[sustran] More on the Principal Voices media project and what I would like to ask you to consider

[Eric Britton]

Dear World Wide Friends of Sustainable Mobility,

 

You may have been a bit surprised, puzzled at the long post just shared with
you on the subject of the on-going Time/Fortune/CNN/Shell Principal Voices
media project, and in particular of course their treatment of the transport
sector.  To put you further in the picture I attach the text of their
initial transportation statement, of which you can find the original on
their site at http://www.principalvoices.com/transport.html.

 

Since in that last mailing I have gone to some length to indicate why I
think they should be making a real effort to get the growing Voice of
Sustainable Transportation properly represented in their debates - which at
present include one engineer/designer of  metros and one businessman/builder
of trucks and buses - I will not add unnecessarily to that.  But let me make
a couple of points on the attached, which are indeed representative of their
approach as a whole.  If you scan their piece you will see ZERO REFERENCES
to women, girls or children, a give-away clue to the attitude that the
"product" to be transported, as passively as possible, is undifferentiated.
As opposed to this there are no less than eleven references to "motor" in
various forms, and six to "auto". Hmm.

 

Now my objective here is not to make life difficult for the Time/Fortune
etc. team, but rather to see how we can help them do a better and more
forward looking job.  After all, it is clear that they have only a, might I
say, "business journalist" perspective of the sector, so it is quite natural
that their point of view should be rounded out before the actual transport
section of their project is engaged.  So now is the time for us to get to
them with some authority and see if they can open up things a bit, so that
they do a better and more useful job of it.

 

Up to now, the only "voice" that they have heard urging them to do better
along these lines has been my own.  But who anyway am I?  Just one person
and not only that a guy who has never designed a metro, built a truck, or
driven an SUV in peak hour traffic.  So, perhaps they need a little
judicious encouragement, and hence this cycle of two notes to you all. 

 

So if you agree that this is worth the stamp, I would like to ask you to
address a short note (or a long one if you wish) to our friends in the
Rime/Fortune etc. team (their emails are above), possibly inviting them to
open up the debate to bring in some kind of representation of the real
sustainable mobility expertise and pressure for change.  My own preference
would be for this to be done in a collective manner, and why not perhaps
through the good agency of an existing program and network.  One candidate
might be the New Mobility Agenda, but there could be others that are better
yet.

 

What is important is that we take advantage of this opportunity to make the
real Voice of Sustainable Mobility  heard.  Not least because we need every
forum we can mobilize to get our message out.

 

Perhaps you could copy anything you do send to them to the New Mobility
Agenda forum via NewMobility at yahoogroups.com.  We can then cumulate our
ideas and pressures for change, as indeed we are doing every day in our work
and thinking.  It is this gradual process of budildng knowledge and
consensus that it the primary instrument of judicious adaptation and change
as we work to a world that is more sustainable and socially just. 

 

Thanks for giving this some thought.

 

Eric Britton 

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