ON LUUD SCHIMMELPENNINK AND SOCIAL INNOVATION – GREAT IDEAS HAVE WINGS

World Streets is proposing to support the nomination of  the prolific Dutch environmentalist, industrial designer, provocateur Ludd Schimmelpennink  for a major international environmental award for his life-time contributions to sustainable development, sustainable cities and sustainable lives. (Our timetable for this submittal gives us one week from today, 10 November, to finalise the nomination.)

We invite the readers of World Streets to have a look and, if you will, get back to us with your suggestions to (a) edit, expand and improve the nomination whose draft follows.  And once you have had a look and thought about it, you are invited to join us in supporting this unusual nomination. If so, it would be great to have your name, position and organisation( if any), city and country.  And should you wish to add some brief remarks (less than 50 words max.), please do and our earnest editor will do his best.

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

Checklist of key terms, concepts and references for managing the climate/new mobility transition  (1 June 2019. Text to follow here.)

ACTIVE TRANSPORT: * Bicycles * Bike/Transit Integration * Public Bicycle Systems * Telecommuting * Telework * Walk to School * Walking

YOUR INVITATION: WORLD STREETS 2021 OPEN COLLABORATIVE CLIMATE/MOBILITY CHALLENGE

. . . invitation to join an open collaborative action plan to cut GHG emissions from mobility sector in cities by 5% starting in 2021.

 “You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller

Climate/Space/Mobility Action Plan: 2021

EXEC SUM: This open collaborative project just getting underway on World Streets aims to demonstrate how cities can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the mobility sector by at least five percent in the first year after startup. And this by working from a well-prepared two-pronged push and pull strategy based on a combination of (a) sharp VKT  reductions  (Vehicle Kilometers Traveled) and (b) an expanding ecosystem of Better Choices while working with proven, cost-effective, available technologies and processes.

The project aims to get sharp, measurable results in short time with an approach that is, we argue, Better, Faster and Cheaper — and through this basically reshaping the city’s basic mobility ecosystem.   This bold initiative is only possible with very strong leadership and commitment, high technical competence, and an exceptional ability to  communicate and engage the population in a fully equitable and  positive manner.

COLLABORATIVE STARTUP: Now seeking critical feedback on working materials and proposals, collaborators, presentation opportunities, partners and eventual demonstration projects and sponsors.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS MIGHT BE? THIS THING?

Hmm. It’s seems to be a . . . .   Hmmm.

Once you have identified it to your satisfaction, please send in your explanation here as a comment, or direct to thing@ecoplan.org

Thank you.

ON LUUD SCHIMMELPENNINK – GREAT IDEAS HAVE WINGS

World Streets is proposing to support the nomination of  the prolific Dutch environmentalist, industrial designer, provocateur Ludd Schimmelpennink  for a major international environmental award for his life-time contributions to sustainable development, sustainable cities and sustainable lives. (Our timetable for this submittal gives us one week from today, 10 November, to finalise the nomination.)

We invite the readers of World Streets to have a look and, if you will, get back to us with your suggestions to (a) edit, expand and improve the nomination whose draft follows.  And once you have had a look and thought about it, you are invited to join us in supporting this unusual nomination. If so, it would be great to have your name, position and organisation( if any), city and country.  And should you wish to add some brief remarks (less than 50 words max.), please do and our earnest editor will do his best.

Slow City: In the beginning were the Provos (and the White Plans)

To understand Luud Schimmelpennink’s White Bicycle Plan, it helps to have a look at the broader context of values, philosophy and politics that were prevailing in Amsterdam at that time –  the Provos, a Dutch counterculture youth movement in the mid-1960s.

And if one concludes that this was more or less what was going on in other parts of Europe and North America, you would be right.  And a bit wrong. The Dutch were digging deeper. At least this part of Dutch society was.

Did we hear anyone say. . . Thanks, Luud?

A GREAT IDEA HAS WINGS:

HERE’S A NUMBER  LUUD CAME UP WITH IN 1967  (that it took the world a full generation  to understand and finally equal).

The number was 10,000.

(But it was not only a number — it was at its base a wonderful, original and city-transforming, environmental and life quality concept.)

This was the number of white bicycles that Mr. Schimmelpennink proposed in his public bike master plan for Amsterdam in 1967. (Proposal rejected by the municipal council.)

After that radio silence on the  post-White Bike front for seven years.  It took until 1974 for the first new public bike project when the city of La Rochelle launched a free bike-sharing programme, Vélos Jaunes (Yellow Bikes). Followed at first slowly, cautiously but then increasingly with a mounting wave of tidy new projects, most in Europe, most successful, and almost all of them small.

How one lion-hearted Amsterdam inventor gave bike-sharing to the world

In the 1960s, a Dutchman named Luud Schimmelpennink created a ‘”white bike” plan to fight against harmful pollution and cars. His invention has changed public transportation around the world. So why did his bicycle-loving home city never embrace it?

 

In the beginning were the Provos (and the White Plans)

To understand Luud Schimmelpennink’s White Bicycle Plan, it helps to have a look at the broader context of values, philosophy and politics that were prevailing in Amsterdam at that time –  the Provos, a Dutch counterculture youth movement in the mid-1960s.

Grassroots 2017 campaign: Thanks Luud for all you have done, taught and inspired us.

I propose we keep this simple and collaborative.  Starting as we did yesterday with a simple announcement suggesting that perhaps this could be an idea well worth pursuing, together. And then as a next step  in this process opening up several coordinated channels for your thoughts, comments and perhaps additional articles and references on Luud’s work and contributions that may, small step by small step, start to give us a firmer foundation to pursue this idea.

So at this point I believe that my best contribution will not be to add additional essays with my own thoughts and reasons on this, but rather to open up the field for sharing your thoughts.

“The bike is anything but nothing”

Invitation: A New Moment for Carsharing in the Netherlands

This week we completed the working report for the Dutch government, under the title: Going Dutch: A New Moment for  Carsharing in the Netherlands.  Over the remainder of this month we and the organisers are holding workshops and review sessions,presenting, discussing and critiquing the complete working draft.  The English version of the draft is now available for peer review and comment, so if you wish to have a look and be part of the process, please get in touch with the principal author via eric.britton@ecoplan.org.  Here you have the full contents of the report.