A most telling feature of news coverage immediately post impact was the speed and coverage in restoration of transport achieved by the humble bicycle, almost as soon as the water had subsided to axle depth, bicycles were on the streets ferrying supplies and people, and apart from their limitations on load carrying for mass relief, in a coordinated group the final distribution of essential supplies like water, can be achieved without the delay of having to clear every road for motor vehicles, repair bridges, and get fuel supplies in place.
Those organising the aid might note that a bicycle - especially the Phoenix/Flying Pidgeon/Dutch roadster with substantial load carrying racks, has geometry which allows riding with no tyres, backpedal brakes allow riding with near-round wheels, and bikes don't need fuel bunkerage and fuel supply taking valuable space on incoming transport (nice analogy here with the far North Highland line where steam trains required a further steam train hauling the coal to replenish the stock of coal at the end of the line to put provide the fuel for the return trip, including taking coal for the engine that hauled the coal up for the engines...). Maybe some lessons to learn here also from Vietnam - where 50,000 Tons of supplies were shipped down from Hanoi to Da Nang on bicycles, with the riders walking down guiding their bikes with bamboo extensions to saddle and handlebars, and each bike carrying roughly 250Kg of supplies, along jungle trails, and going around on very basic temporary structures where bridges and roads had been destroyed by the US military who could not conceve that such a vast supply chain could work without large trucks and roads. Once unloaded the bamboo extensions were detached and the bikes returned to being ridden machines for the return trip.
If the relief is to get to the people then the bicycle has a major role in reaching every remote location where there are no roads available.
Well put Dave ..!
A similar story applies to use of the inherent efficiency of rail where
relatively very high levels of efficiency in terms of load/energy/fuel
ratios can be achieved with much lighter engines and rolling stock than the
heavy weight "unsustainable" equipment developed in the "west".
[Like your "coal" trains, we used to have "water trains" that carried water
to replenish the tanks along the longer haul lines so that the "real"
trains did not have to carry so much weight!]
For example, one can imagine a freight/passenger system based on light and
more frequent "eco+people-friendly" trains similar to sugar cane trains
(ours use a small diesel engine but could be any available fuel eg
bio-fuel) on a much narrower gauge and much lighter track and bed (ie track
and bed is related to and depends on weight loading per wheel).
This image suggests the benefits of rail for loads heavier than can be
carried on bicycles (see Dave's email) ... especially in relatively flat
coastal country which also looks as if it is of a low load carrying geology.
However, the problem of emergency assistance is well described by our
friend from Florida DoT in that the emphasis will be on restoring the
previous situation ASAP rather than considering other options including
whether it might be "improved" by utilising a move to 'more sustainable"
transport solutions.
But the destruction and removal and non-replacement of damaged freeways
after earthquakes provides a good example of not simply replacing the
previous situation although there are probably more rail tracks than roads
not replaced ...!
So the "story" suggests yet another example of an inability to get off the
car/road/truck/bus dependency "train" ... even when catastrophic situations
AND low cost, high efficiency solutions create an opportunity to do so.
The fact that the authorities are now relying increasingly on helicopters
(eg several being sent by air at vast expense in an Antonov freighter from
Australia) suggests that cost is NOT an issue given the enormous social
pressure.
However as others have pointed out, this catastrophe is relatively
insignificant when compared to the ANNUAL global road toll ...
Solutions and suggestions?
One suggestion to raise awareness of the transport and land use links (in
this case, traditional links to the sea in low lying coastal areas) sounds
totally unsympathetic, almost inhuman and potentially politically risky but
if it is any of these, then the reasons why must be addressed. It is
realistic and must not be forgotten. The comparison with the annual global
road toll extended if necessary to include victims of air pollution etc
must be emphasised and "aid" to address it contrasted. Have we become too
complacent and accepting of the annual road toll such that only
catastrophes make news and "sustainable" modes of transport are ignored or
forgotten? Should the areas and infrastructure damaged be "restored" or
should other strategies be considered too?
The second is to emphasise that some transport systems are inherently
better than others and that four in particular stand out.
1. walking
2. cycling and other HPV modes
3. rail modes with emphasis on light rather than heavy "efficiency"
4. boats (or traditional "low tech" methods) for moving heavy loads
I would argue that these are the "sustainable modes". They emphasise
localness, self-sufficiency and appropriateness. Are these some indicators
of sustainability? Perhaps. They reduce the emphasis on economic efficiency
and bulk, mass, fast or "just in time" travel for goods and/or passengers
in favour of "sustainable efficiency" and "appropriate technology" and
"localness" ... in the sense that for a trip of up to 1-5kms walking is
healthy, and cycling or HPV travel is appropriate, whereas a car is neither
esp when the load carrying capacity and fuel/cost efficiency of bicycles
and HPVs is taken into account!
Somewhere, sometime, we have to take into account the unsustainability of
cheap air travel and global freight networks that pass on or avoid
externality costs while excluding the vast proportion of the global
population for the benefit of a very small proportion. [In this sense, it
seems the dependency on the cheap global tourism economy could or should be
considered a major "cause" of the tsunami catastrophe.]
We have to be careful not to lose track of the inherent efficiency and
appropriateness in a "sustainable" sense of these four "sustainable" modes
in seeking to emphasise "new" mobility.
Unfortunately, the idea of walking or cycling rather than using a car is
too easily replaced by use of a bus or truck (or helicopters and other
"new" VTOL aircraft!) ... rather than fixed (preferably light) rail modes
... repeating the error of dependency, flexibility and individual travel
time preferences which disguise the inappropriateness and danger and
unsustainability of modes that encourage faster travel and
other-than-localness ... ie more longer, faster and heavier trips ...
whether for moving freight or passengers.
The bigger problem here is that the hegemony of high speed motorised
transport dependency is so ingrained in "the west" that any suggestions
that might be worth considering can appear patronising, paternalistic and
inappropriate ... and rightly so! We don't set a good example!
However, where there is an opportunity to demonstrate appropriate
technology in a (more) sustainable mode ie if it provides an appropriate
and sustainable solution to the real 'local' needs, then taking that
opportunity will add the weight of evidence to the argument that the west
is profligate with energy, wealth and space per capita.
As with many of these decisions, local democracy suggests that the
decisions should be taken by the locals rather than be made by others under
pressure of assistance to restore the previous situation and this pressure
includes reluctance to refuse foreigners giving specific types of aid.
The lessons about "appropriate and sustainable technology" in transport and
travel eg as learned in/from China and Vietnam with heavy load carrying
bicycles and HPVs and walking should not be allowed to be forgotten or
ignored by proponents of "new" modes of travel if "sustainability" is an
issue. The lessons apply in urban as well as rural and natural settings,
and as Dave points out, in all sorts of conditions, from long wars to
sudden catastrophes.
Whether we in the west can bother to make the effort is quite another issue!
Michael Yeates
Brisbane
Australia
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Tramsol@...
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:27:23 EST
To: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [New Mobility/WorldTransport Forum] Post-Tsunami rebuilding
A most telling feature of news coverage immediately post impact was the
speed
and coverage in restoration of transport achieved by the humble bicycle,
almost as soon as the water had subsided to axle depth, bicycles were on
the
streets ferrying supplies and people, and apart from their limitations on
load
carrying for mass relief, in a coordinated group the final distribution of
essential supplies like water, can be achieved without the delay of having
to clear
every road for motor vehicles, repair bridges, and get fuel supplies in
place.
Those organising the aid might note that a bicycle - especially the
Phoenix/Flying Pidgeon/Dutch roadster with substantial load carrying racks,
has
geometry which allows riding with no tyres, backpedal brakes allow riding
with
near-round wheels, and bikes don't need fuel bunkerage and fuel supply
taking
valuable space on incoming transport (nice analogy here with the far North
Highland
line where steam trains required a further steam train hauling the coal to
replenish the stock of coal at the end of the line to put provide the fuel
for
the return trip, including taking coal for the engine that hauled the coal
up
for the engines...). Maybe some lessons to learn here also from Vietnam -
where
50,000 Tons of supplies were shipped down from Hanoi to Da Nang on
bicycles,
with the riders walking down guiding their bikes with bamboo extensions to
saddle and handlebars, and each bike carrying roughly 250Kg of supplies,
along
jungle trails, and going around on very basic temporary structures where
bridges
and roads had been destroyed by the US military who could not conceve that
such a vast supply chain could work without large trucks and roads. Once
unloaded the bamboo extensions were detached and the bikes returned to
being ridden
machines for the return trip.
If the relief is to get to the people then the bicycle has a major role in
reaching every remote location where there are no roads available.
Dave Holladay
Transportation Management Solutions
6 Woodlands Terrace
Glasgow
G3 6DH
0141 332 4733 Phone
07 710 535 404 Mobile
--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .
Eric,
> Subject: [New Mobility/WorldTransport Forum] Principal Voices
> sustainability initiative - Interim report and invitation for comment
>
> Saturday, December 25, 2004, Paris, France, Europe
> · Chris Bradshaw, Ottawa
I am one of the many on your list that is gratified to being mentioned here.
You may use my name. You may also mention that my perspective is heavily
influenced by my commitment to walking as the only form of _access_ (to go
with the many forms of _mobility_). I am also now the initial organizer of
an industry association for carshare organizations (CSOs) in Canada.
Chris Bradshaw
Dear Daryl Oster and
Sustran- and NewMobilityCafe-members
The usefulness of
scientific journals is sometimes discussed – someone told me that the
average readership of a paper in a scientific journal is less than two (plus
the referees and the editor). So getting a comment for your paper published
world-wide within 24 hours of publication is really something and might
indicate that World Transport Policy and Practice must be counted among the most
important journals.
I am grateful to Mr.
Oster for giving me opportunity to comment on some of the main points in his
statements about our paper (http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/wtpp10.3.pdf).
I agree with Mr. Oster that our indicators are not all-comprehensive and that
other factors must be taken into account to find the most efficient solution
(in economic and/or environmental terms) in every single case. However, there
is a need for indicators, which on an aggregated scale (e.g. national, supply
chain, company) measures the quantity of transport used to bring products from
origin to destination, e.g. from the primary producers to the consumer. If you
want to know how logistical decisions influence transport you have to have
suitable measures. If you want to reduce the necessary transport and it’s
impacts, you have to know where to focus. This is the scope of our paper, as it
has been the focal point of several EU-projects (REDEFINE, TRILOG, SULOGTRA),
which we have built upon.
The indicators proposed
are biased, Mr. Oster claims, to favor ship and rail transport. He is right if
you just compare the transport efficiency measure across different transport
modes – it will come as no surprise for anyone that in these terms
transport by ship is very efficient compared to transport by van. So we do not
make this comparison, and stress that efficiency measures must be compared by
transport mode. This is what is done in another paper in the same journal (Per
Homann Jespersen: The transport content of products) where an example of a
transport-LCA (life cycle analysis) is presented.
Comparing within the same
transport mode is somewhat simpler. But I must disagree with Mr. Osters
statement, that ‘The ratio of ton-kilometers and vehicle-kilometers is
equal to vehicle capacity.’ It is, if the vehicles are always full
loaded, but they are not, and one of the main issues in reducing freight
transport is how to increase the vehicle utilization. For some interesting
discussions and data on this, I can refer to the studies made by Prof. McKinnon
and colleagues on the food supply chain in the UK (‘Analysis of Transport
Efficiency in the UK Food Supply Chain - Full Report of the 2002 KPI
survey’, http://www.sml.hw.ac.uk/logistics/pdf/Kpi2003.pdf).
Other papers by my
colleagues in the same issue of World Transport Policy & Practice have
built on the foundation of the paper discussed here for looking at e.g. a
supply chain and a piece if infrastructure. Whether we can continue to develop
this approach into something fruitful depends very much on critical comments
like Mr. Oster’s pointing at weaknesses and where we have to be more
precise in our problem statements. We are grateful for this and hope that
others will take up this good example.
We
post this message here with copies to the editor of World Transport Policy and Practice
and the visiting editor of their special number, thinking that this might
lead to some useful discussion?
FYI A session on transportation and the tsunami has been added to the
Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
See: http://trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=4530
2005 TRB 84th Annual Meeting: NEW SESSION! -- Transportation and
Logistical Challenges Associated with the Tsunami Disaster
A special session titled “Transportation and Logistical Challenges
Associated with the Tsunami Disaster” has just been added to the
program for the TRB 84th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The
session will be held in the Blue Room of the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
Sunday, January 9, at 8:00 p.m. The session will include invited
presentations relating to topics such as airlift and sealift of aid and
relief supplies, including the role of the military, distribution of
aid and relief supplies once they reach affected countries, challenges
of rebuilding infrastructure in underdeveloped countries, and the
impact of the disaster on commercial shipping and global supply
chains. This session is open to all who are interested and will
include discussion of the role TRB, its sponsors, and volunteers can
play in addressing both short- and long-term challenges associated with
this disaster.
Please note that this session is a work in progress. Check the link to
session details for the latest information available.
Tara Bartee
Public Transit Office FDOT
Voice 850-414-4520
FAX 850-414-4508
E-Mail tara.bartee@...
"EcoPlan, Paris"
<eric.britton@eco
plan.org> To
<WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com>
12/23/2004 03:31 cc
AM
Subject
[New Mobility/WorldTransport Forum]
Please respond to Principal Voices recommendations
WorldTransport@ya
hoogroups.com
Oops. Good. I got your message(s).
Therefore, I will be adding the following names as you have suggested to
the PV shortlist, each with a few judicious lines to help orient them and
hopefully allow them to sort things out for themselves.
• Derek Scrafton, Adelaide
• Michael Meyer, Atlanta
• Mikel Murga, Bilbao
• Wendell Cox, Belleville, Illinois
• Enrique Peñalosa, Bogota
• Martin Strid, Borlange
• Robin Chase, Boston
• Jan Gehl, Copenhagen
• Phil Goodwin, Exeter
• Yngve Westerlund, Gothenburg
• John Whitelegg, Lancaster
• Dave Wetzel, London
• Robert Poole, Los Angeles
• Dinish, Mohan, New Delhi
• Michael A. Replogle, New York
• Peter Wiederkehr, OECD
• Corinne Lepage, Paris
• Denis Baupin, Paris
• Per Homann Jespersen, Roskilde, DK
• Jerry Schneider, Seattle
• Karl Fjellstrom, Surabaya
• Peter Newman, Sydney
• Jane Jacobs, Toronto
• Sue Zielinski, Toronto
• Todd Litman, Victoria
• Ken Orski, Washington, DC
• Rudolf Petersen, Wuppertal
Oh dear yes, I realize that (a) this is starting to be unwieldy, but we can
leave the sorting to them once they have the full list in front of them.
And almost for sure I have missed out on your favorite candidate (maybe
you?), but you still can get them on board if you get back to me before the
end of the day. Â Â As you can see I am trying to do this too fast, but the
clock is ticking. That said, this gives them quite a fair choice of
backgrounds and approaches, right to left, narrow to broad, engineering to
public policy, -- which is what we need to bring into this debate -- but I
would very much hope that political astuteness and tangible on street
accomplishment will be high on their selection criteria.
Last chance to come in with your recommendations on this.
Eric Britton
PS. And yes, it is not only fairer like this, but much more interesting and
useful. I think what they really should consider doing is to create the
three Voices, and then have an â€invisible college’ which brings together
whoever of this list might wish to pitch in and at most a handful of
others. Now THAT would be really interesting. And useful.
The New Mobility/World Transport Agenda
Consult at: http://NewMobiity.org
To post message to group: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe: WorldTransport-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe: WorldTransport-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
Get unlimited calls to
U.S./Canada
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldTransport/
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
WorldTransport-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Dear Mr. Oster,
Thank you for sharing this information, but you had already sent it to me
days ago. It doesn't make much sense for you to broadcast it to multiple
lists. Over the last few weeks, since you've become aware of our
institute's work, you have several times posted misguided and inappropriate
insults about us on the Internet. You have accused me of producing
arbitrary and "bogus" analysis, claimed that my work is biased by rail
industry bribes, and criticized my work in ways indicating that you had not
even read it or tried to understand the concepts (for example, to
economists, free parking is clearly an underpricing of automobile travel,
and the cost of vehicle waste is not simply littering).
While I admire your youthful enthusiasm in support of Evacuated Tube
Transport (I suggest that you spell it out in correspondence, many people
will not understand the acronym), I hope you will understand that those of
us who are a little older and more experienced look at the issues a quite
differently.
Like a lot of young technological enthusiasts, you seem to think that
transportation planning is a horse race, simply identify the option with
the best legs and run with it to become the next Henry Ford or Bill Gates.
The Innovative Transportation Technologies website
(http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans) identifies several dozen new
technologies, mostly new drive systems or a variation on public transit,
and each has its advocates who will argue that it is superior to all
others, and if given a chance can easily solve all of our transportation
problems, usually defined as either traffic congestion or depletion of
energy resources.
As a transportation planner and economists I look at things a little
differently. I see a much broader set of problems and potential solutions.
I don't think that any one solution will revolutionize future
transportation, rather, many solutions have their place, some of which are
quite low technology, such as improved walking and cycling conditions. You
start with a technological solution, and then search for the economic
reforms to support it. I start with the economic reforms, and let the
technological solutions find their place. There is a pretty good case for
concluding, as many of us do, that the starting point for implementing
sustainable transportation technology is to correct transportation planning
and market distortions that result in economically excessive automobile
travel, which is why I am concerned about things like underpricing of road
and parking facility use, and urban sprawl. If you are smart, I think you
will realize this too. Let me explain.
Whether you recognize it or not, ETT, PRT, LRT, and the rest of
transportation alphabet soup are forms of public transit. They all
experience large economies of scale: to be economically justified and
successful they need maximum ridership. For example, a particular new
technology might fail if it only serve 10% of trips, but very successful if
it serves 15%. So maximizing ridership is essential.
But ETT and the others face the same problem as current transit: since most
households own a car, the variable costs of vehicle use are relatively low,
and travelers receive free or subsidized parking at most destinations,
there is little justification for most people to use alternatives. To be
successful, ETT requires market reforms, such as road and parking pricing,
and options such as carsharing, which allow households to reduce their
vehicle ownership and rely more on public transit. Since common
destinations are dispersed due to sprawl, and nearly all transit trips
involve walking links, land use reforms (Smart Growth and New Urbanism) and
improved walkability are important for the success of your technology. Our
institute is concerned with these reforms because they make sense,
regardless of the specific propulsion used in public transit systems.
Our institute is not concerned with any individual technology. You have
accused me, in a most inaccurate and inappropriate way, of being biased in
favor of rail and against new technologies. But if you examine the
publications on our website you will only find two about rail transit
("Rail Transit in America" and "Evaluating Criticism of Rail Transit").
There are dozens dealing with planning and market reforms, mobility and
land use management, and nonmotorized transportation. If you really want
innovation that improves transportation system efficiency you'll need these
reforms as a foundation.
Please, in the future, refrain from criticizing ideas and information
before you have investigated them carefully, and don't broadcast insults to
multiple lists.
Best New Year Wishes to all,
-Todd Litman
At 12:20 PM 12/28/2004 -0500, Daryl Oster wrote:
>Todd,
>
>The summary mentions that in 1990 most worked and lived on farms; did you
>not mean to say in 1890?
>
>Thanks for mentioning ETT under your heading "New Technologies". Bracketing
>ETT with old jetpacks and flying cars is unfair, as is the blanket
>dismissal. This is especially true since ETT: increases energy efficiency
>by more than a factor of 50, maximizes use of lower cost and alternative
>fuel, and improves navigation and vehicle flow. Clearly jet packs and
>flying cars decrease fuel efficiency, and have a narrow dependence on
>specialized fuels (as was the case with SST).
>
>There are at least two possibilities explaining your blanket statement: you
>have not fully investigated and understand ETT, or you are attempting to
>discredit ETT to protect other agendas. If you have any criticism of ETT
>that supports your view, please be specific.
>
>As far as the data you seek, Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Ph.D., Hofstra University,
>Hempstead, New York, has some good data on shipping costs with a wide time
>scale. I saw the detailed information you seek in graphical form somewhere
>on the website: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/ . The material is
>extensive, I am sorry I do not have time to be more specific as to the exact
>page.
>
>Daryl Oster
>(c) 2004 all rights reserved. ETT, et3, MoPod, "space travel on earth"
>e-tube, e-tubes, and the logos thereof are trademarks and or service marks
>of et3.com Inc. For licensing information contact: et3@... ,
>www.et3.com POB 1423, Crystal River FL 34423-1423 (352)257-1310
>
> > Dear Colleagues,
> >
> > I'm writing to let you know about our latest draft publication, "The
> > Future
> > Isn't What It Used To Be: Changing Trends And Their Implications For
> > Transport Planning" (http://www.vtpi.org/future.pdf).
> >
> > This paper examines various demographic, economic and market trends that
> > affect travel demand, and their implications for transport planning during
> > the next century. During Twentieth Century per capita motor vehicle travel
> > demand increased by an order of magnitude. Many of the factors that caused
> > this growth have peaked in developed countries and are likely to decline.
> > This indicates that future transport demand will be increasingly diverse.
> > Transport planning can reflect these shifts by reducing emphasis on
> > automobile travel and increasing support for alternative modes and smart
> > growth development patterns.
> >
> > I would appreciate your feedback. Please let me know if you find any
> > errors
> > or omissions, or if you have any other ideas of factors that affect past
> > and future travel demand. Also, please let me know if you know a source of
> > good time-series shipping cost data, such as the real cost of transporting
> > a ton of freight from New York to London or San Francisco for each decade
> > from 1900 to 2000.
> >
> >
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Todd Litman, Director
> > Victoria Transport Policy Institute
> > "Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
> > 1250 Rudlin Street
> > Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
> > Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
> > Email: litman@...
> > Website: http://www.vtpi.org
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > This message has been scanned for viruses and
> > dangerous content by Netsignia Online, and is
> > believed to be clean.
> >
> >
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship
>e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's
>latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent
>editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/
Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
Email: litman@...
Website: http://www.vtpi.org
I write you with reference
to the planned TRB session on Sunday, January 9, at 8:00 p.m to be
given over to “Transportation and Logistical Challenges Associated with
the Tsunami Disaster”. (See http://trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=4530).
My question is this?
Is there anyone in our groups who will be there who might be wiling to report
back to us in summary as to how all this goes? And is there anyone who
will be participating and who might be intending to run with some of our ideas
on injecting sustainability criteria into the first line of the new rebuilding efforts?
And if so, how might this somehow be achieved at more than the usual level of
pure rhetoric (AKA the greenwash syndrome) that all too often is what we have
when our important topic comes up, if at all.
How might we edge into
this session and use it to advance our agreed agenda?
Since time is so short
and we are so very dispersed, it would be good if the feedback on this might be
addressed to both of the main fora: sustran-discuss@... and NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com.
Eric,
On Thursday, Jan 6, 2005, at 11:21 Europe/London, EcoPlan, Paris wrote:
> I write you with reference to the planned TRB session onSunday,
> January 9, at8:00 p.mto be given over to “Transportation and
> Logistical Challenges Associated with the Tsunami Disaster”. (See
> http://trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=4530).
>
> My question is this? Is there anyone in our groups who will be there
> who might be wiling to report back to us in summary as to how all this
> goes? And is there anyone who will be participating and who might be
> intending to run with some of our ideas on injecting sustainability
> criteria into the first line of the new rebuilding efforts? And if
> so, how might this somehow be achieved at more than the usual level of
> pure rhetoric (AKA the greenwash syndrome) that all too often is what
> we have when our important topic comes up, if at all.
Not to mention that we should try to avoid either falling into the trap
of, or being accused of being culturally imperialist in saying
solutions need to be sustainable.
For a lot of people, sustainable solutions are seen as the polar
opposite of technological advancement, and there are elements in the
discourses of "Appropriate" or "Intermediate" Technology that smack of
wanting to keep certain parts of the world backwards. This view has to
be countered, and indeed some of the solutions we can collectively use
in the rebuilding will be high tech (perhaps with solar energy playing
a big part), while many will be low tech. It is important to let people
know that we should be teaching people in those areas the lessons we
have learnt (if we have learnt anything, that is).
--
Anzir Boodoo MRes MILT Aff. IRO
transcience, Leeds Innovation Centre, 103 Clarendon Road, LEEDS LS2 9DF
If you click to the New Mobility Agenda at http://newmobility.org
and click A Day at the Office on the top menu, you will find this interesting
essay by Peter Calthorpe which takes an architect/planner’s view of the transportation/physical
development interface. Why do I bring this to your attention today?
Well, I think that our still forming-up world sustainable transportation
community has to look for and work with allies (and opponents) wherever we can
find them, and the New Urbanism community is pretty strong in parts of the
States and is certainly a creative movement with many shared interests with our
own. It is my thought that if we can find some ways to put our heads together
we just might end up fashioning some interesting alliances and materials for
change.
Hence, this is to invite you to have a look and share your reactions and
suggestions with us all, if possible as well copying to our long time colleague
Don Brackenbush, another architect/planner with a strong transportation background
who will be at the conference, on that panel, and in a good position to relay
the best of our thoughts and observations on this.
I hope this rings a bell with at least a few of you. 2005
is going to be a big year for us and sustainable mobility, and we want to make
sure that we get the momentum going for us from the very beginning,
We've been having a fun debate here - a further note, however on the layout of streets for the horse & carriage. The designers had the commonsense to include the detail of narrow back lanes which matched the pedestrian grid density and also allowed deliveries to the rear.
I had lobbied for Glasgow Planners to keep the lanes not privatised already, open as through routes but sadly developers continue to close them off, to connect plots on either side with more sales or office space, and the condition of the lanes which remain often deters most users, as the private owners are not a coordinated group, and the utility openings etc take place, frequently blocking through access, and invariably failing miserably to properly repair the surface. How does this work with other towns & cities?
I do like the way that Nottingham - against the common trend kept the route through Broad Marsh operational as a street - and the shopping mall thus remains open 24/7 with the nice twist that it is a lot cleaner, drier, and better lit than the street it used to be.
I was chuffed to get this response though, but Graham deserves a pat on the back for slimming the thinking down to 3 succinct points.
Dave Holladay makes a great point, in this string started by Angus, which
is often lost in considering layout guidance: "where (once) the route was
determined by purpose rather than to suit the vehicle". Seems to me that
'on and off route provision' is a 'wrong division'! Off route provision
is ... lets face it ... useless. Look at it like this:-
1 People make journeys
2 The routes which carry most journeys become main routes
3 Therefore all modes will use main routes to reach destinations.
It also follows that if we (the DFT), design new layout types to
accommodate car ownership and use, as we have done for at least 50 years,
that the new layouts will, effectively, have the physical impact of making
none-car modes all but impossible. Our current situation outside
traditional connected grid-like development.
So a new years' resolution could be, lets remake all layout guidance to
newly encourage walking and cyling and public transport. Nothing to stop
car use - but congestion and inconvenience. Result; proper cities??
Graham Paul Smith
Message: 1
Subject: RE: Cycle Route Innovation
Thank you for your replies on cycle routes and innovation. Alongside a literature review it would seem the overall view is that the core principles 'coherence, directness, attractiveness, safety and comfort' are rarely achieved when providing off-carriageway facilities.
So, as a follow-on question, is the inability to meet these core design principles inevitable with off-carriageway provision, or is it perhaps more that engineers have been slow to innovate with strong design which really delivers these principles? Is anyone doing off-carriageway well in the UK or is best practice really only happening in places like the Netherlands?
Many examples of off-carriageway provision are at best poorly designed (and are at worst downright dangerous) so that cyclists would often be far better integrated with other traffic on the carriageway. So is off-carriageway provision ultimately just an unattractive last resort for cycle planners and a legacy from the era when, for whatever reason, planners thought they should segregate bicycles and cars?
Angus Jeffery
Environment and Transport Research
Halcrow Group Ltd., Sussex.
Message: 4
Subject: Re: Cycle Route Innovation
Old transport infrastructure, where the route was determined by purpose, rather than to suit the vehicle, means that for most local transport puposes the existing highway goes the best routes to the places people want to go, and any contrived and additional off carriageway routes either duplicate or provide less useful solutions for the cyclist, and for that matter the pedestrian (which is why people jaywalk rather than use ridiculous routes over bridges and under subways).
For pedestrians a comfortable & workable grid spacing of approx 25 metres shows up in the narrow & closely spaced lanes and vennels of towns and cities which retain their medaeval street pattern, whilst the later towns have a grid of wider streets spaced at greater distances (to suit the horse & carriage) and so on up to the motor age which has the best motor traffic networks with massive blocks, which then need subsidiary routes for walking & cycling.
Perhaps one means of analysis is to examine the grid and see if the spacing is appropriate for cycling, if not that there will be a need to add intermediate routes for cycling fitted between the main roads to ensure cycling distances are not over extended by having to travel 2 very long sides of a large triangle.
Topography also plays a part - In Glasgow and Edinburgh a route around a drumlin, or the Royal Mile dyke and plug/New Town escarpment, will attract users because of the 'easiest way' factor using contours rather than direct routes.
Normally we keep this kind of information notice in the
New Mobility Café, but in this case, because it represents such an important
example of the kinds of things that are needed to make sense of the New
Mobility Agenda as we understand it, I am pleased to share this with our World Transport
family as a whole.
Stay tuned for the rest (which will in fact largely
come from you and your experience, knowledge and fertile minds).
Thanks so much Dirk
for this fine on-target comment and caution to Juan’s request for his
research project. Let me join you on this quickly if I may:
But before I dig in, I
have in fact had a look at your personal website Juan and am much impressed
with your strong technical background in transportation. Nonetheless I
will follow Dirk’s lead and give you my unvarnished views in the hope that
they may somehow be of use.
Before we start to
propose a or in our view possibly THE answer to any of the specific problems
that we face in the transportation sector, it is perhaps better to get us going
to make a clear and as possible wide open, non-narrowing statement of what we
believe to be the problem. I mention this not only in the case of your
good question Juan, but because it is and has for about ever been indeed one of
the main “deforming factors” in our transportation decision
arrangements… call it “Décision précoce”. (Note: I am
hoping that we will be looking at this more closely together in our proposed
transportation dialogue under the Principal Voices program shortly).
You probably have
already run this drill yourself Juan, but let me see if I can set out the
broader preparatory steps in this case as I see them. Let’s see
what we might do with this in the case of your “better and cheaper
mobility alternatives for low income groups”. That is your target
right?
Certainly
as part of our background we have to be sure that we fully understand the
main short-comings in our target case associated with the existing own-car
arrangements (which include stuff like the huge cost, direct and indirect,
of car ownership and use, along with the “costs” that are implied
to the extent to which any given person might wish to opt for what appear
to be useful shortcuts: i.e., no insurance, inadequate maintenance, etc.)
So
yes indeed we really to have a problem here, now what might the range of answers
be -- sticking for now to stuff that relates to mobility alternatives
alone, but on the understanding too that we have a mature understanding of
the specifics in terms of the full access problematique of our target
group. (And in this context we also must from the beginning be
sensitive to the fact that in most real world situation many of the things
that need to be done to reduce or eliminate any given mobility problem in
fact may lay outside of the transportation sector per so. Something of
which we should never lose sight.)
Car
clubs of various sorts are probably something that we might look at in any
given situation, but in addition to carsharing per se as we know it, it
also suggests various possibilities of ride sharing (each of these
of course bringing with them their own share of problems and limitations,
but if we don’t have a careful look without having to give birth to
a doctoral dissertation each time and for each choice). But there are
other mobility options to which we should be giving some thought.
A
probably doubtful solution in almost all cases that I can imagine would be
the creation of a standard taxpayer-funded deficitory scheduled bus
service, but that said if there happens to be something of the sort
lurking around in the target area, there may be possibilities for better
service levels and route adaptation (and even flexibility) without
necessarily breaking the bank.
Other options which I for one
would at least like to have a good look at would include:
Some form
of organized hitchhiking
Group
taxi services
Para-taxis
(which may be more or less illegal, but then again much of the time when
we want or need to break the paralysis of systemic inertia in this
sector, this may be the case. But we have to lean to come to grips
with this in creative responsible ways).
Community
transport (via local religious groupings, social agencies, neighborhood
associations, and the list goes on).
Etc.
I would imagine Juan
that you have already worked your way down these various hit lists before
settling on the carshare option in this case, but I would like to think that
this quick reminder might be useful in itself – and that it might inspire
more and better from our colleagues who have a lot more hands-on knowledge than
I do. However if you were to ask me point blank: do I believe that carsharing
can be made to work for low income groups? I would have to say:
might do, but we would have to be very very careful to make it work.
To close: If I seem to
insist on this little exercise in problem setting overly, it is because it is
now well known that in our sector “most of the problems we face today are
someone’s old answers”. So better that we scratch around a
bit before making our implementation decisions.
I look forward to the
comments from our other colleagues on this, and if possible Juan to our being
able to follow in some efficient manner the progress of your worthy project.
Eric Britton
PS. Suppose the
question were: Where best to start carsharing in Colombia? And there I
would suggest that the best target just might be not the poor but wealthier
groups living in and around the larger cities. They after all are often, and
despite many of their other and inevitably bad habits, the leading edge for new
ways of doing things. (See if you can sell this idea to our esteemed friend and
colleague Enrique Peńalosa. It will give him one more arrow in his quiver.)
-----Original Message----- From: DIRK VANDIJL
[mailto:dirk.vandijl@...] Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005
9:25 AM To: WorldCarShare@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [WorldCarShare] Car
Sharing for Low Income groups
Juan
I have no information for you, but I am faced with this question also
from many local governments and I have a problem with it.
Car clubs were started to reduce pollution and congestion. Part of our
mission (after the primary mission which is to build a sustainable, successful
and profitable business) is to achieve those goals.
If we confuse our goals by adding making one of the most polluting
forms of transport (after airplanes) available to people who otherwise would
not have cars, we will only increase pollution and congestion.
No doubt the question of 'social inclusion' and 'work opportunities'
etc then come around the corner, questions which are very important and valid.
However, if a car is needed to get to work daily, then a car club is not a
suitable alternative. In that case a private car in much cheaper. The car club
is good for the 'occasional' journey, though what 'occasional' means each
person will have to judge themselves.
So my conclusion is that car clubs should not be looked at as a method
of giving access to cars by a group of people who would not otherwise have
access to cars. It will dilute the prime objective (I think that was a Star
Trek phrase) and not achieve the desired effect in other (not part of the prime
objective) areas.
Good luck
Dirk
"Juan F.
Ortega" <juanfortega@...> wrote:
Good evening to everybody in the World Car Share group!
I am doing research on Car Sharing opportunities for low
income groups in the United States and I was wondering if you could give me
examples of cities in the US that provide this kind of service.
In the spirit of international cooperation in support of
our strongly shared concerns for advancing the New Mobility Agenda in specific ways and
without further undue delay, I would like to invite you today to give serious
consideration to a new software tool for communication that you probably have
already heard about but only a few of us have as yet started to use.
The product is Skype, and their website is www.skype.com. Skype offers free IP
telephone calls to all who are signed on to their network. Also in its
latest version it offers two new wrinkles that are of use to many of us: direct
file transfer and the possibility of conference calls bringing together up to
four people at the same time. Sound quality? We find it comparable to the
normal phone, and often better. It is also – and this is indeed
important for those many of us who are cash-strapped in our public interest
work – free.
To make it work for you, you will need a recent computer,
a sound card, and a minimum 33.6 Kbps modem or
broadband: cable, DSL, etc. (As often on the web, faster is better, but for
once it is not a barrier in this case.) Skype works with Mac and Linux as
well as Windows. For full product information and
system requirements, try http://www.skype.com/products/.
We feel strongly enough about our international
collaboration that we invite you to get in touch once you have it installed so
that we can together check it out and see how it might best work for you.
My personal Skype address/number is simply ericbritton (no punctuation).If you go today to the New Mobility Agenda site at
http://newmobility.org, you will note that we have put a
one-click icon for a direct Skype call to us here on the left menu.
I hope that this will open up an era of closer communication
and more efficient cooperation between us and all those with whom we are
working and exchanging materials and cooperating internationally. In the fight
for sustainable development and social justice in this world and now, we need
to make use of every possible tool
and advantage that we can get our hands on. (And please be assured that we have used this latest bit
of technology on a daily basis for some months before proposing it to you.)
With all good wishes,
Eric Britton
PS. Want to take this one step further and move on to
free one on one and group videoconferencing. If so, have a look at out http://newmobilitypartners.org
site and you will find out how to do this in a few minutes.
This email has just
come in from our wonderful able colleauges at the International
Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD), addressed to our Children on
the Move program (which for the moment is sadly not nearly as active a one
wouel like. Problem of time and resources, and neither of importance nor
lack of desire on our part to do this and do it well.)
I was sure that a number of you would wish to know
about their program, and perhaps you may have some ideas or support for them as
well. If so, it would be kind if you would post them both to this list and to childs-play@yahoogroups.comas
well.
Finally, if anyone out there would like to give us
a hand in getting the Children on the Move program at http://www.ecoplan.org/children/index-bis.htm
into gear, that would be wonderful. I think that we have a sound base
here, but we will need tome help to build on it and make it work as well as we
are managing in others of the areas of sustainable development and social justice that
we are addressing here.
Kind regards,
Eric Britton
-----Original Message----- From: Priyanthi
[mailto:priyanthi.fernando@...] Sent:Tuesday,
January 18, 20055:18 PM To: childs-play@... Subject: children on the
move
Dear friends
I have just come across this website, and thought
that you might be interested in an initiative that I have been really excited
to be part of.
Initiated by Dr Gina Porter and colleagues from the
University of Durham, supported by DFID, and carried out in collaboration with
the Concerned for Working Children in Bangalore, the South African National
Forum Group of the IFRTD and its host organisation the CSIR and the University
of Cape Coast, Ghana, the programme to improve policy on children’s
mobility and access through the development of a participatory child-centred
field methodology aims to empower children to collect and use information about
their own transport needs.
The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), who have
been working with children in Karnataka for many years, demonstrated to us the
importance of not just making child-friendly decisions, but actually allowing children
to participate in the decisions that affect their lives. CWC point out
that this is their right, given to them by the UN Convention of the Rights of
the Child, to which most national governments have signed up to. CWC
facilitated a workshop with 29 children from three villages in Karnataka,
where, over five days, the children used their knowledge of their transport
problems to develop a research framework and pilot test three tools for
conducting research into the problems.
These three tools, a transect walk, focus group
discussions and mapping access and mobility for different children were field
tested by the children in one panchayat. CWC will continue to work with
the children, and will also help colleagues in Ghana
and South Africa to replicate the
process.
More information about the project can be
obtained from Dr Gina Porter r.e.porter@...
I think there is an exciting opportunity for there to
be a link between the Children on the Move work, and the work described above.
I am not sure how many children are actually involved in Children on the
Move (I found it a little difficult to navigate the site), but there is
considerable room to involve kids both from the developed and developing world
in interacting through the internet and discussing their mobility problems or
sharing experiences. I am copying this to my colleagues so we can
begin to move this idea forward.
Best wishes
Priyanthi
Priyanthi Fernando
Executive Secretary/Team Leader
International Forum for Rural Transport and
Development(IFRTD)
113 Spitfire Studios
63-71 Collier Street
London N1 9BE
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7713 6699
Fax: +44 20 7713 8290
Web: www.ifrtd.org
The IFRTD is a global
network of individuals and organisations working together towards improved
access and mobility for the rural poor in developing countries
For Immediate Release: 20 January 2005
For more information: Todd Litman, <litman@...>.
"The Future Isn't What It Used To Be: Changing Trends And Their
Implications For Transport Planning," by Todd Litman, Victoria Transport
Policy Institute (http://www.vtpi.org/future.pdf)
New report indicates increasing importance of transportation system diversity.
Abstract
This report examines demographic, economic and market trends that affect
travel demand, and their implications for transport planning. Motorized
mobility grew tremendously during the Twentieth Century due to favorable
demographic and economic conditions. But the factors that caused this
growth are unlikely to continue. Per capita vehicle ownership and mileage
have started to decline, while demand for alternatives such as walking,
cycling, public transit and telework is increasing. This indicates that
future transport demand will be increasingly diverse. Transport planning
can reflect these shifts by increasing support for alternative modes.
Study Conclusions
Between 1900 and 2000 per capita vehicle travel increased by an order of
magnitude due to favorable technical, demographic and economic trends.
However, this study indicates that these trends are beginning to change.
Toward the end of the Century per capita automobile travel stopped growing
in the U.S., and started to decline after 2000. This decline is likely to
continue due to factors discussed in this report.
An increasing portion of the population will need or prefer to rely on
alternative modes such as walking, cycling, ridesharing, public transit,
telework and delivery services. Automobile transport will continue to be
important, but the role of other modes will increase.
Transportation professionals should take these trends into account when
making strategic decisions. We should plan for a mature transport system,
with less emphasis on roadway system expansion and more emphasis on
improving transport system efficiency and diversity.
For example, if we start developing a new suburban highway now, it will be
completed about the time that most Baby Boomers retire, fuel prices rise
significantly, and consumers increasingly value walkable neighborhoods. It
may be better to anticipate these trends by investing resources in
alternative modes and creating less automobile-dependent communities.
Although this paper investigates transport patterns in wealthier, developed
countries, the analysis has important implications for lower-income,
developing countries.
Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
Email: litman@...
Website: http://www.vtpi.org
New Mobility Discussions and News – A recommendation:
There are at present some 350 registered members of
this World Transport Forum and about three times that many who regularly check
in to the New Mobility Agenda. That said, the limitation of this @Forum is
that it serves primarily for periodic announcements but is not a place where
ideas and information from our members and others concerned with the
sustainable transportation agenda are accessible. We realize that you are busy
and that the last thing you want to do is have your email box invaded by a
surfeit of messages, but there is a good way around this which I should now
like to propose to you.
1.First though a quick visit to the New Mobility
Agenda at http://newmobility.org. Where
you will see in the top menu an item marked The Discussions. Kindly click.
2.There you will see a collection of some of the most
useful discussions of the sustainable transportation agenda by highly knowledgeable
people and groups most of whom are right in the middles of the action –
policy and practice. Of these we would draw your attention to the following
which are particularly active and in our view most useful:
c.Special notices. Only send me important
update emails from the group moderator. No email. I'll read the
messages at the Web site.
c.(I
recommend (b) or (c) – which will hold down the mail load.)
4.That said, I also strongly recommend that you make
a habit of checking in from time to time, since the discussions are often at
quite a high level and not only informative but also challenging.
5.I should mention in leaving you on this, that our
sites are also quite carefully moderated to make sure that they stay on target.
But you will in any event see this as you check them out in each case.
PS. Cross-posting. There are times when we cross-post
information to especially these four sites on a selective basis, in instances
in which we judge the discussions to be too useful to take the risk of their somehow
getting lost in the shuffle. (One day we shall have to figure out how to do
this better.)
Wednesday, February 16, 2005, Paris, France, Europe
Dear World Transport Colleagues,
Today, after the better part of a decade of very hard work on many
sides, the Kyoto Treaty finally enters into effect and with it the obligation
of some 140 nations on this beleaguered planet to do something about their
emissions. For the advanced industrial economies, the 1990 targets are
going to be very hard to meet: but at least there is now a process in place
which is starting to point the way. In some parts of the economy.
However when it comes to transport in cities, there can be no grounds
for optimism. To the contrary, despite the many useful point improvements
made by the leading edge cities in recent years, the trend overall is
harshly moving in the wrong direction: in each we are seeing year after year
more traffic, more pollution, more accidents, more lost time, more unnecessary
deficits, and more urban amenity and quality of life washed away by our aimless
short-sighted policies.
Our challenge in brief
Against this background, this is an open invitation to an independent,
open, world-wide partnership, collaboration and exchange in the area of
sustainable mobility. And specifically to put before you a working
outline of a proposed innovative public policy action program in the
field of city transportation improvement still in its very early stages of
development, which has we sincerely believe real potential in the until now
hopelessly unequal struggle to move our cites toward something much closer to sustainable
mobility -- or, let us say, "Kyoto Compliance".
What is useful about this concept is that it is at once short term
results oriented, far-reaching, affordable and realistic. No less important, it
targets highly ambitious near term efficiency and visible environmental
improvements without requiring massive injections of hard earned taxpayer
money. It also, with the right kind of preparatory work and support, can
offer a very powerful political tool for mayors and city counsels who wish to
offer a better, safer, cleaner and more affordable city to their electorate.
Since you are experts in all this I do not need to waste your time in
trying to convince or educate you on all these details. You know them as well
or better than I. But what I can draw to your attention is a reminder that we
now, in fact, have over all these years of piecemeal improvements and
innovations arrived at a point where we can in fact face this challenge and do
something about it. If indeed we chose to. Which is what this
letter and challenge is all about.
So, under these conditions what better can those of us who care do than
to put our heads together and see how we might begin to shape an action agenda
and by our combined skills, contacts and resources carry out the following
three step problem-solving process?
Clarify in no uncertain terms the crisis before
us
Develop an action plan that will give visible
short term results
And place all this firmly in a long term
strategic framework that is going to move us, move our cities to the
underlying goals of sustainable development and social justice.
How to achieve this? Here is the core of the strategy that we now
propose for your consideration, comment, and action:
Set out clear, explicit, understandable,
ambitious but safely meetable performance targets in the participating
city.
Make sure you have total commitment of local
leaders from the top -- at least to take this through the first Blueprint
Go/No-Go phase.
And a very broad base of public support and
participation.
Highly committed local implementation partners
with the technical virtuosity needed to get the fine detail planned
carefully, executed and then consistently fine-tuned -- and the open
community spirit and orientation needed to get the job done.
We are confident that once a leading group of pioneer cities show the
way, this approach will catch the attention of many others and will spread like
wild fire. Why? Well, because it will have very high public visibility
and because too over these last several decades we have built up our shared
knowledge and competence at the leading edge to make it work. All that is
needed now is a this first set of high visibility, high impact programs: the
rest will follow.
All that of course is still entirely abstract. Let's see if we can be
more focused and useful on this.
Next steps
We today, with this letter and the website behind it at
http://newmobilitypartners.org, invite you and the more than one thousand
international figures with whom we have been in contact on these matters over
the years, to consider how you might get involved in or support the Kyoto New
Mobility Challenge Program. Specifically, we invite you to go through your
files and contacts to see if there is some city or existing program that you
know well that might be brought into the challenge as set out here. You
will find fairly copious background information on how this works in the
Challenge site, starting with the Executive Summary that directly follows this
letter of invitation.
The idea behind this Call is to see what we can now get together to
create a voluntary international program to encourage and support cities world
wide to take major and massive focused programs to reduce traffic and air
pollution in their area in a very short period of time. The proposal
involves a two step process.
The immediate first step, once we have organized ourselves and got our
base materials and arguments fully in order, will be to find a certain number of
cities and teams ready to show the way by preparing intensive local reviews to
determine what can be done across the transportation sector and in the
surrounding areas to achieve in the city major targeted reductions (we
have chosen the target of 20% for examination in each case) within a very short
(20 month?) period (after all this is an emergency). We feel that with
strong local support at all levels and the necessary know-how, each city team
will be able to come up with a strong local program that is going to succeed in
showing the way. Step 2 is the actual program, which will take place
within the twenty month (or whatever you decide) target period.
What you can do to help
Why are we contacting you on this today? Well, because we know from years
of international experience that programs such as this require highly
qualified, energetic, well placed local partners who know the issues and the
trade-offs well and have the technical capacities and networks to tailor and
make this approach work in their city.
At the end of the day this approach is as much political as it is
technical, and its pioneering nature makes it rather more than just one more
transportation project. And it is for this reason that we have set out to look
for partners capable of facing these challenges in a first handful of cities
ready to move ahead to prove these ideas for themselves and as pioneers showing
the way to sustainable mobility when it is needed (i.e., now!).
If you are one of our informed international colleagues or someone who
knows these issues and the problems behind them, you can quite possibly do a
great deal. And while you will of course have your own ideas on all this,
here is a very short list to get you going:
Associate your group, program:
Let the world know that you think these issues require high visibility and
attention. Add you name and link to our listing here.
Comment on the draft materials
& program: Intensive group discussions
are going to be a big help in firming up this program, and in setting the
stage for the specific pioneering city projects that now need to follow.
Identify cities, allies:
You may already have some ideas about next steps, cities, projects,
allies -- and we very much hope that you will share these with the groups,
since any specific initiatives that you might take will serve to encourage
others to get actively involved on their side.
Pass on the message:
Please pass on this letter and related materials to your colleagues,
contacts and discussion groups working in these areas. We are going to
need to get the news out to many thousands of our colleagues and
connections world wide if this is to gain the necessary momentum and
support.
Get the media involved:
And let the print and electronic media know as well about what we are
trying to do and where to come for more. High international visibility is
part of the toolkit we need to put in place to make this work. (Click here for latest
Media Release).
There are many ways now for you to get in touch, including one Click for direct browser contact
which will link you directly via your browser to our offices here. Try
it. Or come to Paris and let's talk about it. Click here for details
on organizing your trip and stay here. Even without leaving the city we
can show you some of the interesting things that are going on here . . .
including not least the results of our mayor's commitment to cut private car
use in the city by a steady 3% per year. Come and have a look at how this is
working. It may give you some ideas.
With all good wishes and kindest thanks for your collaboration,
After years of hard work on many sides,
the Kyoto Protocols finally entered into effect on 16th February. And
with it the obligation of 140 nations to do something about their greenhouse
gas emissions. For the advanced industrial economies, the targets are going to
be extremely hard to meet. But at least there is now a process in place which
is starting to point the way. In some parts of the economy that is.
However when it comes to transport in
cities, there can be no grounds for optimism. 140 countries may have signed
the Treaty, but not one city even initialed it. Transportation was the empty
chair in Kyoto.
How is that possible? It is well known
that transport accounts for as much as 50%, and often more, of all air
pollution being cranked out in our cities. However, and despite the many
useful improvements made in recent years a number of leading innovating cities
and projects, all the trends are harshly moving in the wrong direction. Each year
and in every single city on the planet we are seeing more traffic, more lost
time, more pollution, more accidents, more unnecessary deficits, and more urban
amenity and quality of life washed away by aimless short-sighted policies.
How can we move ahead on the challenges
of Kyoto unless we figure out how to fill the missing chair?
Kyoto
Cities Challenge
On the day the Kyoto Protocols entered
into international law, the New Mobility Agenda, a Paris-based NGO, together
with a world wide network of distinguished colleagues and organizations, announced
a voluntary program and strategy to address this alarming oversight: the Kyoto
Cities Challenge.
The groundwork for this cooperative
effort had been carefully laid over the last months with a series of internet
discussions and in-person and videoconference exchanges which in time reached
out to more than a thousand international experts and leading groups in the
fields that need to be part of the solution. The new program has been
carefully shaped through these expert exchanges and is now ready to go.
The Challenge goals are exceptionally ambitious
-- as indeed they must be under the circumstances. It not only invites each
participating city to set exceptionally tough performance targets for itself to
move toward “Kyoto Compliance”, but also to do this in terms of a
very tight timetable of less than two years.
One variant receiving especially close
attention is the 20/20 Challenge. The goal is to create a high profile city-wide
action program to achieve some form of 20% reduction in a target period of 20
months. The question comes up of course “20% of what”. And this is
something that needs to be sorted out by the planning teams in each city. Thus
one city might target a 20% reduction of CO2 emissions, another of some
indicator of motorized traffic, a third perhaps some pubic health metric such
as pulmonary infections. But in each case these need to be set carefully during
the intense three month blueprint stage.
The international expert group is
confident that this challenge can be met, but is well aware that this is going
to require exceptionally strong local leadership, considerable technical
virtuosity and a broad base of public support if it is to work The cooperating
experts are confident that once a first group of pioneer cities show the way,
this approach will capture the attention of many others and spread like wildfire.
What is needed now is that first set of high visibility, high impact city
programs. The rest will follow.
And in this way we will have at last
filled that empty chair in Kyoto.
*** END 613 WORDS END ***
For
more information on the Kyoto Cities Challenge go to http://newmobility.org.
Contact: Eric Britton
The Commons: Open
Society Sustainability Initiative at http://ecoplan.org
Le Frene,
8/10 rue Joseph Bara
75006 Paris, France
Excellent commentary and timely. Although I am not particularly active locally (there comes a time when you have to let others get on with it, or not as the case seems to be in many cities) I am still a great supporter of your efforts.
Derek.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Derek Scrafton
Transport Systems Centre
University of South Australia
City East Campus, North Terrace
Adelaide, South Australia 5000
Australia
ph: +61 8 8302 1860
fax: +61 8 8302 1880
email: derek.scrafton@...
----------
From: EcoPlan, Paris[SMTP:eric.britton@...]
Reply To: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 21 February 2005 5:38
To: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
Subject: WorldTransport Forum Empty Chair in Kyoto
After years of hard work on many sides, the Kyoto Protocols finally entered into effect on 16th February. And with it the obligation of 140 nations to do something about their greenhouse gas emissions. For the advanced industrial economies, the targets are going to be extremely hard to meet. But at least there is now a process in place which is starting to point the way. In some parts of the economy that is.
However when it comes to transport in cities, there can be no grounds for optimism. 140 countries may have signed the Treaty, but not one city even initialed it. Transportation was the empty chair in Kyoto.
How is that possible? It is well known that transport accounts for as much as 50%, and often more, of all air pollution being cranked out in our cities. However, and despite the many useful improvements made in recent years a number of leading innovating cities and projects, all the trends are harshly moving in the wrong direction. Each year and in every single city on the planet we are seeing more traffic, more lost time, more pollution, more accidents, more unnecessary deficits, and more urban amenity and quality of life washed away by aimless short-sighted policies.
How can we move ahead on the challenges of Kyoto unless we figure out how to fill the missing chair?
Kyoto Cities Challenge
On the day the Kyoto Protocols entered into international law, the New Mobility Agenda, a Paris-based NGO, together with a world wide network of distinguished colleagues and organizations, announced a voluntary program and strategy to address this alarming oversight: the Kyoto Cities Challenge.
The groundwork for this cooperative effort had been carefully laid over the last months with a series of internet discussions and in-person and videoconference exchanges which in time reached out to more than a thousand international experts and leading groups in the fields that need to be part of the solution. The new program has been carefully shaped through these expert exchanges and is now ready to go.
The Challenge goals are exceptionally ambitious -- as indeed they must be under the circumstances. It not only invites each participating city to set exceptionally tough performance targets for itself to move toward "Kyoto Compliance", but also to do this in terms of a very tight timetable of less than two years.
One variant receiving especially close attention is the 20/20 Challenge. The goal is to create a high profile city-wide action program to achieve some form of 20% reduction in a target period of 20 months. The question comes up of course "20% of what". And this is something that needs to be sorted out by the planning teams in each city. Thus one city might target a 20% reduction of CO2 emissions, another of some indicator of motorized traffic, a third perhaps some pubic health metric such as pulmonary infections. But in each case these need to be set carefully during the intense three month blueprint stage.
The international expert group is confident that this challenge can be met, but is well aware that this is going to require exceptionally strong local leadership, considerable technical virtuosity and a broad base of public support if it is to work The cooperating experts are confident that once a first group of pioneer cities show the way, this approach will capture the attention of many others and spread like wildfire. What is needed now is that first set of high visibility, high impact city programs. The rest will follow.
And in this way we will have at last filled that empty chair in Kyoto.
The Commons: Open Society Sustainability Initiative athttp://ecoplan.org
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
E: postmaster@... T: +331 4326 1323
Skype: ericbritton IP video: SightSpeed: ericbritton
The New Mobility/World Transport Agenda
Consult at:http://NewMobiity.org To post message to group: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe: WorldTransport-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe: WorldTransport-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
This initiative from Seattle sounds like it may fit well with the Kyoto Cities
Challenge...
Grist Magazine
Seattle, other U.S. cities to hammer out their own Kyoto-like reductions
The Kyoto Protocol has arrived, and though the Bush administration
has opted out, others in the U.S. are not so climate oblivious.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced Wednesday he's leading an effort
to get major U.S. cities to agree to Kyoto-like reductions of their
greenhouse-gas emissions, to show the feds that "the cost is minimal
or there isn't a cost at all," he said. The mayors of 10 other
cities including Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Portland, Ore.,
have already expressed interest in the effort, to be formalized in
June at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Chicago. To help Seattle
find creative ways of meeting Kyoto targets, Nickels has created a
"green ribbon" coalition chaired by Denis Hayes, environmental leader
and coordinator of the first Earth Day, and
current-but-soon-to-be-former CEO of Starbucks Orin Smith. "This is
not going to be 'turn out your lights when you leave rooms.' We'll
be looking for ways we can dramatically decarbonize the economy and
at the same time make it robust," said Hayes.
straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Kathy Mulady, 17 Feb 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4363>
straight to the source: Seattle Times, Bob Young, 17 Feb 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4364>
------ Original Message ------
Received: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 03:26:59 PM EST
From: "EcoPlan, Paris" <eric.britton@...>
To: <WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: WorldTransport Forum Empty Chair in Kyoto
Sunday, February 20, 2005, Paris, France, Europe
Dear Friends,
May we ask your help in seeing to it that this release gets maximum
exposure.
And I very much hope, as always, that you will chose to get involved. There
is plenty to keep all hands busy.
As you will note, for full background all you have to do is turn to the New
Mobility Agenda site at http://newmobility.org <http://newmobility.org/> .
It's all there.
With kindest thanks and best wishes,
Eric Britton
Media Release. Paris, 20 February 2005 Media Release. Paris,
20 February 2005
Empty Chair in Kyoto
Open Society program sets out to help world cities become "Kyoto Compliant"
Source: The New Mobility Agenda at <http://newmobility.org%20/>
http://newmobility.org, Paris, France
Kyoto Treaty Needs Help in Cities
After years of hard work on many sides, the Kyoto Protocols finally entered
into effect on 16th February. And with it the obligation of 140 nations to
do something about their greenhouse gas emissions. For the advanced
industrial economies, the targets are going to be extremely hard to meet.
But at least there is now a process in place which is starting to point the
way. In some parts of the economy that is.
However when it comes to transport in cities, there can be no grounds for
optimism. 140 countries may have signed the Treaty, but not one city even
initialed it. Transportation was the empty chair in Kyoto.
How is that possible? It is well known that transport accounts for as much
as 50%, and often more, of all air pollution being cranked out in our
cities. However, and despite the many useful improvements made in recent
years a number of leading innovating cities and projects, all the trends are
harshly moving in the wrong direction. Each year and in every single city on
the planet we are seeing more traffic, more lost time, more pollution, more
accidents, more unnecessary deficits, and more urban amenity and quality of
life washed away by aimless short-sighted policies.
How can we move ahead on the challenges of Kyoto unless we figure out how to
fill the missing chair?
Kyoto Cities Challenge
On the day the Kyoto Protocols entered into international law, the New
Mobility Agenda, a Paris-based NGO, together with a world wide network of
distinguished colleagues and organizations, announced a voluntary program
and strategy to address this alarming oversight: the Kyoto Cities Challenge.
The groundwork for this cooperative effort had been carefully laid over the
last months with a series of internet discussions and in-person and
videoconference exchanges which in time reached out to more than a thousand
international experts and leading groups in the fields that need to be part
of the solution. The new program has been carefully shaped through these
expert exchanges and is now ready to go.
The Challenge goals are exceptionally ambitious -- as indeed they must be
under the circumstances. It not only invites each participating city to set
exceptionally tough performance targets for itself to move toward "Kyoto
Compliance", but also to do this in terms of a very tight timetable of less
than two years.
One variant receiving especially close attention is the 20/20 Challenge.
The goal is to create a high profile city-wide action program to achieve
some form of 20% reduction in a target period of 20 months. The question
comes up of course "20% of what". And this is something that needs to be
sorted out by the planning teams in each city. Thus one city might target a
20% reduction of CO2 emissions, another of some indicator of motorized
traffic, a third perhaps some pubic health metric such as pulmonary
infections. But in each case these need to be set carefully during the
intense three month blueprint stage.
The international expert group is confident that this challenge can be met,
but is well aware that this is going to require exceptionally strong local
leadership, considerable technical virtuosity and a broad base of public
support if it is to work The cooperating experts are confident that once a
first group of pioneer cities show the way, this approach will capture the
attention of many others and spread like wildfire. What is needed now is
that first set of high visibility, high impact city programs. The rest will
follow.
And in this way we will have at last filled that empty chair in Kyoto.
*** END 613 WORDS END ***
For more information on the Kyoto Cities Challenge go to
http://newmobility.org.
Contact: Eric Britton
The Commons: Open Society Sustainability Initiative at
<http://ecoplan.org/> http://ecoplan.org
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
E: <mailto:postmaster@...> postmaster@...
T: +331 4326 1323
Skype: ericbritton IP video: SightSpeed: ericbritton
> ---------------------------------------------
> Attachment: Empty-Chair.pdf
> MIME Type: application/pdf
> ---------------------------------------------
Another new climate change network for cities...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/03/01/climate.uk.network.reut/index.html
100 cities join climate rescue network
Tuesday, March 1, 2005 Posted: 11:55 AM EST (1655 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britain launched a campaign on Tuesday to tackle
the global climate change crisis through the sharing of information between
100 cities in 60 countries from Argentina to Vietnam.
The network includes cities of the world's biggest polluter the United States,
which has rejected the Kyoto climate change treaty, as well as China which is
not bound by the treaty and Russia which has signed up but dislikes it.
The ZeroCarbonCity campaign is based on cities being the biggest consumers of
electricity and therefore the main generators of greenhouse gases that are
warming the world towards what many see as looming Armageddon.
"Focusing activities on cities will generate fresh perspectives on the climate
issue, building awareness of the challenges and of the potential solutions,"
Neil Kinnock, chairman of the British Council, said to launch the campaign.
"ZeroCarbonCity shifts the emphasis of attention towards mitigation,
adaptation and practical measures that can be taken," he added.
It will involve an exhibition that will travel to all 100 cities highlighting
successes and failures from cutting traffic congestion and vehicle emissions
to insulating buildings, backed by online discussion forums and city
meetings.
"It is multi-layered, covering all aspects of climate change from urban
planning to personal lifestyles," a British Council spokeswoman said.
The British Council is Britain's international organization for promoting
education and cultural relations worldwide.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has accepted that U.S. President George
W. Bush will never sign up to Kyoto, has promised to put climate change at the
top of the agenda for Britain's presidency of the G8 group of rich nations
this year.
His environment secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed the ZeroCarbonCity
campaign as adding fuel to that initiative.
Cities, as major concentrations of people, are a prime focus and have been
identified as heat islands with temperatures several degrees higher than the
surrounding countryside which in turn boosts energy usage from increased air
conditioning use.
Scientists say using fossil fuels to generate electricity is the major driver
of man-made global warming.
The Kyoto climate change treaty to curb carbon emissions finally came into
force two weeks ago, but critics say it is too little too late with the United
States refusing to sign up and developing nations having only to pay lip
service.
Dear Colleagues,
In support of our work on the Kyoto World Cities Challenge Initiative - see
http://newmobility.org for the latest on that -- we have prepared the
following list of "Best Practices" web sites covering initiatives in the
area of sustainable mobility and city transportation improvements more
generally.
While I am sure that it is still quite incomplete, I do hope that this will
be of use for you, and should you have additions or corrections, this would
be most appreciated.
Why is this important? Because when it comes times for city teams to
consider if indeed they are going to be able to make the kind of very
ambitious advances the Kyoto Cities Challenge is asking for, they are going
to need all the help they can get. You can see how we are handling this on
the site.
When the listing has been completed it will be posted here for all to
consult and use. As always.
Kind thanks
Eric Britton
List of "Best Practices" Web Sites and Programs
(Draft for information and comment)
ACCESS - Eurocities for a New Mobility Culture
a local authority network aiming to promote a new mobility culture
throughout Europe, in order to combat congestion, improve air quality
http://www.access-eurocities.org/ fekbritton
<http://profiles.yahoo.com/fekbritton>
Best Practices & Local Leadership Programme
United Nations Human Settlements Programme(UN-HABITAT)
http://www.bestpractices.org/
Best practice for sustainable urban infrastructures
Europe, COST program
http://www.cf.ac.uk/archi/research/cost8/
Bremen Initiative Best Practice Resources
http://www.bremen-initiative.de/links/best_practices.html
Case studies on sustainable development
2004 World Health Organization
http://www.who.dk/eprise/main/WHO/Progs/HCP/Documentation/20010917_2
ELTIS case study database
European Local Transport Information Service
http://www.eltis.org/en/indexcse.htm
EPOMM - European Platform for Mobility Management
examples of successful Mobility Management, collected from all over Europe
and beyond
http://www.epommweb.org/epomm_examples_all.phtml?sprache=en
EURONET/ICLEI Consortium
Old but still a reference to consider- 1996
http://www3.iclei.org/egpis/citylist.htm
European Database on Good Practice in Urban Management and Sustainability
designed to help local authorities to work towards sustainability by
disseminating good practice and policy, facilitating the exchange of
experience, and raising awareness about how cities and towns can be managed
in more sustainable ways
http://europa.eu.int/comm/urban/
Gateway to International Best Practices and Innovations
EPA National Center for Environmental Innovation
http://www.epa.gov/innovation/international/transportation.htm
ICLEI Project Summaries - Transport
Also see Planning, Tools and Land Use sections
http://www.iclei.org/LEICOMM/LEICASES.HTM#transport
Model Cities: Urban Best Practices (Volume 1)
Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore and The Institute of Policy
Studies, 263 pages, ISBN 981-04-2446-9
http://www.ips.org.sg/publications/pub_mc99i.htm
Model Cities: Urban Best Practices (Volume 2)
Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore and The Institute of Policy
Studies, 258 pages, ISBN 981-04-2447-7
http://www.ips.org.sg/publications/pub_mc99ii.htm
SMILE - Sustainable Urban Transport Policies and Initiatives
"170 successful and replicable European practices for sustainable mobility"
http://www.smile-europe.org/frame22.html
SURBAN - database on sustainable urban development in Europe
Europe, fairllarge
http://www.eaue.de/winuwd/list.htm
Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities
http://www.partnerships.stockholm.se/
UITP Mobility in Cities Database
http://www.uitp.com/Project/index29.htm
USCM Best Practices Database
U.S. Conference of Mayors
http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/best_practices/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
On-line TDM Encyclopedia
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php
WHO Healthy City Network
A source of valuable expertise, legitimacy and continuous learning
http://www.who.dk/healthy-cities/CitiesAndNetworks/20010919_1
World Car/Free Days News Alerts
In six languages. Also discussion groups
http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/general/wcfd-news.htm
World Car/free Days Consortium
Good international coverage
http://worldcarfreeday.com
For our website you can say:
Online TDM Encyclopedia
Victoria Transport Policy Institute (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php)
Provides comprehensive information on the planning and implementation of
innovative management strategies that result in more efficient
transportation systems.
Eric, I am very busy right now (I'm rushing to finish the manuscript for my
book on parking management best practices, and leaving in a few days to be
with my father in California when he goes for major heart surgery), but
during April I hope to develop a new report recommending mobility
management strategies to help achieve Kyoto emission reduction targets.
I'll keep you informed. Perhaps we can collaborate on it, or at least its
public release.
Best wishes,
-Todd Litman
At 07:46 PM 3/2/2005 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>
>
>In support of our work on the Kyoto World Cities Challenge Initiative - see
>http://newmobility.org for the latest on that -- we have prepared the
>following list of "Best Practices" web sites covering initiatives in the
>area of sustainable mobility and city transportation improvements more
>generally.
>
>
>
>While I am sure that it is still quite incomplete, I do hope that this will
>be of use for you, and should you have additions or corrections, this would
>be most appreciated.
>
>
>
>Why is this important? Because when it comes times for city teams to
>consider if indeed they are going to be able to make the kind of very
>ambitious advances the Kyoto Cities Challenge is asking for, they are going
>to need all the help they can get. You can see how we are handling this on
>the site.
>
>
>When the listing has been completed it will be posted here for all to
>consult and use. As always.
>
>
>
>Kind thanks
>
>
>
>Eric Britton
>
>
>
>
>
>List of "Best Practices" Web Sites and Programs
>
>(Draft for information and comment)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>ACCESS - Eurocities for a New Mobility Culture
>a local authority network aiming to promote a new mobility culture
>throughout Europe, in order to combat congestion, improve air quality
>http://www.access-eurocities.org/ fekbritton
><http://profiles.yahoo.com/fekbritton>
>
>
>Best Practices & Local Leadership Programme
>United Nations Human Settlements Programme(UN-HABITAT)
>http://www.bestpractices.org/
>
>
>Best practice for sustainable urban infrastructures
>Europe, COST program
>http://www.cf.ac.uk/archi/research/cost8/
>
>
>Bremen Initiative Best Practice Resources
>http://www.bremen-initiative.de/links/best_practices.html
>
>
>Case studies on sustainable development
>2004 World Health Organization
>http://www.who.dk/eprise/main/WHO/Progs/HCP/Documentation/20010917_2
>
>
>ELTIS case study database
>European Local Transport Information Service
>http://www.eltis.org/en/indexcse.htm
>
>
>EPOMM - European Platform for Mobility Management
>examples of successful Mobility Management, collected from all over Europe
>and beyond
>http://www.epommweb.org/epomm_examples_all.phtml?sprache=en
>
>
>EURONET/ICLEI Consortium
>Old but still a reference to consider- 1996
>http://www3.iclei.org/egpis/citylist.htm
>
>
>European Database on Good Practice in Urban Management and Sustainability
>designed to help local authorities to work towards sustainability by
>disseminating good practice and policy, facilitating the exchange of
>experience, and raising awareness about how cities and towns can be managed
>in more sustainable ways
>http://europa.eu.int/comm/urban/
>
>
>Gateway to International Best Practices and Innovations
>EPA National Center for Environmental Innovation
>http://www.epa.gov/innovation/international/transportation.htm
>
>
>ICLEI Project Summaries - Transport
>Also see Planning, Tools and Land Use sections
>http://www.iclei.org/LEICOMM/LEICASES.HTM#transport
>
>
>Model Cities: Urban Best Practices (Volume 1)
>Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore and The Institute of Policy
>Studies, 263 pages, ISBN 981-04-2446-9
>http://www.ips.org.sg/publications/pub_mc99i.htm
>
>
>Model Cities: Urban Best Practices (Volume 2)
>Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore and The Institute of Policy
>Studies, 258 pages, ISBN 981-04-2447-7
>http://www.ips.org.sg/publications/pub_mc99ii.htm
>
>
>SMILE - Sustainable Urban Transport Policies and Initiatives
>"170 successful and replicable European practices for sustainable mobility"
>http://www.smile-europe.org/frame22.html
>
>
>SURBAN - database on sustainable urban development in Europe
>Europe, fairllarge
>http://www.eaue.de/winuwd/list.htm
>
>
>Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities
>http://www.partnerships.stockholm.se/
>
>
>UITP Mobility in Cities Database
>http://www.uitp.com/Project/index29.htm
>
>
>USCM Best Practices Database
>U.S. Conference of Mayors
>http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/best_practices/
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----------------------------------------
>
>
>On-line TDM Encyclopedia
>Victoria Transport Policy Institute
>http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php
>
>
>WHO Healthy City Network
>A source of valuable expertise, legitimacy and continuous learning
>http://www.who.dk/healthy-cities/CitiesAndNetworks/20010919_1
>
>
>World Car/Free Days News Alerts
>In six languages. Also discussion groups
>http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/general/wcfd-news.htm
>
>
>World Car/free Days Consortium
>Good international coverage
>http://worldcarfreeday.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>The New Mobility/World Transport Agenda
>Consult at: http://NewMobiity.org
>To post message to group: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
>To subscribe: WorldTransport-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>To unsubscribe: WorldTransport-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
Email: litman@...
Website: http://www.vtpi.org
I said that I would pass this along....Please also include Jeff's email in
any response thanks.
******
We here in Arlington are evaluating our one-year pilot program, and we are
looking for rock-solid studies (such as Cervero and Tsai's UC Berkeley study
entitled: San Francisco City CarShare: Travel-Demand Trends and Second-Year
Impacts.) that address Carsharing and its reduction in VMT, car ownership,
parking, etc.
We are very interested in expanding our Pilot Program and highlighting how
important it is to put the carshare cars on-street. We are looking to have
our evaluation completed in the next few weeks, and we'd appreciate any good
info you may have for us.
www.commuterpage.com/carshare
Jeff Price, Transportation Engineer
Transportation Demand Management Program
Arlington County, Virginia
Division of Transportation
2100 Clarendon Boulevard, suite 900
Arlington, Virginia 22201
(703) 228-0090 FAX (703) 228-7548
Email: japrice@...
Website: www.CommuterPage.com/tdm
An interesting twist on land-value capture in order to finance transit. The
extension of the DC Metrorail is being partly funded by businesses in exchange
for changes in zoning laws. The private developers provide upfront project
finance in exchange for being able to increase development densities.
Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30277-2005Mar12.html
Dear Dave,
I completely agree with you that an annual location levy would be a preferred
mechanism. It would provide a steady revenue stream as you point out, and it
would also address certain equity issues.
However, to make it happen, it seems like one would really have to reform the
entire national property tax system. This would certainly be a positive
development, but this would be an enormous undertaking (and well beyond any
amount of political influence that most of us could achieve).
The interesting aspect of the Washington example is that it does get around
some of the previous problems with taxing an "event". And the revenue stream
problem is not too bad in this case since the both the tax revenues and the
infrastructure costs occur around the same time horizon. But I agree that
reforming property tax to be more of a location levy would be a better
solution.
Best regards,
Lloyd
Lloyd Wright
Gakushin Fellow
Osaka University
Osaka, Japan
Bartlett School of Planning
University College London
London, UK
------ Original Message ------
Received: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 07:12:03 AM EST
From: Wetzel Dave <Davewetzel@...>
To: 'Lloyd Wright' <lfwright@...>, "'worldtransport@yahoogroups.com'"
<worldtransport@yahoogroups.com>, "'New Mobility Cafe [NMC]'"
<NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: Land-value capture in Washington
Many thanks for this interesting example Lloyd.
The reasons I give for an annual location levy on land values (see attached
article from current issue of Estates Gazette), in preference to a one-off
payment is that the levy will give a permanent income stream that not only
helps pay for the building of the line but also pays towards the annual
running costs and future refurbs of the line.
Also, a one-off payment now will not collect future land value increases
that the community is likely to be responsible for in the future.
Dave
Dave Wetzel; Vice-Chair; Transport for London.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lloyd Wright [mailto:lfwright@...]
Sent: 14 March 2005 02:49
To: Wetzel Dave; worldtransport@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Land-value capture in Washington
An interesting twist on land-value capture in order to finance transit. The
extension of the DC Metrorail is being partly funded by businesses in
exchange
for changes in zoning laws. The private developers provide upfront project
finance in exchange for being able to increase development densities.
Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30277-2005Mar12.html
********************************************************************************\
***
The contents of the e-mail and any transmitted files are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are
addressed. Transport for London hereby exclude any warranty and any liability
as to the quality or accuracy of the contents of this email and any attached
transmitted files. If you are not the intended recipient be advised that you
have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding,
printing or copying of this email is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this email in error please notify postmaster@....
This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the
presence of computer viruses.
********************************************************************************\
***
> ---------------------------------------------
> Attachment: Estates Gazette DW Mar 2005.pdf
> MIME Type: application/octet-stream
> ---------------------------------------------
-----------
VTPI NEWS
-----------
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
------------------------------------
Spring 2005 Vol. 8, No. 1
----------------------------------
The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research
organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transportation
problems. The VTPI website (http://www.vtpi.org) has many resources
addressing a wide range of transport planning and policy issues. VTPI also
provides consulting services.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ONLINE TDM ENCYCLOPEDIA
========================
"This is a remarkable, well-documented and referenced resource. The title
belies its depth of information and usefulness for transportation and
transit planners, land use planners, even far-thinking engineers,
designers, and financial planners. Worth a look, as is the entire
website.It's a 'first stop' for most research and information inquiries."
- 'Essential Transportation Publications,' January 21, 2005 edition of the
"Urban Transportation Monitor" (www.urban-transportation-monitor.com), a
leading publication for transportation professionals. Thank you for the
accolades!
The VTPI "Online TDM Encyclopedia" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm) is the most
comprehensive resource available to help identify and evaluate innovative
management solutions to transport problems. We continually update and
expand the Encyclopedia. During the last two months we added the following
two new chapters, and updated many other chapters with new information.
"Bus Rapid Transit" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm120.htm). This chapter
describes bus system design features that significantly improve service
quality and cost efficiency.
"Funding Options" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm119.htm). This chapter
describes various ways to fund transportation programs, and evaluates the
degree to which they support TDM objectives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEW DOCUMENTS
==============
We recently added the following documents to our website:
"Evaluating Transportation Equity: Methods For Incorporating Distributional
Impacts Into Transport Planning" (http://www.vtpi.org/equity.pdf)
This paper defines different types of transportation equity, discusses
various equity issues, and describes ways of incorporating equity into
transportation planning.
"Well Measured: Developing Indicators for Comprehensive and Sustainable
Transport Planning" (http://www.vtpi.org/wellmeas.pdf).
This paper provides guidance on the selection of indicators for
comprehensive and sustainable transportation planning. It discusses the
concept of sustainability and the role of indicators in planning, describes
factors to consider when selecting indicators, identifies potential
problems with conventional indicators, describes examples of indicators and
indicator sets, and provides recommendations for selecting indicators for
use in a particular situation.
"Evaluating Public Transit Accessibility: 'Inclusive Design' Performance
Indicators For Public Transportation In Developing Countries"
(http://www.vtpi.org/tranacc.pdf), by Todd Litman and Tom Rickert.
This paper describes indicators for evaluating the quality of public
transport services provided to people with disabilities and other special
needs, suitable for use in developing countries. It discusses the concept
of 'inclusive design,' identifies suitable indicators, discusses factors to
consider when selecting indicators, describes examples of indicators
currently in use, and provides recommendations for selecting and using
indicators. Coauthor Tom Rickert is Executive Director of Access Exchange
International (www.globalride-sf.org)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION INDICATORS SUBCOMMITTEE
==================================================
The Transportation Research Board appointed VTPI Executive Director Todd
Litman as Chair of the Sustainable Transportation Indicators Subcommittee
[ADD40T(1)]. This Subcommittee has established the following goals and
objectives:
1. Become a clearinghouse for sustainable transportation indicators
information.
2. Explore the general issues and principles that affect the selection of
indicators.
3. Work to establish an officially-endorsed sustainable transportation
indicators best practices guidelines and evaluation framework. This can
include various sets of indicators and their data requirements, and
standardized practices for their collection and analysis.
Contact Todd Litman (litman@...) for more information about the
Subcommittee, or to have your name added to a special email news list about
the committee’s activities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE
====================
A version of the VTPI website is available at the website of TRANBBS
(http://www.tranbbs.com/vtpi/tdm), a nonprofit organization of Chinese
transportation professionals with more than 20,000 members.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPCOMING EVENTS
================
VTPI Executive Director Todd Litman is scheduled to participate in the
following events this spring:
"Communities In Motion" (http://www.communitiesinmotion.org) workshop on
nonmotorized transportation, May 5-6, Boise, Idaho. Plenary presentation
and workshops on evaluating and planning nonmotorized transportation.
Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference (http://www.pnrec.org), May
19-20, Bellingham, Washington. Presentations on economic evaluation of
transit and mobility management strategies.
"Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers 2005 Annual Conference,"
(http://www.cite7.org), Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, June 5-8. Keynote Speech
on future transportation trends and their implications for transport planning.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BEEN THERE - DONE THAT
=======================
The last few months have involved considerable travel to several wonderful
places:
Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. This was a busy event: Not
only did we organize a session on sustainable transportation indicators,
present five papers, chair a subcommittee, and participate in a special
workshop on transportation equity, we also brought our 12- and 15-year-old
children to Washington DC to enjoy a week exploring museums and urban life.
A good time was had by all!
"Community Challenges," Transportation Planning Workshop
Friday, January 28, Orlando, Florida.
Scandinavian Speaking Tour. During a twelve-day trip Todd Litman spoke at a
variety of seminars and workshops at Lund University (Sweden), the
Institute for Transportation Economics (Norway), TriVector (Sweden) and a
Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance workshop in The Netherlands.
A special thank you to our gracious hosts in many countries.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAY-AS-YOU-DRIVE PRICING
=========================
Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) refers to converting pricing vehicle insurance and
registration into distance-based fees, so motorists pay based on their
annual mileage (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm79.htm). We consider this one of
the most best pricing reforms for improving transportation system
efficiency and equity. We have been working to support this concept for
several years. Here is news regarding PAYD implementation.
Aryeh (www.aryeh.co.il)
Aryeh offers PAYD insurance in Israel, billed monthly using mileage data
collected by small wireless transmitters in vehicles and receivers at fuel
pumps, offered by PAZ (www.pazomat.co.il), the country’s largest petroleum
company. About 200,000 vehicles (about 15% of all vehicles, and a larger
portion of company and government agency cars) already have the device
installed for automatic payment.
Polis Direct Kilometre Policy (www.kilometerpolis.nl)
Polis Direct (www.polisdirect.nl), a major Dutch insurance company, began
offering their 'Kilometre Policy' in November 2004. Per-kilometer premiums
are calculated by dividing current premiums by the current policy’s maximum
annual kilometers, so a motorist who currently pays €500 for up to 20,000
kilometers would pay €0.025. At the end of the policy term motorists can
receive a rebate of up to 50% of their premium for lower mileage, or pay up
to 50% higher premiums if they drive more than the current maximum. Mileage
data is collected during annual vehicle inspections.
Norwich-Union PAYD Pilot Project
(www.norwichunion.com/pay_as_you_drive/index.htm?plp_ci_payd)
In 2003, Norwich-Union, the largest insurance group in the UK, began a
two-year pilot project of Pay-As-You-Drive insurance pricing involving
about 5,000 vehicles. Each participating vehicle is fitted with a small
data recorder which measures vehicle usage and automatically reports
mileage using mobile telephone technology.
General Motors and On-Star Offers PAYD Rates
Since mid-2004 the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) Insurance
has offered mileage-based discounts to OnStar subscribers located in
certain states. The system automatically reports vehicle odometer reading
at the beginning and end of the policy term to verify vehicle mileage.
Motorist who drive less than specified annual mileage receive insurance
premium discounts of up to 40%.
NEDBANK PAY-PER-K Coverage (http://www.nedcor.co.za/press_payperK.asp).
Nedbank, a major South African insurer, offers 'Pay-Per-K' vehicle
insurance. Monthly premiums are based on the distance traveled in the
preceding month, and are debited monthly in arrears. Mileage is
automatically recorded each time the vehicle is refueled using a Nedbank card.
Progressive and Aviva Programs
The Progressive TripSense (https://tripsense.progressive.com) and AVIVA
Autograph (https://secure.avivacanada.com/autograph/product.php) policies
offer low-mileage discounts up to 25%, using a small data collection device
that motorists plug into their engine diagnostic port. These policies are
currently only available in a few areas of the U.S. and Canada.
http://www.payd.blogspot.com is a website and Blog (personal web log) about
Pay-As-You-Drive vehicle insurance, maintained by Christof de Winter, a
student of environmental science at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands.
It provides news on PAYD insurance, as well as personal ideas and observations.
Contact Todd Litman (litman@...) to have your name added to a special
email news list about PAYD issues.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
USEFUL RESOURCES
=================
Donald Shoup, "The High Cost of Free Parking," Planners Press,
(http://www.planning.org/bookservice/description.htm?BCODE=AHCF), 2005, 733
pages, $59.95.
This is a wonderful book. It address a critical planning issue in ways that
are accessible and entertaining to general readers. Using numerous stories,
examples, jokes and witty quotes, Shoup explains in a clear and persuasive
way why consumers can benefit overall if parking is priced rather than
free, and provides specific recommendations concerning how this can be
achieved.
Shoup points out that there really is no free parking, except in the game
of Monopoly; the choice is between paying for parking facilities directly
or indirectly. The book explains why free parking:
* Is based on faulty planning practices and standards.
* Is economically wasteful, imposing large costs on governments,
businesses, and ultimately on consumers.
* Increases automobile ownership and use, exacerbating problems such as
traffic congestion, traffic accidents, pollution and sprawl.
* Makes it more difficult to find an available parking space, leading to
frustration and increased urban traffic congestion.
* Distorts development patterns, reducing land use efficiency.
* Degrades urban design, leading to ugly cities and buildings.
* Reduces housing affordability.
It describes successful examples of communities that have shifted from free
to paid parking and the benefits they have gained.
Although the book is entertaining, with at an illustrative story or joke
nearly every page of text, it takes no shortcuts. Quantitative factors are
carefully analyzed and referenced. Like an investigative reporter tracking
a hot story, Shoup has collected detailed information on parking facility,
parking errors, and the true history of parking planning decisions. There
are eight appendices.
"Creating Healthy Transportation For Children"
The following documents on healthy transportation for children were
recently completed by the Canadian Centre for Sustainable Transportation
and should soon be posted on their website (http://www.cstctd.org):
* "Child-and-Youth Friendly Land-Use and Transportation Guidelines," a 68
page document that explains how land-use and transport planning can be more
child and youth friendly.
* A six page booklet for Health and Recreation Professionals.
* A six page booklet for Educators.
* A six page booklet for Municipal Officials (elected and staff).
* A four page booklet for Parents.
Bruce Appleyard, "Livable Streets For Children: How Safe Routes To School
Programs Can Improve Street And Community Livability For Children," NCBW
Forum Article 3-7-05, National Bicycling and Walking Center
(www.bikewalk.org/ncbw_forum/livable1_8.pdf), 2005.
H.D. van Bohemen, "Ecological Engineering and Civil Engineering Works: A
Practical Set Of Ecological Engineering Principles For Road Infrastructure
And Coastal Management," Delft University of Technology, Road and Hydraulic
Engineering Institute, The Netherlands
(www.library.tudelft.nl/dissertations/PDF-files_2004/ceg_bohemen_20040518.pdf).
This guide provides detailed information on evaluating and minimizing
ecological impacts of roads.
"Public Transit Benefits Study" (http://www.ccmm.qc.ca/public_transit)
A study by the Metropolitan Montreal Board of Trade titled "Public Transit:
A Powerful Engine For The Economic Development Of The Metropolitan Montreal
Area," evaluates the benefits of public transit. This document identifies a
positive link between public transit, economic development, and quality of
life.
INFRAS and IWW, External Costs of Transport Update Study, published by the
Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies and the
International Union of Railways, October 2004; full report available at
http://www.cer.be/files/INFRAS%20Study_EN-144344A.pdf.
Robert Cervero, et al, "Transit-Oriented Development in the United States:
Experience, Challenges, and Prospects," Transit Cooperative Research
Program, Transportation Research Board
(http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_102.pdf), 2004.
This major report provides excellent, detailed information on Transit
Oriented Development, including impacts on transit ridership and property
values, lots of good case studies, and specific recommendations for
encouraging their development. The full report is large, making it
difficult to download and print, so I recommend ordering a hard copy if you
will be working with it.
Hank Dittmar and Gloria Ohland, "The New Transit Town: Best Practices in
Transit-Oriented Development," Island Press (www.islandpress.com), 2004.
This book provides information and guidance on Transit Oriented
Development, including discussion of their benefits, how to implement them,
and good case studies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please let us know if you have comments or questions about any information
in this newsletter, or if you would like to be removed from our mailing
list. And please pass this newsletter on to others who may find it useful.
Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
Email: litman@...
Website: http://www.vtpi.org
On 31 March 2005, the New Zealand Ministry of Transport released the Surface Transport Costs and Charges Study. The result of three years work, it sets out the full costs of road and rail transport in New Zealand, and will form the information framework for future Government policy development.
a) The Summary of Main Findings and Issues sets out the main findings and also the policy issues that arise.
b) The Main Report provides the detailed results and all the technical backup, as well as specific case studies. This is a 2.2Mb file, despite what the website says at present!
Lancaster, April 26, 2005
Volume 11, Number 1 (2005) of "World Transport Policy & Practice", a
quarterly journal edited by Professor John Whitelegg, is available free of
charge as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file at
http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/WTPPhome.html
Contents of Volume 11, Number 1, 2005:
Editorial
Allocating aircraft carbon dioxide emissions to airports on the basis of
passenger share: scenarios for Manchester Airport
BY
Paul Upham, Sarah Butlin, Maxwell Davis, Ulrika Nilsson & Tim Smith
A Sustainability risk analysis of the Low Cost Airline sector
BY
Duncan J. Gordon, Andrew Blaza & William R. Sheate
Sustainable mobility in metropolitan environments in developing countries -
Metropolitan Beirut case study
BY
Hicham H. Akkaoui, Hartmut Topp & Aly A. Hassan
Cycling trends & policies in Canadian cities
BY
John Pucher & Ralph Buehler
*****
World Transport Policy & Practice
ISSN 1352-7614
Eco-Logica Ltd., 53 Derwent Road, LANCASTER, LA1 3ES. U.K.
telephone +44 1524 63175
Editor: Professor John Whitelegg <John.Whitelegg@...>
Business Manager: Pascal Desmond <pascaldesmond@...>
http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/WTPPhome.html
One morning in Kyoto, we won a round in the battle against global warming. Then special interests snatched the truth away.
It was around eight in the morning in the vast convention hall in Kyoto. The negotiations over a worldwide treaty to limit global warming gases, which were supposed to have ended the evening before, had gone on through the night. Drifts of paper—treaty drafts, industry talking points, environmentalist press releases—overflowed every wastebasket. Delegates in suits and ties were passed out on couches, noisily mouth breathing. And polite squadrons of workers were shooing people out of the hall so that some trade show—tool and die makers, I think—could set up its displays.
Finally, from behind the closed doors, word emerged that we had a treaty. The greens all cheered, halfheartedly—since it wasn’t as though the agreement would go anywhere near far enough to arrest global warming—but firm in their conviction that the tide on the issue had finally turned. After a decade of resistance, the oil companies and the car companies and all the other deniers of global warming had seen their power matched.
Or so it seemed. I was standing next to a top industry lobbyist, a man who had spent the last week engineering opposition to the treaty, huddling with Exxon lawyers and Saudi delegates, detailing the Venezuelans to change this word, the Kuwaitis to soften that number. Right now he looked just plain tired. “I can’t wait to get back to Washington,” he said. “In Washington we’ll get this under control again.”
At the time I thought he was blowing smoke, putting on a game face, whistling past the graveyard of corporate control. I almost felt sorry for him; it seemed to me (as sleep-deprived as everyone else) that we were on the brink of a new world.
As it turned out, we both were right. The rest of the developed world took Kyoto seriously; in the eight years since then, the Europeans and the Japanese have begun to lay the foundation for rapid and genuine progress toward the initial treaty goal of cutting carbon emissions to a level 5 to 10 percent below what it was in 1990. You can see the results of that long Kyoto night in the ranks of windmills rising along the coast of the North Sea, in the solar panels sprouting on German rooftops, and in the remarkable political unanimity in most of the world on the need for rapid change. Tony Blair’s science adviser has repeatedly called global warming a greater threat than terrorism, but that hasn’t been enough for Britain’s Conservatives; the Tory leader (the equivalent of, say, Tom DeLay) rose last summer to excoriate Blair for moving too slowly on carbon reductions.
In Washington, however, the lobbyists did get things “under control.” Eight years after Kyoto, Big Oil and Big Coal remain in complete and unchallenged power. Around the country, according to industry analysts, 68 new coal-fired power plants are in various stages of planning. Detroit makes cars that burn more fuel, on average, than at any time in the last two decades. The president doesn’t mention the global warming issue, and the leaders of the opposition don’t, either: John Kerry didn’t exactly run on solving the climate crisis. The high-water mark for legislative action came in 2003, when John McCain actually managed to persuade 43 senators to support a bill calling for at least some carbon reductions, albeit much lower than even the modest Kyoto levels. But given that it takes 60 votes to beat a filibuster and 66 to override a veto, and given that the GOP has since added four hard-right senators to its total, it’s safe to say that nothing will be happening inside the Beltway anytime soon.
IT WAS NEVER going to be easy. Controlling global warming is not like the other battles (dirty water, smog) that environmentalists have taken on, and mostly won, over the years. Carbon dioxide, a.k.a. CO2, or just “carbon” for short, is not a conventional pollutant. It’s tasteless, colorless, odorless. Unlike carbon monoxide, which is what kills you if you leave your car running in the garage, CO2 doesn’t do anything to the human body directly. It does its damage in the lower atmosphere by holding in heat that would otherwise escape out to space. And even more unfortunate, there’s no easy way to get rid of it, no catalytic converter you can stick on your tailpipe, no scrubber you can fit to your smokestack. To reduce the amount of CO2 pouring into the atmosphere means dramatically reducing the amount of fossil fuel being consumed. Which means changing the underpinning of the planet’s entire economy and altering our most ingrained personal habits. Even under the best scenarios, this will involve something more like a revolution than a technical fix.
You would think the Europeans would have had a harder time making reductions; after all, they were already fairly energy-efficient, thanks to decades of high taxes on coal and oil. Their low-hanging fruit had long since been plucked. For the United States, there were loads of relatively easy fixes. We could have quickly reduced our emissions by trimming the number of SUVs on the road, for instance, while the French were already in Peugeots. However, in certain ways, America was more firmly locked into coal and oil than our European peers: sprawling suburbs, oversized houses, abandoned rail lines. We had the single hardest habit to break, which was thinking of energy as something cheap. This staggering inertia meant that even when our leaders had some interest in controlling energy use, they faced a real challenge. Al Gore wrote a book insisting that the future of civilization itself depended on battling global warming; during his eight years as vice president, Americans increased their carbon emissions by 15 percent.
What makes the battle harder still is the tangibility gap between benefits and costs. Everyone is, in the long run, better off if the planet doesn’t burn to a crisp. But in any given year the payoff for shifting away from fossil fuel is incremental and essentially invisible. The costs, however, are concentrated: If you own a coal mine, an oil well, or an assembly line churning out gas-guzzlers, you have a very strong incentive for making sure no one starts charging you for emitting carbon.
At the very least, the “energy sector” needed to stall for time, so that its investments in oil fields and the like could keep on earning for their theoretical lifetimes. The strategy turned out to be simple: Cloud the issue as much as possible so that voters, already none too eager to embrace higher gas prices, would have no real reason to move climate change to the top of their agendas. I mean, if the scientists aren’t absolutely certain, well, why not just wait until they get it sorted out?
The tactic worked brilliantly; throughout the 1990s, even as other nations took action, the fossil fuel industry’s Global Climate Coalition managed to make American journalists treat the accelerating warming as a he-said-she-said story. True, a vast scientific consensus was forming that climate change threatens the earth more profoundly than anything since the dawn of civilization, but in an Associated Press dispatch the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change didn’t look all that much more impressive than, say, Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute or S. Fred Singer, former chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Michaels and Singer weren’t really doing new research, just tossing jabs at those who were, but that didn’t matter. Their task was not to build a new climate model; it was to provide cover for politicians who were only too happy to duck the issue. Their task was to keep things under control.
It was all incredibly crude. But it was also incredibly effective. For now and for the foreseeable future, the climate skeptics have carried the day. They’ve understood the shape of American politics far better than environmentalists. They know that it doesn’t matter how many scientists are arrayed against you as long as you can intimidate newspapers into giving you equal time. They understand, too, that playing defense is all they need to do: Given the inertia inherent in the economy, it’s more than sufficient to simply instill doubt.
IN SHORT, the deniers have done their job, and done it better than the environmen- talists have done theirs. They’ve delayed action for 15 years now, and their power seems to grow with each year. How, even as the science grew ever firmer and the evidence mounted ever higher, did the climate deniers manage to muddy the issue? It’s one of the mightiest political feats of our time, accomplished by a small group of clever and committed people. It’s worthwhile trying to understand how they work, not least because some of the same tactics are now being used in debates over other issues, like Social Security. And because the fight over global warming won’t end here. Try as they might, even with all three branches of government under their control, conservative Republicans can’t repeal the laws of chemistry and physics.
Send Email
