[sustran] - Last Call - Livingstone/London Congestion Pricing Prize Nomination

[eric.britton at ecoplan.org]

Wednesday, June 16, 2004, Paris, France, Europe

Dear Friends, 

Please excuse me for so doggedly insisting on this, but we must get back
to the WTN team with our final nomination and supporting commentaries
before next Monday the 21st, noon at the latest. Again, you will find
all that you need for this I would like to think enjoyable hike through
the woods of sustainable mobility and the politics of the possible, if
you go to http://newmobility.org and there click the WTN Nomination
link. You will find some food for thought in the first forty
commentaries that have been registered, and if you fear that our society
is producing sheep-like agreement and indifference, this will be a
refreshing experience in variety and, indeed, passion. 

At the core of this is the ultimate and unbudgeable sustainability
challenge of making changes out on the street and in people's daily
lives, and not just on paper and in conferences. We can be handsome on
the rostrum, splendid in print, greater yet in agreeing with like-minded
colleagues, but if we don't somehow do our bit to get the job done on
the street, then we are ivory tower residents and that's it. 

So dear friends, let me see if I can encourage you to consider all this
in the very specific case of one mayor who has had the courage to break
pattern in his city a way that has wide international implications, and
who for the rest may or may not be your favorite sustainability activist
-- but in this context who cares? In a world that needs new ideas and
approaches in action, we have to be grateful to people like Jaime
Lerner, Enrique Peñalosa and, yes, even the irascible Ken Livingstone
for inching us toward new and more sustainable mobility patterns. 

So if that’s what it takes, swallow your pride and vote for Ken. Or
alternatively tell us all the good reasons that we should be withdrawing
this nomination (and I guess sit back and wait for the Second Coming).
Again that's http://newmobility.org. 

Your servant, 

Eric Britton <mailto:eric.britton at ecoplan.org> 

 

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