[sustran] Interaction

[Britton EcoPlan]

Dear Friends,

As some of you will be aware, I have a life time interest and involvement
with matters of transportation, conviviality and equity.  Somewhere in the
middle of all that go such things as technology, economics, initiative and
public policy.

I strongly support the work of Paul and his colleagues at Sustran, and have
recently attempted to establish a link between this good  forum and some of
the activities that go on under our Web/electronic work which you can check
up on via The Commons at http://www.the-commons.org.  More specifically,
you may wish to have a look at our ongoing virtual conference on Zero
Emissions (at http://www.the-commons.org/zero-ems) where you will see a
profile on Sustran and enough information on it to encourage those of our
visitors who have any feel at all for these matters to sigh up and benefit
from the exchanges that are taking place on this list server.

Because one of the main points behind The Commons is that there is a great
yawning  gap between our collective knowledge and even wisdom on these
subjects, and then what happens in terms of public policy and private
practice, we would like to see what we can do to give some of the ideas and
debates that take place here more visibility.  To this end, we have set up
a special 'discussion space' within our Zero Emissions conference which we
are calling the Transportation Nexus, and where I intend to post from time
to time individual exchanges and series of exchanges which I believe our
conference should be aware of. As an immediate next step, I am posting this
short note both here and in our own conference, and if you have ideas (or
objections) concerning how we are making use of these materials (YOUR
materials?), well I suggest that you simply get in touch and we shall
attempt to work things out.

Two final quick notes on this:  I do intend to proceed with this
'technology transfer' in a very partial and selective manner and will add
in my own occasional  comments both as conference 'organizer' (grim
Orwellian word as it is) and as long-time observer and activist  in the
sector  in an attempt to ensure that we do not burden our visitors with a
tired rehash of the many views, shibboleths and half-truths that have been
out there for a couple of decades, a lot of which recapitulate (and
re-recapitulate) arguments and views which have seen their day.

Finally, this is of course only an interim measure.  As soon as Sustran has
a Web site of its own (and maybe we should be talking about this as well,
Paul), all of this can be done simply by a bit of careful reading,
selection and linking on our part.  In the meantime...

Well, in the meantime, if you do go over to our site, make sure too that
you have a look at the new associated site for Turning Point 2000
(http://www.the-commons.org/tp2000).  James Robertson and his colleagues
spread their arms well beyond matter of transport, but they keep them in
sight as well (as indeed they must).

Finally, Paul, do stay indoors.  Here in Paris we have our occasional Level
2 Alert Days (an empty box if ever there were one), but I gather that thing
shave gone a bit further in good old KL.  Well, that's what they get from
sending their planners and policy maker to school in  America and Europe.

With all good wishes,

Eric Britton

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EcoPlan International -- Technology, Economics & Social Systems
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e-mail: eric.britton at the-commons.org
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