[sustran] Mobility Impacts, Carfree Issues and Earth Day

Sujit Patwardhan sujit at vsnl.com
Thu Feb 15 15:38:04 JST 2001


15 February 2001


Sorry ... for posting this yet again. Paul Barter was kind enough to point out
that the messages didn't make it through the system as it filters out the
HTML.
I had apparently used indents, bold etc.
Sorry. Here are the last two messages in plain text, with apologies to those
who may be receiving this for the third time..
--Sujit Patwardhan


------------------------------------
Dear Eric,
I'm Sorry. After complaining about your site I visited it again and this time
was able to navigate with ease and even managed to get information about
Parisar filled inot your online form.
Obviously I was doing something wrong or the site has sudddenly gone on
steroids.
I think other members of sustran discuss will also find it interesting. The
URL's right here:-
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/EarthCFD/ec_index.htm>

Will keep you posted of what we are doing for the Vehicle-Free Earth day.
--Sujit




------------------------------------------
14 February 2001

Dear Eric, 

------------------------------------
>And don't forget that we ALL will do well to lend a hand in some way to 
>Earth Car Free Day 2001, which is now barely two months away.  Please visit 
>www.carfreeday.com and figure out how you are going to do your part. 
------------------------------------
Talking about Earth Car Free Day 2001, I'm still figuring out how to navigate
through the Common's site at <www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/>. I've completed the
online form with details asked and have been waiting for an email response
confirming my inclusion as a member who can then access the the deeper levels
of the site but they have NOT responded by Email as I thought they would. This
site could have become a great resource particularly in view of the fact that
most of the other sites are still displaying the material for the World Car
Free day 21st Sept 2000. The wonderfully designed Adbusters site still (see
below) takes you to Carfree Day 2000.
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/urbanspace/carfree.html

We (in Pune, India) are trying to organize a Vehicle Free (motorised  two
wheelers as well as four wheelers) day on 19 April 2001 but can't find a site
which puts this whole concept in a nutshell for the uninitiated. The best
material I've found on the net devoted to freeing ourselves from the auto-drug
is J.H Crawford's Carfree Cities' site <www.carfree.com/> but Earth Day-World
Carfree Day is only part of what the site carries
. 
The idea of a Carfree Day is still unusual for us though 91,000 new vehicles
(70% of these two wheelers) are registered and brought on the roads each year
in Pune city (population approx 3.5 million). The vehicle population may seem
small by Western standards but it is actually higher per capita than Bombay
(Mumbai) which is a metropolis. The only solution anyone thinks of is to widen
the roads or to make new roads (already they are planning flyovers where there
is no scope for widening the roads), and officials laugh when concepts such as
vehicle restraint and traffic reduction are suggested as the real solutions.
When we show them provisions of UK's Traffic Reduction Act and the BBC
documentary in Panorama 1998, "U-Turn On Traffic" they say "That was a nice
film but it doesn't apply to developing countries like ours which must
"develop" by having more roads, cars etc" ...... and I guess, other
environment
destroying projects (Big Dams, Nuclear Power etc for instance).

The situation here is similar to what John Hilary in his article "Paradise
Lost:The Decline of Bicycle in Transportation in Asia" describes wonderfully.
Worth a read at the International Bicycle Fund's site
<www.ibike.org/asiadecline.htm>

If you could suggest any sites where material on Carfree Day 2001 is available
it would be a great help. Of course we'll have to modify it suitably for our
situation (for a start, we have to replace the image of CARfree by one which
includes Cars, Scooters and Motorbikes).

Sorry this has become rather long. I could condense it but I suspect it may be
representative of other members' predicament especially of those from the
third
world. So I will keep it as it is and welcome responses from others (in
addition to Eric Britton).

Sincerely,

--Sujit 
Sujit Patwardhan
Parisar, 
Pune , 
India



---------------------------
At 11:24 AM 2/14/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear Chris,
>
>And then of course there is always the new (and older) edition of Kenworthy
>and Newman (Sustainability and Cities : Overcoming Automobile Dependence,
>1999, and Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook,
>1960-1990), as well as Todd Litman's fine VTSI site at http://www.vtpi.org
>with all its treasures. (I am sure you know all this, but just in case....)
>
>And don't forget that we ALL will do well to lend a hand in some way to
>Earth Car Free Day 2001, which is now barely two months away.  Please visit
>www.carfreeday.com and figure out how you are going to do your part.  (By
>the way, I have not yet figured out exactly what I am going to do for my
>part, though it's for sure that I will stay out of my car... which of course
>is no big deal when you live in Paris.  What I am contemplating is to come
>up with a 'reasonable but pretty severe" personal CO2 budget, which if I do
>I must of course treat as gospel.  Gotta walk the walk!)
>
>With all good wishes,
>
>Eric Britton
>
>ecopl at n___  technology, economy, society  ___
>Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France
>Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org     URL ecoplan.org
>Day phone: +331 4326 1323 Mobile: +336 80 96 78 79
>Voice/Videoconference/Data +331.4441.6340 (1-4)
>24 hour Voicemail/Fax hotline: +331 5301 2896
----------------------------------------


PARISAR, 
Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007
Tel: 5537955
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In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- 
there are Consequences.
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