[sustran] RE: British Transport Policy

[Eric Britton]

Hello Henrik,

I immediately shuttled your note to my good friend and colleague
John Whitelegg (who is also, incidentally founding editor of World
Transport Policy and Practice) and whom you can eventually reach
directly as below.

Prof. John Whitelegg
EcoLogica (and the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice)
53 Derwent Road
Lancaster
LA1 3ES
United Kingdom
j.whitelegg at lancaster.ac.uk
http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/index.htm

But I would very much want to encourage you and the others to
continue these useful critical discussions in public because I
believe they constitute absolutely central issues in the move
toward real sustainability (as opposed to rhetorical
sustainability, which is, sadly, the preferred flavor of the day
in most places).  As we have seen in the past, what invariably
happens in cases such as this is that the administrators and
politicians in question do all that they can to encourage a
comforting general amnesia, while they slither back to the good
old ways of unsustainable transport.

If there is ever to be sustainability in this important area of
technology and practice in our daily lives, I am afraid that it
will come about only because some of us are willing to serve as
memory and conscience.  It will not win us any popularity contests
in the places that count (if money is your metric), but there you
have it. It's a choice, isn't it.

How best to ensure that this and other such creative critical
dialogues get around?  Well for now, I am channeling what we
receive to the following:

- Sustran Discussion List
- Transport 2000 Mailing List
- UTSG Mailing List
- Car Share Discussion List (Sweden)
- Carsharing Mailing List (Canada)

Are they the best? I simply do not know, but they seem to be
pretty effective and thus far no one has whined. So far, so good.
But perhaps some of you have others suggestions as to how to
handle this.


Eric Britton
BTW, TODAY, the 27th, is International Buy Nothing Day in the
Western Hemisphere. (You can see more on that one at
http://www.adbusters.org/). Tomorrow the 28th is the day for
Europe and whoever else in the Old World who might wish to join
in. (More on Buy Nothing Day in Europe: http://www.ddh.nl/bnd)
Think about it!

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