[sustran] Re: (fwd) [UTSG] transport strategy transfer

[Alan Howes]

Agreed.  Though as ever, it's not a simple case of black and white.  Walter says China is a good example - but our firm has recently been working in China (Shanghai), and has had a hard struggle to dissuade them from riding their streets of both cycles and trolleybuses.  (I'm not sure of the outcome - I wasn't involved personally.)

It's not only consultants who should be blamed (excluding ourselves of course!).  A big problem is local politicians who think "development" means apeing the worst aspects of the "North".  Just another aspect, I suppose, of the unequal terms on which the developed world deals with the rest.

I think it's true, Fatima, that you will find more bad examples than good ones of strategy/policy transfer from the developed to the developing world

Alan

-- 
Alan Howes
Associate Transport Planner
Colin Buchanan and Partners

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>>> "Jonathan E. D. Richmond" <richmond at alum.mit.edu> 22/04/04 14:21:00 >>>


BRAVO! Well said (the message arrives the very evening I am re-reading
Hook and Repogle's article on "Motorization and non-motorized transport in
Asia" which I am having my students prepare for class tomorrow!!!)

What I see is too much learning from the West without adequate local
context. Consultants come in to say what needs to be done; Western
textbooks are consulted when they are not appropriate to local situations.
4-step models are used when they not only have little or no predictive
power but ignore pedestrian and other non-motorized movements that are
vital to local mobility -- and often to the local economy as well.
Cost-benefit analysis puts the needs of motorists ahead because they have
higher income -- so "obviously" their time is worth more.

If the West is to help, we need more of a mixing of minds: people who will
come from the West to listen and observe and share concepts with local
professionals as equals, rather than arriving without an understanding of
context to give irrelevant instructions.

                                                --Jonathan



On Thu, 22 Apr 2004, Walter Hook wrote:

> i think we developed countries have transferred most of our problems to
> developing countries, starting with the automobile and the auto-dominated
> highway capacity manual, for example, out of date versions still used
> despite very different conditions.  green wave area traffic control signals,
> killing a lot more pedestrians, highway overpasses, transferred from
> developed world, disrupting transit  and pedestrian and bicycle flows,
> metros disrupting bus-based transit systems and trapping countries in
> perpetual debts, etc. the big innovations came from curitiba, singapore (now
> developed), and china.
>
> w.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alan P Howes" <alan at ourpeagreenboat.co.uk>
> To: <sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
> Cc: "Fatima Elaiab" <elaiabf at TCD.IE>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 4:37 PM
> Subject: [sustran] (fwd) [UTSG] transport strategy transfer
>
>
> Hi sustranners -
>
> Can anyone help Fatima (who is at Trinity College, Dublin) with this
> request?  Seems one that should be appropriate to this group.
>
> Replies direct to Fatima please, <elaiabf at TCD.IE> - if you cc to me as
> well, I will know if it was worth forwarding!
>
> Alan
>
>
> On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 16:49:24 +0100, Fatima Elaiab <elaiabf at TCD.IE>
> wrote to UTSG at JISCMAIL.AC.UK: 
>
> >Dear all.
> >
> >I am looking for studies, researches or papers that have considered the
> >posibiliaity of transfer transport strategies from developed countries
> >(experienced in transport filed) to less developed countries. The transfer
> >or apply the experience may be in one side of the strategy such as
> >technology, transport management, control car ownership level strategy or
> >other. I do appreciate any help in this side.
> >Thank you.
>
> --
> Alan P Howes, Perthshire, Scotland
> alan at ourpeagreenboat.co.uk 
> http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/  [Needs Updating!]
>

-----

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