchen garden – Henrik Valeur, 2014

Call by Henrik Valeur for an international collaborative brainstorm

Development urbanism is a theory in progress about the possible use of urban development as a means to combat poverty and protect the environment.

The concept of development urbanism can be seen as an alternative to the concept of smart city. Says Valeur: “There are obviously too many unresolved problems in our cities today, but my point is that many of these problems can be solved by very simple and inexpensive means. Smart technologies are rarely necessary and may, in fact, create more problems than they solve

SLOW CITY: START HERE

FOR THE RECORD AND IN BRIEF:

A Slow City is an urban development vision and quantifiable target, the first step of which is  (a) to reduce traffic accidents and their human and economic costs to zero  in the city, by (b) strategically slowing down traffic, over all the parts and the system as a whole. This gives the city a measurable target output (accident data and on-street and in-vehicle ITS feedback) for evaluation and management purposes,  and an innovative platform to link and serve other sustainable projects and programs which are consistent to the theme: reforms and improvements that are Better | Cheaper | Quicker.

Outreach for success: Local actors & implementation partners

Too often when it comes to new transport initiatives, the practice is to concentrate on laying the base for the project in close working relationships with people and groups who a priori are favorably disposed to your idea, basically your choir. Leaving the potential “trouble makers” aside for another day. Experience shows that’s a big mistake. We have to take a . . .

SLOW CITY STRATEGIES: START HERE

FOR THE RECORD AND IN BRIEF:

A Slow City is an urban development vision and quantifiable target, the first step of which is  (a) to reduce traffic accidents and their human and economic costs to zero  in the city, by (b) strategically slowing down traffic, over all the parts and the system as a whole. This gives the city a measurable target output (accident data and on-street and in-vehicle ITS feedback) for evaluation and management purposes,  and an innovative platform to link and serve other sustainable projects and programs which are consistent to the theme: reforms and improvements that are Better | Cheaper | Safer.

The Slow City New Mobility Collaborative – First announcement (Testing the water)

The Slow City /New Mobility Collaborative is a joint venture launched in late 2016 by Luud Schimmelpennink (The Netherlands)) and Eric Britton (France/USA) as an open public interest forum building on their extensive international competence, experience and networks in the broad area of ecological, environmental and social innovation to improve quality of life in and around cities — and specifically in support of sustainable and equitable mobility and creative use of public space. The two principals have long collaborated on an ad hoc basis, and decided that the time has come for a forceful joint effort targeting the period 2017-2020, from the strategic objective of obtaining sharp reductions of transport-related effluents in support of the Paris COP 21 agreement  — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement

Proposal: a 2017 Amsterdam Brainstorming Slam on Slow Cities 

Vision: Some first reflections on what is, what can be a “Slow City”.

Draft notes for a thinking exercise and comment.

–  Eric Britton, Institut Supérieur de Gestion, Paris, 6 June 2017

To create a city that works for all, we must start with a vision. Policy without vision is like driving blind-folded. In this short posting we would like to explore the vision of a Slow City.  You will have your own ideas on this but here are ours.  And of course your comments and suggestions are as always most welcome.

(Program change) WOMEN, TRANSPORT AND LEADERSHIP: Seizing the Lead . . . Not Waiting for Permission

Program Name Change:

The full name of this international collaborative program has today been changed to “Women, Transport and Leadership: Seizing the Lead, Not Waiting for Permission”. For short, just “Women, Transport and Leadership” (or WTL)

Why?

AFRICA STREETS 2018: LETTER OF INVITATION.

Another day in morning traffic in Lagos

AFRICA STREETS:

Stories of New Mobility Projects in Africa: Successes, Failures and Work in Progress

* * *  In this first week we have thus far heard from colleagues in Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Zambia, though at this point these are just exploratory conversations. We hope to have at least ten telling and varied stories, hopefully more. * * *

Dear African friends and colleagues,