[sustran] 20:20 Century Transport Icons - Cut 1 of idea for a cooperative

[eric.britton at ecoplan.org]

Piotr Olszewski 	has written the observation that follows, to which I would
like to comment briefly, while at the same time working away to prepare a
more completed 20:20 construct that may in time be more worthy of your time
and attention.  Two quick points I would like to make which I hope may help
to clarify what we are about here:

1. First, the idea of the list as it stands thus far is not at all to
provide a compendium of "wonderful transport solutions" of our soon gone
century.  That list as it stands includes not only icons to which I think we
might usefully give more thought and attention, but also a certain number of
candidates for what, if my courage holds out, we may end up call the
"Transportation Hall of Shame" (a bit strong, really). I leave it to you for
now to see how that might work out and what should go where.

2. Point two is indeed good old Road Pricing, a terrific idea if every I
heard of one.  But there is, in the 20:20 view of things anyway, more than
one ways to price a road. For instance....
a. Piotr reminds us of Singapore of course, past and present, and that's
certainly one way.  This is, in my book, the choice of Real Men (which is
not me). If you are spoiling for a fight, try road pricing. You'll stay very
fit indeed since you will always have to keep moving.
b. But what about Road Pricing the Works, a.k.a. parking policy.

And that, dear friends, is why parking policy is not only a 20th century
icon (for all that we did and did not do with it, despite the fact that it
was right there all the time waiting for us to really put it to work).

Is this beginning to make any sense at all?

(Thanks to Piotr and for others of you who have gotten back to me with idea
and challenges that are great grist for this mill.)

Eric Britton

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Conspicuous by its absence from Eric's list of 20th-century wonderful
transport solutions is Road Pricing.
However politically difficult it may be to implement in practice, it is
certainly an effective travel demand management tool. By reducing car usage
it shifts the balance in the urban transport system in the right direction
(i.e. towards sustainability).
The official website of the Electronic Road Pricing in Singapore is:
http://www.lta.gov.sg/erp/index.html
Unfortunately, there is no website describing ERP's low-cost predecessor,
the paper coupon-based Area Licensing Scheme which served its purpose of
controlling car use in the Singapore city centre for 23 years (quarter of
the century!). The only other similar traffic restraint scheme I'm aware of
is in use in Teheran.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Piotr Olszewski              colsze at ntu.edu.sg
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore


(......)
>
> ======
>
> 20:20 CENTURY TRANSPORT ICONS
> - Cut 1 of idea for a cooperative knowledge building exercise on the Web -
> What's a 20th century transportation icon?  Let me list a few of the
longer
> range variety, though what I propose here is to concentrate on local
> transport concepts:
>
> * Bullet Train
> * Concord(e)
> * Interstate Highway system
> * Autobahn
> * DC3
> * Trans-Siberian Express (wrong century?)
> * Graf Zeppelin
>
> You get the idea.  The idea is that the "icon" is somehow so striking that
> once the concept is understood or, better yet, convincingly demonstrated,
> that it  makes a new crease in the collective brain with the result that
all
> of us begin to think differently about our topic. Or... they somehow
change
> the landscape of transportation thinking and practice.
>
> Now.... What I would like to propose if any of you are up to it is to
> develop in the first instance a simple listing, having in mind that we
might
> at some point want to draw a line and select the "top 20" for eventual
> closer scrutiny. For it to make any sense to most people, it will probably
> be appropriate that for each there be some sort of brief all-comer
> explanation, maybe a picture or two, and a bibliography of sources that
have
> managed to get out of the fog and shed some real light on what's going on,
> and what should be going on.
>
> To get the ball rolling, I am going to start here with a purposely mixed
> list... with the idea of somehow engendering thoughtfulness, discussion
and
> feedback.. all to the greater good.  Also I have stuck in a few Web sites
> which may be useful for those who do not already know them.
>
> 1. Bottlenecking (on purpose, as a strategy)
> 2. Carsharing  (http://www.ecoplan.org/carshare,
> http://www.bremen.de/info/agenda21/carfree/greengame.html)
> 3. Carte Orange (i.e., intermodal transit pass)
> 4. Collectivos
> 5. Curitiba
> (http://www.curitiba.pr.gov.br/Ingles/Solucoes/Transporte/index.html)
> 6. Dial-a-Ride
> 7. Dutch/Danish bicycles
> 8. Gothenburg traffic cells
> 9. Gridlock
> 10. ITS
> 11. Mexico City
> 12. Monorails
> 13. Musée d'Orsay (http://www.smartweb.fr/orsay/)
> 14. Networks that work (http://malaysiakini.com/sustran/,
> http://www.ecoplan.org/access, et al)
> 15. Paratransit
> 16. Paris Metro
(http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Paris/Paris_metro.shtml
> --great idea but then again it's not 1900 any more)
> 17. Parking supply reduction
> 18. PRT (nice try)
> 19. Rickshaws
> 20. Smart
> 21. Tramway insistence (N. Europe)
> 22. Transit portals (http://www.sytadin.tm.fr/)
> 23. Woonerf (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~la362/allimagecategories/streets
/thumbnails/streetsthumbnail.html)
>24. Zurich Ubahn (A wonderful benchmark project and example for us all)
>
>That should give you a flavor... and maybe some ideas that we can
>incorporate before we put this out for potshots.