[sustran] "Principal Voices"- Sustainable Transportation as a Third Voice

[EcoPlan, Paris]

“Principal Voices”- Sustainable Transportation as a Third Voice
A proposal
 
Principal Voices 2005: The immediate objective of this cooperative
sustainability initiative is to see what we can do to create and make heard
a much-needed balancing “Voice” for the transportation component of the
potentially important Principal Voices (www.PrincipalVoices.com) project
over 2005 though the participation of an ‘invisible college’ of
knowledgeable, independent, world level proponents of sustainable transport
in all its many aspects (or New Mobility if you like). By way of quick
reminder, here is what the sponsors say about themselves: “Principal Voices
is an international project aimed at provoking discussion on some of the
more compelling challenges confronting our world today. Over the next 12
months TIME, FORTUNE and CNN, in association with Shell, will be presenting
a series of videos, articles and round-table discussions. Themes covered
will include the environment, business innovation, economic development and
transport.”     
 
The Three-Voice Proposal: We are proposing to work with this international
forum to articulate the debate in what we believe to be a most appropriate
and dynamic manner, and add a Third Voice in the year-long discussions,
balancing in our view . . . 

(1)   Transportation Voice 1: The long established defining Voice of
transportation expertise in design, engineering, construction, operation,
finance, etc., that has essentially dominated and defined the transportation
systems of the 20th century and still remains the main operational paradigm
in most places (and in any event a critical central component of the next
generation transportation paradigm that must be able to call in these skills
and experience). This Voice is at present most ably represented by Mr.
Ellatuvalapil Sreedharan one of India's greatest civil engineers, the
architect of the supposedly unbuildable Konkan Railway linking Mumbai and
Mangalore, and, more recently, designer of the Delhi Metro system (See
http://www.principalvoices.com/voices/elattuvalapil-sreedharan-bio.html for
more)

(2)   Second Voice 2?  No conversation concerning the future of the
transportation sector would be complete without the vigorous participation
of this important second voice.   A parallel but in many ways separate but
very powerful in its own right financial, institutional, political, and
industrial lobby “Voice”, a good example of whose thinking can be seen with
the recent WBCSD’s “Meeting the Challenges to Sustainability” report (see
http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/general/wbcsd.htm for report and some context)
that has been actively supported by this currently formidable element of the
transportation establishment.  

(3)   The Third Voice?   These are the growing number of international
experts and groups who are working together to open up and define what we
call the Sustainable Transportation or New Mobility Agenda. This approach to
understanding and deciding about mobility matters is altogether on another
plane from the older supply-oriented, specific, circumscribed
problem-solving approach that has long been the dominant mode of thinking,
policy and investment in the past, a time incidentally when the
‘problematique’ of transportation was vastly different from that which we
face today (See Todd Litman’s recent "The Future Isn't What It Used To Be"
at http://www.vtpi.org/future.pdf for a good overview on this).  This new
and far broader, more inclusive approach to planning, decision making and
even on down to implementation and operation is the next step in a
cumulative long run process of intellectual, economic, social, environmental
and political evolution. It is, no more no less, the world transport policy
and practice paradigm of the 21st century.  
 
It is our view that a lively, open, high profile public dialogue between
these three contrasting Voices could be a major accomplishment of the
sponsors.  And while we have some thoughts as to how the second Voice
participation might be organized, this is of course not our domain, though
we do offer a few of these in the final section of this brainstorming note
below.

The Third Voice?  What we are proposing here is to put in place a mechanism
that will serve to open up the debate and thereby ensure that the many
competent people and groups working on this agenda in many parts of the
world (including many highly respected NGOs) can make their voices heard.
The proposed mechanism for doing this: an interactive process mediated by
the web and several other low cost, widely available SOA conferencing and
dialogue technologies. 

The Third Voice List in Process:

Here’s the latest cut of our wide open working list for your comment and
suggestions - see below for further background and suggestions concerning
the further development of this important list.  (Incidentally if you wish
to know more about any of them until full profiles become available along
with their approval  in each case, a visit to Google will serve you well in
almost all cases.) 
 
Who are these people? No more no less than the hundred-plus individuals and
independent committed groups who in my experience and in the views of my
respected international colleagues of long date are among the leading
proponents of the kind of transportation that is the most important of all
for out planet and our times: sustainable transportation.  If I had to turn
the leading edge of transportation policy and decision making over to
anyone, it would be to these people and their international colleagues,
collaborators and networks in turn. And that of course in parallel with the
technical and other proven skills and virtuosity of our first Voice
representatives.  
 
*         A. Ables, Bangkok, Thailand
*         Alan AtKisson, Stockholm, Sweden
*         Ayad Altaai, Baghdad, Iraq 
*         Oscar Aguilar Juárez, Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico
*         Paul A. Barter, Sustran, Singapore
*         Denis Baupin, City of Paris, France
*         Margaret Bell, UTSG, Leeds, UK
*         Reinie Biesenbach, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research/
Global Research Alliance (GRA), Pretoria, South Africa
*         Donald Brackenbush, Los Angeles, CA
*         Christ Bradshaw, Ottawa, Canada
*         Eric Bruun, Philadelphia, PA
*         Enrique Calderon, Barcelona, Spain
*         Sally Campbell, Eveleigh, Australia
*         Carl Cederschiold, Former mayor of Stockholm, Sweden
*         Robert Cervero, Berkeley, CA
*         Phil Charles, Brisbane, Australia
*         Robin Chase, Boston, MA
*         Carlos Cordero Velásquez, Lima, Peru
*         Al Cormier, Mississauga, Canada
*         Wendell Cox, St. Louis, Mo.
*         Philippe Crist, Saint Germain en Laye, France
*         Ranjith de Silva, Colombo, Ceylon
*         Carlos Dora, Rome, Italy
*         Bernard Fautrier, Monaco
*         Anwar Fazal, Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia
*         Maria Josefina Figueroa, Roskilde, Denmark
*         Duarte de Souza Rosa Filho, Porto Alegre, Brazil
*         Brendan Finn, Singapore
*         Priyanthi Fernando, Executive Secretary, International Forum for
Rural Transport Development (IFRTD).
*         Karl Fjellstrom, Surabaya, Indonesia
*         Rossella Forenza, Potenza, Italy
*         Jan Gehl, Copenhagen, Denmark
*         Michael Glotz-Richter, Bremen, Germany
*         Phil Goodwin, Exeter, UK
*         Ingibjorg Guolaugsdottir, Reykjavik, Iceland 
*         Peter Hall, Berkeley, USA
*         Sylvia Harms, Dubendorf, Switzerland
*         Roger Higman, Friends of the Earth, London, UK
*         John. Holtzclaw, Sierra Club, San Francisco, CA
*         Walter Hook, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy,
New York
*         Nguyen Trong Thong, Hanoi, Viet Nam
*         Ursula Huws, Analytica, UK
*         Taiichi Inoue, Tokyo, Japan
*         Virgil Ioanid, Bucarest, Romania
*         Jane Jacobs, Toronto, Canada
*         Jiri Jiracek, Prague, Czech Republic
*         Dave Holladay, Glasgow, Scotland
*         Per Homann Jespersen, Roskilde, Denmark
* Sharif A Kafi, Dhaka, Bangladesh
*         Richard Katzev, Portland
*         Isam Kaysi, Beirut
*         Fred Kent, Partners for Public Spaces, NYC
*         Jeff Kenworthy, Perth, Australia
*         Gadi Kfir, Tel Aviv, Israel
*         Adam Kowalewski, Warsaw, Poland
*         Charles Kunaka, Harare
*         Stefan Langeveld, Amsterdam, Netherlands
*         Agnes Lehuen, Le Vesinet, France
*         Corinne Lepage, Paris, France
*         Graham Lightfoot, Scariff, Ireland
*         Todd Litman, Victoria, Canada
*         Stefan Lorentzson, Gothenburg. Sweden
*         Harun al-Rasyid Sorah Lubis, Bandung, Indonesia 
*         Kenneth Orski, Washington, DC
*         Dojie Manahan, Quezon City, Philippines
*         Naoko Matsumoto, Kanagawa, Japan?
*         Suzanne May, London, UK
*         Segundo Medína Hernández, Havana, Cuba
* Kisan Mehta, Bombay, India
*         Michael Meyer, Atlanta, GA
*         Nobuo Mishima, Kyoto, Japan
*         Dinesh Mohan, New Delhi, India
*         Mikel Murga, Bilbao, Spain
*         Peter Newman, Sydney, Australia
*         Simon Norton, Cambridge, UK
*         Margaret O'Mahony, Dublin, Ireland
*         Richard Ongjerth, Budapest, Hungary
*         Carlos F. Pardo, Bogota, Colombia
*         Sujit Patwardhan, Pune, India 
*         Enrique Peñalosa, Bogota, Colombia
*         Maria Elvira Perez, Colombia 
*         Rudolf Petersen, Wuppertal, Germany
*         Stephen Plowden, London, UK
*         Robert Poole, Reason Institute, Los Angeles, CA
*         Danijel Rebolj , Maribor, Slovenia
*         Ernst Reichenbach, GTZ, Katmandu
*         Michael A. Replogle, New York
*         Gabriel Roth, Chevy Chase
*         Preston Schiller, Huxley College of the Environment, Bellingham,
WA
*         Lee Schipper, EMBARQ/World Resources Institute
*         Bodo Schwieger, Berlin, Germany
*         Derek Scrafton, Adelaide, Australia
*         Dimitris Sermpis, Athens, Greece
*         Leena Silfverberg, Helsinki, Finland
*         Robert Smith, Dorset, UK
*         Ivan Stanic, Ljubljana, Slovenia
*         Linda Steg, Groningen, Netherlands
*         Martin Strid, Borlange, Sweden
*         Craig Townsend, Montréal, Canada
*         Robert Stussi, Lisbon, Portugal
*         Robert Thaler, Vienna, Austria
*         Geetam Tiwari, New Delhi, India
*         Tony Verelst, Zonhoven, Belgium
*         Vukan Vuchic, Philadelphia, PA 
*         Conrad Wagner, Stans, Switzerland
*         Bernie Wagenblast, Cranford, NJ
*         Yngve Westerlund, Gothenburg, Sweden
*         Dave Wetzel, London, UK
*         John Whitelegg, Lancaster, UK
*         Johnny Widen, Lulea, Sweden
*         Peter Wiederkehr, Hamburg
*         Roelof Wittink, Utrecht
*         Kerry Wood, Wellington, New Zealand
*         Guiping Xiao, Beijing. China
*         Muhammad Younus, Karachi, Pakistan
*         Christopher Zegras, Cambridge, MA
*         Sue Zielinski, Toronto, Canada
 
Note: By the way, I do not as yet have permissions to use most of these
names. 

*         So if you are on the list and agree to participate in principal,
please send us a quick note with your full title, contact information, etc.
so that the sponsors can see just how distinguished this group is. 
*         Participation, by the way, being always a matter of your personal
convenience with no requirements other than to indicate your interest to
look in from time to time and if the circumstances move you to pitch in with
comments and suggestions.
*         Key question: Can we, together, handle such a large list and still
get a meaningful “Voice”?  Answer: We have managed to do so on a number of
occasions in the past with no great problems.  I am confident that we can to
it now.
 
Next steps with this working list:
 
Do you have a nomination for another highly qualified authority/networker
suitable and ready to help round out this fine list? 

* I feel that despite the enormous quality of the group as it stands we are
still a bit uncreatively short in the following areas: females, young
people, people with mobility impediments, youth and school programs, and
people struggling with genius and resolve with rural transport, in
particular in the poorest parts of the world.  

* We also could use more “point expertise” in the following areas: local
government, land use planning, road pricing and economic instruments, human
powered transport, local government and decision making, public space
management, access for people with mobility impediments, techniques of low
cost infrastructure modification, transport/environment interface,
electronic substitutes for physical movement, behavioral psychology, public
administration, economics, sociology, social work, law enforcement and
policing, new techniques of micro-modeling, public outreach, genuinely
participatory planning, new media, and the list goes on. 

* Disaster relief and rebuilding 

* One technology based area that needs further definition and support is new
forms of shared transport better adapted to the public’s demands in the 21st
century, including those which offer ‘car like’ or better mobility, with
much more emphasis on the interface with mobile telephony, taxis and
paratransit,

* Another importance vector to be brought in here: non-transport uses and
users of the road and supporting infrastructure: peddlers, window shoppers,
playing children, people meeting and talking, beggars, lonely people, street
people (homeless) and once again the list goes on.

* Finally, we could use a few more mayors and local leaders, who are after
all among the defining forces for decision and change in the sector.
 

How is the proposed process  going to work? (Draft notes)
 
*         Further background on our proposed collective contribution to this
potentially important project is being drafted and will be available
shortly.  (Draft notes follow below which are intended shortly to provide a
fuller view of what we have in mind here.)
Notes on the Third Voice Panel/Nominations:
*         This panel does however, at least I hope, have a very definite
common orientating – which is to sustainable development and social justice.
And sustainable development, just to be sure that we are very clear on this,
is not something that we can put on the back burner and wait for another
day.  It’s 2005 and sustainability requires immediate, priority attention. 
It is not a luxury. It is an essential and a central priority. 
*         Each of these people is a considerable personality in her/his own
right, highly respected, known for the quality and independence of their
views, and their brains, energy, accomplishments, long term commitment and
ethics. 
*         They have very different backgrounds, experience, areas of
expertise, and at times even visions of their sector and the future. To this
extent they complement and enhance each other by their very differentness. 
*         These people understand that the task of making their voices heard
in a world in which old ideas and practices often continue to hold the stage
is not an easy one, and that success depends on their ability to deal with
the challenges.  They are accustomed to arguing their case in the face of
considerable opposition and indifference, but they also are for the most
part world level experts in listening (not always a strong point in a sector
long dominated by people who had decided what was going to be best for the
others). 
*         Each fully understands the full remit and complexity of the
sector, and the fact that policies there must stretch far beyond the usual
transport remit. 
*         They provide between them coverage of and sensitivity to the full
reach of the complex interface between transport and its greater context. 
Important since well more than half the decisions and actions that need to
be motivated to move toward a better transportation system come in fact from
outside the traditional transport nexus.
*        Tone of the exchanges: Informed, exploratory, caring, disputatious,
and respectful (even when it hurts)
*         Here by way of quick example are some of the fields they bring
into the decision nexus, in addition to the more conventional
transportation, engineering, planning, etc. skills: Land use planning,
electronic substitutes for physical movement, human powered transport, local
government and decision making, public space management, access for E&H,
transport/environment interface, behavioral psychology, public
administration, economics, law, policing, new techniques of micro-modeling,
public outreach, genuinely participatory planning, much more emphasis on the
interface with mobile telephony, new media, and the list goes on.
*         The international coverage of the group is exemplary.
*        We are making a special effort to secure a much higher proportion
of female members than normally encountered in transport circles
(notoriously male dominated... and that is a good part of their problem). 
As of end 2004 we were at about 15%. We have to do better.
*         There are a fair number of young people – but we can try to do
better. 
*         Another thing they have in common, a word that we do not hear all
that often in the traditional transportation decision dialogues, is
compassion.  Important word.
*         In some cases these individuals do have an institutional
affiliation, in most cases institutions and NGOs which are well known for
their independence of views. Moreover we have seen in virtually all cases
over the years, these particular people have meticulously preserved their
independent point of view and are given over to plain speaking and not
varnishing or projection of a specific interest or point of view.  In short,
they are thoroughly ethical.
*         In this context, the list is actually considerable longer than
what you see here.  In the interest of economy and efficiency we have made a
practice of naming just one person per group or working cluster, in the
knowledge that each will in turn work to ensure the participation of the
others in their grouping.

Also:
 
* At the outset I had been targeting a considerably shorter list, but as a
result of the feedback received in the last days from our lists and as the
concept of what we perhaps should be targeting to do in this case, I became
aware that it was going to be necessary to reach out in order to make sure
that the full complexity and variety of the challenges of sustainable
transport are properly covered. In the event, I see this as a dynamic, ever
evolving group.

*         I have decided (unless pushed to the contrary) to omit from this
list all people with strong bureaucratic, institutional and economic ties
and interests, and specifically proponents of unproven technologies and
major infrastructure developments that are not fully and assiduously
cross-checked with the full range of sustainability criteria). 

* Here is a quick and very personal characterization of the two other voices
which I share with you by way of further introduction, based on a number of
years of observation and, quite often, direct collaboration in a variety of
programs and projects.  (And here too your comments are earnestly
solicited.)

o The first Voice, that of the professional transportation establishment, is
in the main highly conservative – natural enough since they are the ones who
are most directly effected by success or failure of what they do – but not
unamenable to change. To the contrary in most cases rightfully proud of the
technical virtuosity  they appreciate technical challenges, new techniques
and in general any opportunity to do more and better; however they need to
be reassured by clear examples and steady support from the top.

o Our second Voice, the financial, industrial and political establishment,
is by contrast considerably more change-resistant, especially if the changes
represent a paradigm threat to the established way of doing things in the
sector and its upstream ramifications (energy among them). Without wishing
to make this into a Green or proto-Marxist diatribe, think of it this way:
with each day that passes and the old, current transportation paradigm
remains in place – despite whatever it may cost in lost lives, illness,
resource depletion, environmental impacts, destruction of community, cost to
users, etc. etc. – tens of billions of dollars of income continues to move
into these corporations uninterrupted. On the side of the political
establishment, the resistance to basic order change is more subtle,
including not least of which fear of being punished in the polls, including
for changes that ruffles the feathers of many entrenched interests, at least
during the interim period that they take old and show that indeed their
overall impact is largely positive. This is not to say that any of these
groups will not get behind changes when needed and possible, but that by and
large their time horizon for change is considerably more, let us say,
leisurely than that of, actually, either of the other two voices.
Fortunately, the attitude of the various individual members of this voice
are far from uniform.

* Incidentally, it is perhaps in these terms that the 2005 debate might
usefully focus – bearing in mind that the ultimately objective is not to win
points or drag anyone through the mud publicly, but to get moving ahead on
the New Mobility Agenda without unnecessary delay.  For this to happen there
has to be a certain level of harmony among the voices.  And all three must
be vigorously and openly present.

*                                 I intend to propose that they invite the
WBCSD “Sustainable Mobility’ team – or possibly some kind of composite voice
which brings together the usually well orchestrated performances of such
important entrenched forces such as the automotive and energy industry, and
such generally concordant groups as the IEA, ECMT, IAA, and the various well
placed lobbies -- to come in as the third major voice/vision of the sector.
 This means they can cover the interests of the auto and transportation
industry, very long term stuff, big expensive infrastructure projects, the
lurch toward things such as the hydrogen economy,  and their list goes on. 
* Tipping Point Objective:  The goal of the initiative set out here is no
less than to use this high profile international debate to bring to the fore
the competence and views of this important and thus far insufficiently
recognized current of world transportation expertise. (“Tipping Point: How
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”, Malcolm Gladwell.)

 
Draft notes to be incorporated into final piece:
 
This will be a moderated debate and sometimes our chair (that’s me until we
find someone better
 which should not be hard) will cut off speakers,
presenters who in his humble views are taking up too much of our valuable
time and wondering a bit too far afield from our bottom line.
  
Why not bring in here representatives of organizations such as the various
concerned units of the WBCSD, ECMT, EC, UITP, APTA, World Bank, UN ,and the
list goes on and on as well as our outstanding individuals? Well because we
have seen over the years how such people act in these circumstances. In
truth they of the kinds of divided minds and responsibilities that
inevitably occur when anyone has to keep weighing their
personal/professional views on the one hand and what the mother organization
might have in mind or have to worry about.  So we are sticking to
individuals in this college.
 
Out: anything that can be covered by other Voices as they chose: unproven
systems that require large investments and extensive, expensive and
inevitably slow new infrastructure development 
 
All have extensive international experience – especially US and UK, Sweden,
Germany and a few others in which there are more than one person cited.