[sustran] Big transport projects, Open Government and the Web

eric.britton at ecoplan.org eric.britton at ecoplan.org
Wed Apr 12 17:29:22 JST 2000


While I hardly expect this to be embraced with open arms by some of our more
authoritarian governments and agencies (ahem!), I nonetheless feel that we
as a group, together with all our various extensions and antennae, might do
well to consider the possibility of various ways of encouraging (forcing?)
any large transport project anywhere to "explain itself in public and on the
Web".

Two exhibits by way of example, one famous and 'old", one brand new. Both
provide pretty clear public statements of the basic what, when, why and how
of their respective projects, as well mechanisms of sorts that permit people
to follow progress, next steps, etc. Neither is perfect from the perspective
that I am trying to introduce here, but both can be taken as interesting
steps in what I believe to be a potentially important direction.

The latter of the two is that Web site that introduces, explains and says it
is tracking progress on New York's AirTrans project which is to link the
city to JFK. You can check it out at http://www.panynj.gov/airtrain/. It's
brand new and still pretty static, and does not (as yet?) provide any room
for public feedback or discussion, which is certainly a desirable
characteristic in the sort of Open government initiative which I think is
appropriate in such cases.

The older of the two is the famous Big Dig (Central Artery/Tunnel Project)
in Boston, which lives at http://www.bigdig.com/.  This is a much more
mature operation, which not only is a great and interesting example of first
rate Web skills but also makes some provision for public discussion and
exchanges.

Imagine if this sort of thing were mandated in some of the mega-cities that
concern us here in this forum. And what if the World Bank and international
lending and aid agencies and institutions including in the private sector,
made something along these lines a conditional part of their finance
package... along with guidelines to ensure that feedback and public
discussion is allowed, dissenting views encouraged and accommodated, and
that the usual tight news management approaches of the responsible (and
invariably not unbiased) public agencies be somehow checked. (For this last,
one option might be to have the whole thing run under the keen eye of a
recognized Ombudsman, international arbiter, or something along those
lines).

Is this worth a discussion?




Eric Britton

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