[sustran] SOS - Help in forthcoming Bogotá sustainable referendum

[ecopl at n.adsl]

I wonder if we can ask you for a bit of help here.

The mayor of Bogotá and his team are hard at work to lay the groundwork for
a Referendum in the last days of October, which will have as its task to
give the sustainable transport goals that they are presently working so hard
on there the force of law -- so that future administrations will not be able
to backslide on all that is being done there.  (If you want more background
on the massive program that is presently underway, in part subsequent to the
outstanding performance and public reception of their Car Free Day project
earlier this year, we invite you to check out The Commons in just about one
week where there will be a Sustainable Bogotá web page.)

To make a long story short, they are thinking that their best target might
be a long term plan, target and legal commitment with the force of the law
which will over the next decade take them step by step toward a situation
whereby in ten years or so, ZERO private cars will be able to enter or move
around in the city between the hours of 7:00-10:00 and 17:00-20:00, or
thereabouts.  You get the idea.  (In fact this would build on their very
smart and (surprisingly!) successful Pico y Place program, and incrementally
extend that.)  There is also the other side of the equation: less cars but
more of something else.  And how to state that in terms that will stick!
And it is re all this that we are trying to organize our thoughts in the
run-up to the actual phrasing of the referendum that is to take place in the
weeks immediately ahead.

In this very lively and, I think, extremely important situation, they need
to be sure that they are fully informed about anything along these lines
which has taken place along these lines in the past.  They are of course
aware of the Amsterdam experience of the early nineties and last March's
good try in Switzerland (see  The Politics of Sustainability at
http://www.ecoplan.org/politics for background on these), but there are
surely more examples out there that they should know about.

So, if any of you, dear colleagues and friends around the world, think you
can help them and us in this, it would be great if you could respond to your
own list and at the same time copy your note to the main @ccess group, whose
email address is access-forum at egroups.com.  In this way we can centralize
the various contributions and comments, thereby facilitating both further
discussions and reference.

And in order to follow how all this develops, the place to do it will be on
the Sustainable  Bogotá site which you will be able to access at
http://ecoplan.org/bogota in the week ahead.

Kind thanks for lending a hand.  It's the right thing to do, wouldn't you
say?


Eric Britton

ecopl at n ___  technology, economy, society  ___
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