From eric.britton at ecoplan.org Mon Dec 4 15:52:20 2006 From: eric.britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 07:52:20 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Car Free Day - China set to enjoy a day without cars In-Reply-To: <1165179244.22696714d40d7011.4354e40f@persist.google.com> Message-ID: <014801c71770$c030d430$6501a8c0@Home> China set to enjoy a day without cars Ji Mi http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/12/04/298863/China_set_to_enjoy_a_ day_without_cars.htm 2006-12-04 SHANGHAI will join more than 70 cities across China next year to promote a Car Free Day and encourage commuters to use cleaner forms of transport. Taking a cue from , China has set aside the week of September 16-22, 2007, as its first public transport week. And on the final day, private car owners will be asked to leave their vehicles at home and ride bikes, use mass transit or walk to work, school and shopping, Qiu Baoxing, deputy minister of construction, told a national meeting in Beijing on Saturday. If all private cars stayed off the streets for 24 hours, China would save 33 million liters of gasoline, reduce urban pollution 90 percent and prevent an untold number of deaths and injuries from traffic accidents, authorities said. In addition to Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Hangzhou have also promised to join in. Authorities said compliance by motorists will be voluntary but that some streets in all the cities taking part will be blocked to private cars. France initiated the no-car day in 1998, and two years later, the European Union's environmental agency kicked off European Mobility Week on September 16-22, which also featured a car-free day. The environmental exercise has since expanded to more than 1,000 cities across Europe. Qiu said China's program is designed to raise public awareness about the need for greater environmental protection by encouraging urbanites to use less polluting forms of transport. Rush-hour traffic jams often turn major roads in big cities into parking lots, Qiu told the meeting. In downtown Beijing, 60 percent of the 183 major intersections suffer serious jam-ups, Qiu said. China's capital has 2.82 million cars on its streets, and the number of new ones is increasing by 1,000 a day, cutting vehicle speeds to about half of what they were 10 years ago. Across China, a city bus commute takes 10 minutes longer than it did a decade ago, and that's why 70 percent of urban residents are dissatisfied with bus services, according to Qiu. Traffic jams cost the country about 250 billion yuan (US$31.65 billion) in lost productivity in 2003, or two percent of that year's gross domestic product, the official said. Qiu urged city governments to improve public transport efficiency, give priority to buses, shorten transfer time between buses and invest more funds into the public transport system. Fewer than 10 percent of city residents use public transport across the country on average, he said. In large cities the figure is about 20 percent, compared with 40 to 60 percent in major metropolitan areas in Europe, Japan and South America. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061204/282a3026/attachment.html From eric.britton at ecoplan.org Mon Dec 4 15:52:20 2006 From: eric.britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 07:52:20 +0100 Subject: [sustran] World Car Free Day made official in Shanghai? In-Reply-To: <1165206531.22696714d40d7011.33c529ae@persist.google.com> Message-ID: <014d01c71770$c383f6d0$6501a8c0@Home> World Car Free Day made official in Shanghai? Carfreeposterchinashanghai.gifWe're a bit confused here: We just read a report (in Chinese) that says 70 mayors of Chinese cities have signed agreements that make World Car Free Day -- September 22 -- somewhat official. However, it seems that Beijing tried this in 2005 in an attempt to meet "blue sky" goals. Supposedly Chengdu was the first Chinese city back in 2001 to try to do something for WCFD. After the signing of this agreement, most of China's big cities, such as Chongqing, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, etc. are on board. Not only are they going to encourage more people to walk, bike and use public transit, they might even carve out a no-car zone in parts of the cities. According to the statistics in this report , the World Bank estimates that air pollution costs about 5 percent of China's GDP, and according to a Chinese economist, traffic congestion in Beijing causes a loss of 1.1 RMB per day or 400 RMB per year to every Beijing resident. We don't know what interesting factoids and statistics are available for Shanghai (they no doubt exist), but we've been quite embarrassed recently when we thought we could make it from upper Jing'an district to the Huaihai Lu district in about 10 or 15 minutes -- we've always underestimated the time it used to take, as if our brains were stuck back in 2000. Or it was just wishful thinking along the lines of, "Oh, I won't be that late." We know. The first step to solving the problem is admitting you have one. Back to the topic -- we can't remember if anything happened, even on a small scale, in Shanghai. Does anyone remember as far back as September 22? Poster from webstrade.it . Posted by Peijin Chen in News: Shanghai | Link | Comments (2) | Recommend this! Loading...| -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061204/c41811bb/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 25949 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061204/c41811bb/attachment.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 537 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061204/c41811bb/attachment-0001.gif From carlos.pardo at sutp.org Mon Dec 4 22:27:06 2006 From: carlos.pardo at sutp.org (Carlos F. Pardo SUTP) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 20:27:06 +0700 Subject: [sustran] Public awareness and behavior change course in BAQ Yogyakarta Message-ID: <000601c717a7$e5518250$aff486f0$@pardo@sutp.org> Public Awareness and Behaviour Change - Training Course 12th December, 2006, Mercure Hotel Dear all, It is well known that sustainable transport is an important factor that addresses the issues of transport. In order to yield maximum results public has to be educated and made aware of the issues and solutions to gain their support. Public awareness is vital to fulfil the goals of a sustainable future. GTZ-SUTP along with the organisers of BAQ is presenting a training course where the importance of public awareness will be addressed. The course will emphasize on how to develop comprehensive and effective strategies of behaviour change in sustainable transport, which will complement an existent transport policy and further its potential in improving citizen's awareness and habits while using one or another mode of transport. Participants will have the chance to develop a comprehensive public awareness and behaviour change strategy, along with a proper communications scheme that will diffuse the strategy's objectives and results. Strategies will be developed based on proposed budgets depending on each city's possibilities, and all strategies will be evaluated and corrected throughout the training course. Participants should finish the training course with the possibility to apply a strategy in their home city. We hence warmly invite you to be a part of this training course. Please mail Mr. Carlos F. Pardo at carlos.pardo@sutp.org for registering for the course. For more information please visit http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/article-71084.html . Please note that there are limited spaces available for this course, so register soon before vacancies are finished! Hoping to see you in Yogyakarta, Yours sincerely SUTP team GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) Transport and Tourism Division Room 0942, ESCAP UN Building, Rajadamnern Nok Rd. Bangkok 10200, Thailand Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 1321 Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042 Website: www.sutp.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061204/664975ee/attachment.html From carlos.pardo at sutp.org Mon Dec 4 22:27:09 2006 From: carlos.pardo at sutp.org (Carlos F. Pardo SUTP) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 20:27:09 +0700 Subject: [sustran] BRT courses in Yogyakarta BAQ 2006 Message-ID: <000b01c717a7$e6ccb0a0$b46611e0$@pardo@sutp.org> Bus Rapid Transit Planning course ? Training Course 11th December, 2006. Mercure Hotel, Yogyakarta Dear all Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is an innovative approach to solve the problems of public transport in the developing cities. Cities such as Curitiba, Bogot? and Jakarta have largely benefited by implementing BRT. The whole BRT system would be worthless if there is no good planning involved. With our experience in BRT planning and implementation, GTZ-SUTP, will be offering a training course on Bus Rapid Transit Planning. The course will describe the key components of a BRT system and give basic tools for policymakers and technical staff of municipalities to start developing a successful and high-impact system in their cities. The main objective of this training course is to introduce participants to the features of BRT and how it can be applied in their city. The course will explain the criteria of demand analysis, corridor selection, operational plan, customer service plan, infrastructure, modal integration, technology, business and financing of a BRT system. It will also describe the social, environmental and economic impacts of a BRT system. The course will engage participants in exercises for their cities regarding Bus Rapid Transit and then evaluate the potential application of a BRT system in each city. We hence warmly invite you to be a part of this training course. Please mail Mr. Carlos F. Pardo at carlos.pardo@sutp.org for registering for the course. For more information please visit http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/article-71088.html . Please note that there are limited spaces available for this course, so register soon before vacancies are finished! Hoping to see you in Yogyakarta, Yours sincerely SUTP team GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) Transport and Tourism Division Room 0942, ESCAP UN Building, Rajadamnern Nok Rd. Bangkok 10200, Thailand Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 1321 Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042 Website: www.sutp.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061204/a2ad047b/attachment.html From sujit at vsnl.com Tue Dec 5 05:09:25 2006 From: sujit at vsnl.com (Sujit Patwardhan) Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 01:39:25 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Pune First City in India to have BRT System Message-ID: <4cfd20aa0612041209i49b053ebk2a4315d9631ff79b@mail.gmail.com> 4 December 2006 Friends in SUSTRAN, You will be happy to know that Pune inaugurated its BRT System on 3 December 2006, one day short of two years from the date on which Enrique Penalosa made a landmark presentation at a public meeting jointly organized by PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) and PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum) on 4 December 2004 at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir, Pune. Pune becomes the first city in India to start BRT, on what still is an incomplete Pilot corridor of about 12.5 Kilometers. As enthusiastic supporters of BRT in Pune we have also been concerned about the hasty way in which projects get implemented without proper attention to detail. Yesterday's inauguration at the hands of the Union Urban Development Minister Mr Jaipal Reddy was also an example of this - largely a political affair with the ruling Congress Party rushing to get the project off the ground in time to beat the political deadline set by the oncoming elections to the Local Civic body. Under the election rules no new projects can be announced after the set date which is about 2 months from the date of polling. We are therefore treading cautiously and pressing the authorities to attend to important components of the project to ensure that by the time the full corridor becomes operational it will be a big success and win support from citizens. There are plans for implementing BRT in a phased manner on major roads stretching over 100 Kms throughout the city. Dr Geetam Tiwari and Dr Dinesh Mohan from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), New Delhi, have played a key role in designing the Pilot project. Dr Nitin Kareer the Municipal Commissioner also deserves credit for having initiated the BRT project despite absence of political support. Although we as a local NGO have ongoing arguments with him and his officers, we acknowledge that without his backing BRT would have remained merely an idea discussed at transportation seminars. In the coming weeks we hope to post photographs and articles on Pune's BRT and would be happy if you take a look at our web site from time to time. www.pttf.net Your comments would be most welcome. Sujit Patwardhan From: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=339828&sid=REG *Pune becomes the first city in India to have BRT system * Pune, Dec 03: Pune today become the first city in the country to have the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, a modern public transport plan to beat traffic chaos, with Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy inaugurating the system on a 12.2 km stretch of the total planned distance of over 100 km. "The central government has approved Bus Rapid Transit system for Indore, Pune and Ahmedabad. But Pune has become the first city in the country where it (BRTs) has become operational and I am happy to flag off the bus," Reddy said at a function held to mark the occasion. Reddy, MP Suresh Kalmadi, Mayor Rajini Tribhuvan, Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer, Corporators and members of the public had a ride in the five Volvo buses procured for the BRTs and that plied during the inaugural run. Currently, the BRT system would be operational only on a 12.2 km long Hadapsar-Swargate-Katraj corridor, to be complete within three months at a cost of Rs 62 crore. More corridors would be added subsequently, covering all the major arterial roads for an extensive Pune-wide BRT network. The Centre has sanctioned Rs 500 crore for another 50 km for BRTs and the fund for the remaining 50 km of BRTs corridor would also be approved without any delay, the Union Minister said in his speech. Urbanisation is a byproduct of industrialisation and was inevitable. In the 20th century, the USA and Europe underwent urbanisation which was now taking place in developing countries like India, Reddy said. -- ------------------------------------------------------ Sujit Patwardhan sujit@vsnl.com sujitjp@gmail.com "Yamuna", ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 India Tel: 25537955 ----------------------------------------------------- Hon. Secretary: Parisar www.parisar.org ------------------------------------------------------ Founder Member: PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum) www.pttf.net ------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061205/b13f5907/attachment.html From edelman at greenidea.info Tue Dec 5 05:58:34 2006 From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 21:58:34 +0100 (CET) Subject: [sustran] Re: Guangzhou bans electric bicycles In-Reply-To: <597kkbLR18314S13.1164712732@uwdvg013.cms.usa.net> References: <597kkbLR18314S13.1164712732@uwdvg013.cms.usa.net> Message-ID: <2320.213.180.39.70.1165265914.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> Re: Guangzhou bans electric bicycles... The United Notions Project for Real Sustainability, the Institute for the Absolutely and Perpetually Newest Mobility and the World Council for Worldly Counseling have recently divised a system to help people determine if their solutions for personal mobility are sustainable: Individuals may borrow a solar-powered time machine, which will be delivered free-of-charge to any city or town on the edge of any ocean. Into this rather large time machine the participant will bring the personal mobility device which they currently are using, including, but not limited to: * Automobile * Motorcycle * Externally-powered bicycle (electic bicycle; in Bulgaria this is called an „internally-powered bicycle“) * Internally-powered bicycle (normal bicycle running off of „human energy“; Bulgaria: „Externally-powered bicycle“) * Electric-wheelchair (the consortium will loan particpants one which has water-tight drive system) * Manual wheelchair * Skateboard * In-line skates/rollerskates * Feet with shoes * Feet with sandals * Feet The participant then travels forward in time 100 years. If, after arriving in the coastal city or town, they are able to use any of the above device without complication, then that mobility solution is SUSTAINABLE. If they arrive in the coastal town and there is water of a depth which causes their solution to permanently malfunction without extensive repair, it is VERY LIKELY NOT SUSTAINABLE. If they arrive and immediately drown, then the solution is DEFINATELY NOT SUSTAINABLE. For more information, visit the website www.returnofthelegs.com/not_to_drown ------------------------------------------------------ Todd Edelman Director Green Idea Factory Korunn? 72 CZ-10100 Praha 10 Czech Republic ++420 605 915 970 Skype: toddedelman edelman@greenidea.eu http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain Green Idea Factory, a member of World Carfree Network From sulin at vectordesigns.org Tue Dec 5 12:06:39 2006 From: sulin at vectordesigns.org (Su-Lin Chee) Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:06:39 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: Public awareness and behavior change course in BAQYogyakarta In-Reply-To: <000601c717a7$e5518250$aff486f0$@pardo@sutp.org> Message-ID: <002601c7181a$663a46a0$0201a8c0@vector6279d942> Dear Mr Pardo, I am interested in registering for this course. I am part of a small social enterprise called vector designs. We design public transport maps for Kuala Lumpur and also maintain the new public transport interest group site: http://transit.vectordesigns.org . I would like to enquire if there are fees charged to register for this course. I am interested to register two people from our organization, including myself. I also assume this is located in Jogjakarta in conjunction with the BAQ conference, yes? Well I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much! :-) Best regards, Su-Lin Chee Managing partner Vector Designs 54A Jalan Bangsar Utama 1 Bangsar Utama 59100 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Tel/fax +603.22826363 www.vectordesigns.org http://transit.vectordesigns.org -----Original Message----- From: Carlos F. Pardo SUTP [mailto:carlos.pardo@sutp.org] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 9:27 PM To: NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com; LotsLessCars@yahoogroups.com; sutp-asia@yahoogroups.com; sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org; carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com; cai-asia@lists.worldbank.org Subject: [sustran] Public awareness and behavior change course in BAQYogyakarta Public Awareness and Behaviour Change - Training Course 12th December, 2006, Mercure Hotel Dear all, It is well known that sustainable transport is an important factor that addresses the issues of transport. In order to yield maximum results public has to be educated and made aware of the issues and solutions to gain their support. Public awareness is vital to fulfil the goals of a sustainable future. GTZ-SUTP along with the organisers of BAQ is presenting a training course where the importance of public awareness will be addressed. The course will emphasize on how to develop comprehensive and effective strategies of behaviour change in sustainable transport, which will complement an existent transport policy and further its potential in improving citizen's awareness and habits while using one or another mode of transport. Participants will have the chance to develop a comprehensive public awareness and behaviour change strategy, along with a proper communications scheme that will diffuse the strategy's objectives and results. Strategies will be developed based on proposed budgets depending on each city's possibilities, and all strategies will be evaluated and corrected throughout the training course. Participants should finish the training course with the possibility to apply a strategy in their home city. We hence warmly invite you to be a part of this training course. Please mail Mr. Carlos F. Pardo at carlos.pardo@sutp.org for registering for the course. For more information please visit http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/article-71084.html . Please note that there are limited spaces available for this course, so register soon before vacancies are finished! Hoping to see you in Yogyakarta, Yours sincerely SUTP team GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) Transport and Tourism Division Room 0942, ESCAP UN Building, Rajadamnern Nok Rd. Bangkok 10200, Thailand Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 1321 Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042 Website: www.sutp.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061205/ef79dc35/attachment.html From anupam.gupta at clsa.com Tue Dec 5 12:58:14 2006 From: anupam.gupta at clsa.com (Anupam Gupta, CLSA) Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:58:14 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: Sustran-discuss Digest, Vol 40, Issue 1 Message-ID: Hi Sujit, Thanks very much for this. I would be interested to know how this progresses because Mumbai is also testing the BRT on the Dadar-Thane stretch. Personally I remain skeptical for its performance in Mumbai, because I can't imagine motorists not wanting to encroach on an empty lane (reserved for buses) on a highway. Maybe I've not understood it right, but let's see how things pan out in Mumbai. Thanks and regards Anupam http://doesmumbaimatter.blogspot.com Message: 5 Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 01:39:25 +0530 From: "Sujit Patwardhan" Subject: [sustran] Pune First City in India to have BRT System To: "SUSTRAN Asia and Pacific Sustainable Transport" Message-ID: <4cfd20aa0612041209i49b053ebk2a4315d9631ff79b@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" 4 December 2006 Friends in SUSTRAN, You will be happy to know that Pune inaugurated its BRT System on 3 December 2006, one day short of two years from the date on which Enrique Penalosa made a landmark presentation at a public meeting jointly organized by PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) and PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum) on 4 December 2004 at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir, Pune. Pune becomes the first city in India to start BRT, on what still is an incomplete Pilot corridor of about 12.5 Kilometers. As enthusiastic supporters of BRT in Pune we have also been concerned about the hasty way in which projects get implemented without proper attention to detail. Yesterday's inauguration at the hands of the Union Urban Development Minister Mr Jaipal Reddy was also an example of this - largely a political affair with the ruling Congress Party rushing to get the project off the ground in time to beat the political deadline set by the oncoming elections to the Local Civic body. Under the election rules no new projects can be announced after the set date which is about 2 months from the date of polling. We are therefore treading cautiously and pressing the authorities to attend to important components of the project to ensure that by the time the full corridor becomes operational it will be a big success and win support from citizens. There are plans for implementing BRT in a phased manner on major roads stretching over 100 Kms throughout the city. Dr Geetam Tiwari and Dr Dinesh Mohan from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), New Delhi, have played a key role in designing the Pilot project. Dr Nitin Kareer the Municipal Commissioner also deserves credit for having initiated the BRT project despite absence of political support. Although we as a local NGO have ongoing arguments with him and his officers, we acknowledge that without his backing BRT would have remained merely an idea discussed at transportation seminars. In the coming weeks we hope to post photographs and articles on Pune's BRT and would be happy if you take a look at our web site from time to time. www.pttf.net Your comments would be most welcome. Sujit Patwardhan From: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=339828&sid=REG ------------------------------------------------------------- The content of this communication is subject to CLSA Legal and Regulatory Notices, which can be viewed at https://www.clsa.com/disclaimer.html or sent to you upon request. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061205/d2222821/attachment.html From Alan.Howes at cbuchanan.co.uk Tue Dec 5 18:11:00 2006 From: Alan.Howes at cbuchanan.co.uk (Alan Howes) Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 09:11:00 -0000 Subject: [sustran] Re: Pune First City in India to have BRT System Message-ID: <324DCD7680954F468CF306EE5404F00102F6828A@mail01.cbuchanan.co.uk> So, Sujit, what has actually happened so far? Five buses don't sound like they will provide much of a frequency. Are the median lanes actually active? Most importantly, are the funds and commitment in place to finish the job? Alan -- Alan Howes Associate Transport Planner Colin Buchanan 4 St Colme Street Edinburgh EH3 6AA Scotland email: alan.howes@cbuchanan.co.uk tel: (0)131 226 4693 (switchboard) (0)7952 464335 (mobile) fax: (0)131 220 0232 www: http:/www.cbuchanan.co.uk/ ________________________________ From: sustran-discuss-bounces+alan.howes=cbuchanan.co.uk@list.jca.apc.org [mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+alan.howes=cbuchanan.co.uk@list.jca.apc. org] On Behalf Of Sujit Patwardhan Sent: 04 December 2006 20:09 To: SUSTRAN Asia and Pacific Sustainable Transport Subject: [sustran] Pune First City in India to have BRT System 4 December 2006 Friends in SUSTRAN, You will be happy to know that Pune inaugurated its BRT System on 3 December 2006, one day short of two years from the date on which Enrique Penalosa made a landmark presentation at a public meeting jointly organized by PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) and PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum) on 4 December 2004 at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir, Pune. Pune becomes the first city in India to start BRT, on what still is an incomplete Pilot corridor of about 12.5 Kilometers. As enthusiastic supporters of BRT in Pune we have also been concerned about the hasty way in which projects get implemented without proper attention to detail. Yesterday's inauguration at the hands of the Union Urban Development Minister Mr Jaipal Reddy was also an example of this - largely a political affair with the ruling Congress Party rushing to get the project off the ground in time to beat the political deadline set by the oncoming elections to the Local Civic body. Under the election rules no new projects can be announced after the set date which is about 2 months from the date of polling. We are therefore treading cautiously and pressing the authorities to attend to important components of the project to ensure that by the time the full corridor becomes operational it will be a big success and win support from citizens. There are plans for implementing BRT in a phased manner on major roads stretching over 100 Kms throughout the city. Dr Geetam Tiwari and Dr Dinesh Mohan from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), New Delhi, have played a key role in designing the Pilot project. Dr Nitin Kareer the Municipal Commissioner also deserves credit for having initiated the BRT project despite absence of political support. Although we as a local NGO have ongoing arguments with him and his officers, we acknowledge that without his backing BRT would have remained merely an idea discussed at transportation seminars. In the coming weeks we hope to post photographs and articles on Pune's BRT and would be happy if you take a look at our web site from time to time. www.pttf.net Your comments would be most welcome. Sujit Patwardhan From: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=339828&sid=REG Pune becomes the first city in India to have BRT system Pune, Dec 03: Pune today become the first city in the country to have the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, a modern public transport plan to beat traffic chaos, with Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy inaugurating the system on a 12.2 km stretch of the total planned distance of over 100 km. "The central government has approved Bus Rapid Transit system for Indore, Pune and Ahmedabad. But Pune has become the first city in the country where it (BRTs) has become operational and I am happy to flag off the bus," Reddy said at a function held to mark the occasion. Reddy, MP Suresh Kalmadi, Mayor Rajini Tribhuvan, Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer, Corporators and members of the public had a ride in the five Volvo buses procured for the BRTs and that plied during the inaugural run. Currently, the BRT system would be operational only on a 12.2 km long Hadapsar-Swargate-Katraj corridor, to be complete within three months at a cost of Rs 62 crore. More corridors would be added subsequently, covering all the major arterial roads for an extensive Pune-wide BRT network. The Centre has sanctioned Rs 500 crore for another 50 km for BRTs and the fund for the remaining 50 km of BRTs corridor would also be approved without any delay, the Union Minister said in his speech. Urbanisation is a byproduct of industrialisation and was inevitable. In the 20th century, the USA and Europe underwent urbanisation which was now taking place in developing countries like India, Reddy said. -- ------------------------------------------------------ Sujit Patwardhan sujit@vsnl.com sujitjp@gmail.com "Yamuna", ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 India Tel: 25537955 ----------------------------------------------------- Hon. Secretary: Parisar www.parisar.org ------------------------------------------------------ Founder Member: PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum) www.pttf.net ------------------------------------------------------ ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ DISCLAIMER This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. Unless you are the named addressee, or authorised to receive it for the addressee, you may not copy or use it, or disclose it to anyone else. If you have received this email in error please contact the sender by replying to this email. Any views expressed by an individual within this email which do not constitute or record professional advice relating to the business of Colin Buchanan, do not necessarily reflect the views of the company. Any professional advice or opinion contained within this email is subject to our terms and conditions of business. We have taken precautions to minimise the risk of transmitting software viruses. We do not accept liability for any loss or damage caused by software viruses. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061205/5f1d11ea/attachment.html From carlos.pardo at sutp.org Wed Dec 6 09:25:02 2006 From: carlos.pardo at sutp.org (Carlos F. Pardo SUTP) Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 07:25:02 +0700 Subject: [sustran] Please reply to SUTP Re: Public awareness and behavior change course in BAQYogyakarta In-Reply-To: <002601c7181a$663a46a0$0201a8c0@vector6279d942> References: <000601c717a7$e5518250$aff486f0$@pardo@sutp.org> <002601c7181a$663a46a0$0201a8c0@vector6279d942> Message-ID: <001301c718cd$0f1c1750$2d5445f0$@pardo@sutp.org> Su-Lin and All, Thanks for your interest. Both courses are free of charge, but only those who have registered to BAQ can participate. If you'd like to participate or have any further doubts, please email us directly at sutp@sutp.org (not by replying to the listgroup/replying directly this email, since it generates unnecessary clutter in other people's email). Best regards, Carlos F. Pardo From: sustran-discuss-bounces+carlos.pardo=sutp.org@list.jca.apc.org [mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+carlos.pardo=sutp.org@list.jca.apc.org] On Behalf Of Su-Lin Chee Sent: 05 December 2006 10:07 AM To: 'Global 'South' Sustainable Transport' Subject: [sustran] Re: Public awareness and behavior change course in BAQYogyakarta Dear Mr Pardo, I am interested in registering for this course. I am part of a small social enterprise called vector designs. We design public transport maps for Kuala Lumpur and also maintain the new public transport interest group site: http://transit.vectordesigns.org . I would like to enquire if there are fees charged to register for this course. I am interested to register two people from our organization, including myself. I also assume this is located in Jogjakarta in conjunction with the BAQ conference, yes? Well I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much! J Best regards, Su-Lin Chee Managing partner Vector Designs 54A Jalan Bangsar Utama 1 Bangsar Utama 59100 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Tel/fax +603.22826363 www.vectordesigns.org http://transit.vectordesigns.org -----Original Message----- From: Carlos F. Pardo SUTP [mailto:carlos.pardo@sutp.org] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 9:27 PM To: NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com; LotsLessCars@yahoogroups.com; sutp-asia@yahoogroups.com; sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org; carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com; cai-asia@lists.worldbank.org Subject: [sustran] Public awareness and behavior change course in BAQYogyakarta Public Awareness and Behaviour Change - Training Course 12th December, 2006, Mercure Hotel Dear all, It is well known that sustainable transport is an important factor that addresses the issues of transport. In order to yield maximum results public has to be educated and made aware of the issues and solutions to gain their support. Public awareness is vital to fulfil the goals of a sustainable future. GTZ-SUTP along with the organisers of BAQ is presenting a training course where the importance of public awareness will be addressed. The course will emphasize on how to develop comprehensive and effective strategies of behaviour change in sustainable transport, which will complement an existent transport policy and further its potential in improving citizen's awareness and habits while using one or another mode of transport. Participants will have the chance to develop a comprehensive public awareness and behaviour change strategy, along with a proper communications scheme that will diffuse the strategy's objectives and results. Strategies will be developed based on proposed budgets depending on each city's possibilities, and all strategies will be evaluated and corrected throughout the training course. Participants should finish the training course with the possibility to apply a strategy in their home city. We hence warmly invite you to be a part of this training course. Please mail Mr. Carlos F. Pardo at carlos.pardo@sutp.org for registering for the course. For more information please visit http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/article-71084.html . Please note that there are limited spaces available for this course, so register soon before vacancies are finished! Hoping to see you in Yogyakarta, Yours sincerely SUTP team GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) Transport and Tourism Division Room 0942, ESCAP UN Building, Rajadamnern Nok Rd. Bangkok 10200, Thailand Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 1321 Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042 Website: www.sutp.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061206/bfa98662/attachment.html From operations at velomondial.net Wed Dec 6 18:33:30 2006 From: operations at velomondial.net (Pascal van den Noort) Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 10:33:30 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Cooled Qatar Cycle Path Designed and ready for construction Message-ID: <003201c71919$96f601d0$9600000a@MPBV> Cooled Cycling Infrastructure A cycling project which Qatar's sovereign Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani has proposed to promote the health of his people. After all, a large proportion of the population suffers from problems brought on by prosperity: they do not get enough exercise, cardiovascular diseases are prevalent and children are obese. This is a prestigious project with Qatar as an example to the countries in similar conditions! For people in Qatar cycling is not at all the obvious thing to do. This needs to be changed as the 30 kilometer cycle path - now designed - is to be completed within a year after the signing of the contract. An attendant problem is the fact that Qatar's climate is intensely hot and humid. The project group therefore came up with the idea of cooling the entire cycle path using cold ground water. The American consultancy firm the Rand Corporation has been leading in advising the Emir on the realisation of his goal of getting Qatars population to cycle. Velo Mondial played a major role in the realization of the cycle path and proposed to involve the Dutch firm Goudappel Coffeng for the technical aspects. Another Dutch firm Akertech was involved in preparing the technical drawings. Velo Mondial was leading in preparing the report: 'Developing Bicycle Paths in Doha, Qatar; A Plan to Promote Use of the Planned Bicycle Path in Doha'. As part of the work to develop this plan, and with particular reference to the training and promotion of cycling to Muslim women, we have discussed existing best practice with projects working in these fields in Tilburg (NL) and in the London Cycling Campaign. We would like to express our thanks to Lucy Davis of the Community Cycling Project, London Cycling Campaign, UK, Angela van der Kloof of 'Stap op de Fiets & Fietsvriendinnen', Tilburg, The Netherlands, and Aziz Bekkaoui, Amsterdam. The reports have been finalized November 2006. Please listen to this Interview with Adnan Rahman, project leader. Pictures and more information: http://www.velomondial.net/page_display.asp?pid=32 Pascal J.W. van den Noort Executive Director Velo Mondial www.velomondial.net www.velo.info http://spicycles.velo.info operations@velomondial.net +31206270675 landline +31627055688 mobile phone -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061206/a11992ba/attachment.html From sutp at sutp.org Fri Dec 8 18:34:39 2006 From: sutp at sutp.org (Sustainable Urban Transport Project SUTP) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 16:34:39 +0700 Subject: [sustran] SUTP update: August - December 2006 Message-ID: <009201c71aac$17a25480$46e6fd80$@org> Sustainable Urban Transport Project (GTZ SUTP) update August - December 2006 This newsletter gives updates on the SUTP activities, resources, website and events related to our topic of interest. For more information or feedback, please contact sutp@sutp.org , or visit our website at www.sutp.org (or www.sutp.cn from China). *****Project related News***** (For greater detail of these news, please go to www.sutp.org. Users from China please visit www.sutp.cn) * BRT Planning Traning Course at BAQ 2006, Yogyakarta (Indonesia) Date: December 11, 8:00- 16:00 Venue: Mercure Phoenix 1, Mercure Hotel Organizer:GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project Based on the Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide document developed by Lloyd Wright for GTZ, the course will describe the key components of a BRT system and give basic tools for policymakers and technical staff of municipalities to start developing a successful and high-impact system in their cities. It will emphasize on the necessary steps to develop a Bus Rapid Transit system, comparing it with other mass transit options, and participants will be able to analyze their situation with the trainer in order to see how they could start planning for a system in their city. The main objective of this training course is to introduce participants to the features of BRT and how it can be applied in their city. In case a city would want to develop a full BRT system in the future, a more comprehensive course (4-5 days) would be developed with a specific municipality. http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=159&Itemid=40& lang=en * Public Awareness and Behaviour Change in Sustainable Transport ? Training Course at BAQ, Yogyakarta (Indonesia) Schedule: 12 Dec (Tue) 2006 / 8:00-16:00 Venue: Mercure Museum Room, Mercure Hotel Organizer: GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project Based on the Public Awareness and Behavior Change training document developed by GTZ SUTP, the course will emphasize on how to develop comprehensive and effective strategies of behavior change in sustainable transport, which will complement an existent transport policy and further its potential in improving citizen?s awareness and habits while using one or another mode of transport. The training course will describe why public awareness is important in developing a complete transport strategy, and will focus on specific measures that can be later applied in each participant?s city. Participants will have the chance to develop a comprehensive public awareness and behavior change strategy, along with a proper communications scheme that will diffuse the strategy?s objectives and results. Strategies will be developed based on proposed budgets depending on each city?s possibilities, and all strategies will be evaluated and corrected throughout the training course. http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=160&Itemid=40& lang=en * Bus Rapid Transit planning training for Indonesian cities, Jakarta (Indonesia) 55 participants from 10 cities in Indonesia attended the training course on Bus Rapid Transit planning jointly organized by GTZ, ITDP, Ministry of Transport, PUSTRAL and MTI on December 7 and 8, 2006. The training was conducted by Mr. Ulises Navarro, and had inputs from Mr. Heru Sutomo from PUSTRAL and Mr. Carlos F. Pardo from GTZ-SUTP. More information on this training course will be available shortly at www.sutp.org . * GTZ-SUTP website for China Due to the great need of information on sustainable transport in Chinese, the GTZ-SUTP project has developed a website specifically for China accessible from www.sutp.cn . The content is both in Chinese and English, and the website has the same features as the original sutp.org website. Please visit www.sutp.cn and take a look! * GTZ-SUTP in China: 3 training courses and diffusion GTZ-SUTP delivered three training courses in Beijing in November, 2006. The first was on Bus Rapid Transit on 2-4 November, while a course on Sustainable Urban Transport was given to Chinese mayors on November 6. The third training course was a four day course on Sustainable Urban Transport given on November 7-10. This is the first exercise of a series of training courses to be delivered in China within the next years, initially organized with the cooperation of CUSTReC (BRT course) and Ministry of Transport, Tsinghua University and Southeast University (SUT course). Participants for all courses were between 30 and 50, from various cities all over China. These efforts will be combined with the SUMA program (in partnership with CAI Asia, WRI, ITDP, I-ce and UNCRD) which will be launched early 2007, and will have a strong capacity building component led by GTZ-SUTP, which will address Asian nationals who are willing to become trainers on sustainable urban transport topics or those willing to implement specific project on this topic. http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=147&Itemid=40& lang=en * Training course on Bus Rapid Transit in Mexico The GTZ SUTP project developed a training course on Bus Rapid Transit in Quer?taro, Mex?co On October 19-21, 2006. The main trainer for the course was Dr Dar?o Hidalgo, former Deputy Manager of TransMilenio in Bogot?. The 3-day training course had 47 participants, mainly from Mexican cities. http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Itemid=40& lang=en * Three training courses in Sao Paulo During and after the CAI LAC conference in Sao Paulo (24-27 July, 2006), the GTZ SUTP project developed three training courses on Public Awareness, Bus Rapid Transit and Non motorised transport in Sao Paulo during July 24- August 3, 2006. The Public awareness (July 24) course was developed by Carlos F. Pardo and had assistants from different cities in Brazil, and some other Latin American cities. The course on Bus Rapid Transit (July 28) was developed by Mr Lloyd Wright and had participants from cities in Brazil and other cities in LAC. The 4-day non motorised transport training course (July 30- August 3) was directed specifically to Brazilian cities and was coorganized by GTZ, I-ce, ITDP, Ministry of Cities in Brazil and the Municipality of Guarulhos. The latter had 50 participants and 4 trainers from all cooperating institutions. http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85&Itemid=40&l ang=en ***** CURRENT AND UPCOMING EVENTS (organized by continent, starting date). * Events in Latin America Events: 1 05.02.2007 UITP - 5th International Bus Conference http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=28&lang=en 26.2.2007 ANDINATRAFFIC 2007: 2nd International Exhibition for Transport and Traffic Technologies http://www.andinatraffic.com/sa3t/home/index.cfm * Events in Asia Events: 8 29.11.2006 2nd annual Asian Infrastructure Congress http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=2&lang=en 02.12.2006 International colloquium in Shanghai http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=34&lang=en 09.12.2006 11th Intl. Conf. of Hong Kong Society for Transport Studies http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=15&lang=en 13.12.2006 Better Air Quality Workshop, Yogyakarta (Indonesia) http://www.baq2006.org * Events in Europe Events: 3 09.05.2007 NECTAR Conference Porto , FEUP http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=25&lang=en 12.06.2007 Velo-city 2007 in Munich http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=18&lang=en 25.06.2007 ENHR Sustainable Urban Areas Conference http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=33&lang=en * Events in North America Events: 1 21.01.2007 Transportation Research Board (TRB) 86th Annual Meeting http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=56&func=details&di d=19&lang=en Please check our website for constant updates of all this information. Further information is also available when emailing sutp@sutp.org . GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) Room 0942, Transport Division, UN-ESCAP ESCAP UN Building Rajadamnern Nok Rd. Bangkok 10200, Thailand Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 2576 Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042 Mobile: +66 (0) 1 - 772 4727 e-mail: sutp@sutp.org Website: www.sutp.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061208/e45568e8/attachment.html From Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org Fri Dec 8 22:37:35 2006 From: Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 14:37:35 +0100 Subject: [sustran] The Great Leap China Car Free Days Idea Factory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <018601c71ace$0778a240$6501a8c0@Home> The Great Leap China Car Free Days Idea Factory Outline draft proposal for an open brainstorm Kindly preserve Subject line in future posts; It?s soon 2007 and we have now accumulated a dozen years of international experience with Car Free Days of many sorts in many places. Against this background the goal of this proposed group thinking exercise is to see what we might get out of it if we launch an open group brainstorm on how the best of this experience and past lessons may be put to work in China in the months and years immediately ahead. Caution: We are certainly not talking here about anything like some direct ?transfer of experience?, not least because in fact the overall record of accomplishment of the Car Free Days movement internationally is, despite occasional successes, hardly what one might call a model of success. But there are in all this some germs of ideas, and the goal of this group think and talk exercise will be to see if we can scratch together and come up with something that might have some uses. Eric Britton. I. The Three Great Truths . . . of China, Cars and the Future. 1. They are going to be more and more cars coming onto the streets and roads of China -- and coming at rates never seen anywhere in the world in the past. And these cars will be used. Ineluctably. And there is nothing that anyone else can do about it. It is thus not only an ?all-China? problem, but it is also an ?only-China? problem when it comes to addressing and solving it. 2. There are at least three basic reasons why this challenge truly needs to be met, as a huge priority: a. For the country and its citizens, its environment and its future; b. For the rest of the world in terms of the potential for huge world wide negative environmental and climate impacts; and c. For a world badly in need of new models of behaviour and collective problem solving in areas such as these. 3. On the positive side of the ledger, the Chinese elephant is just about unique in the world, in that it is one which can turn on a dime, when it decides to. This means, for better or worse, that once the political decisions have been made at the appropriate level, the country can embrace entirely new patterns of behaviour. II. The Challenge 1. These very very large numbers of cars are going to have enormous environmental, social and economic impacts. 2. Much of this is going to be very negative indeed. 3. The absorption capacity of almost all Chinese cities and towns for these large numbers of new cars are very very limited. 4. There are however choices ? though it would seem that these are not very clear to those who are making the decisions (or really much anyone else) these days. 5. The ?time locks?: There are two that come to mind: a. Most important, the environmental and other impacts which are already underway and which threaten the country both in specific places and indeed as a whole. b. And the coming great events, including the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World?s Fair in Shanghai. It may be that for various reasons it will be the concerns about the latter which drive the move toward a pattern break. 6. The country is keen to innovate and to demonstrate new patterns in the process. III. First Great Leap Brainstorm 1. Use all the available distance and group work tools to somehow get together with Chinese experts, politicians, the media and civil society to have a look at one specific idea. 2. Specifically to see what might be done if they were to build on the dozen plus years of experimentation and lessons learned in the Car Free Days movement in many other places. a. To concentrate entirely on the challenges of cars in towns and cities. b. NOT to accept any of the existing Car Free Day models, but rather to search and innovate one that just might open the door to new thinking and new practices which can possibly lead to a major ?pattern break? and a new model, both for China and for the world. 3. To carry out this idea search in a way that those of us who are not Chinese understand fully that our role if any is simply to try to lend a hand on the understanding that the ultimate decisions and solutions will be entirely of their doing. Put in other terms our goal is to put our experience and a certain number or raw materials into their hands for them to work with. 4. Here are four possibly useful examples that I propose we start by looking over and discussing to see what if any useful lessons can be derived from them. (This is my personal shopping list on this and I put it forth her just to get the ball rolling. You will most probably have ideas of your own. I would hope.) a. The, I would like to call them, Enrique Penalosa Car Free Days in Bogot?. (I will be pleased to discuss why I chose to call them as such.) b. The Italian Ecological Sundays ? (Domeniche Ecologiche) c. The South African national Car Free Days program d. The self-organized Car Free Day events in Pasto Colombia. Again the goal here is not to select some sort of ?top ten? projects as in a beauty contest, but to see if we can open up the exchanges with a first handful of real world examples that differ from each other and might possibly have application potential in the activities that we would like to help make happen there. 5. One idea that I would like to see receiving some attention from the beginning, is not so much that of a uniform national program along the lines that the French and EC have pushed, but rather perhaps a Cities Program, even some sort of cooperative competition in which specific cities carve out a particular idea that they are ready to run with, and to this in public and as a contribution not only to their own citizens but also to other cities and groups across China who are looking for ideas that can make a difference 6. How to develop and advance these ideas: a. Through exchanges if possible focusing on a single main collector site ?I suggest the Lots Less Cars Idea Factory at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LotsLessCars/ b. On the other hand this will have to outreach to bring in the many people and programs who have expertise and competence in these areas. This is quite a long list and perhaps at a next stage we can begin to scope it out as well. c. Some group work tools that we might want to think about using in addition to the above: i. Some kind of dynamic Wiki(pedia) group work project ii. Google Documents (This note is posted as an open document which you can rewrite as you wish at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df9b63x7_28g7dpc3.) iii. Also posted to The New Mobility Group Blog at http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2006/12/great-leap-china-car-free-days-ide a.html where comments are invited. 7. And now it?s your turn! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061208/6e4a93a2/attachment.html From etts at indigo.ie Fri Dec 8 23:34:45 2006 From: etts at indigo.ie (Brendan Finn) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 14:34:45 -0000 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Great Leap China Car Free Days Idea Factory References: <018601c71ace$0778a240$6501a8c0@Home> Message-ID: <022401c71ad6$01ea3c00$0a01a8c0@finn> MessageDear Eric, Interesting piece, and it does identify a major challenge. I know that there is already a huge amount of knowledge out there about what can be done for Car Free Day, so I would like to offer a few different thoughts at this stage : 1) The bottom-line is that CFDs are a means of bringing attention to possibilities, but they are not a solution. Just as puppies (and Cliff Richard?) are not just for Christmas, Car Free Days can't just be for the 22nd September or a demonstration week. There have to be clear, feasible goals for how urban societies will function on a permanent basis. 2) The number and diversity of Chinese cities is beyond our normal experience. I believe there are 167 cities of about 1 million or more people, and there are tens of cities which we would consider 'large'. Each has its own unique characteristics, and there are very significant climatic differences. One design, one size, one colour will not fit all. And it is not enough that there are many options in the toolbox, there must be a range of creative fundamental concepts. Put it another way, for China think 'continent' rather than 'country', we would not presume to take the same approach in Copenhagen and Stockholm as in Athens or Seville. 3) Just as important, each city has its own interest groups with their own motivations and balance of power. They must be understood. Things will not happen without the approval of those who currently hold the balance of power or those who can cause inertia. 4) Cities, city leaders, interest groups and citizens have concepts of what a city should be like, what are the characteristics of a prosperous city, and what are the characteristics or symptoms of a poor, backward or unsuccessful city. Perfectly logical technical arguments may perish on these rocks. It is not enough to show that something is efficient in transportation terms - it is vital that the stakeholders perceive it as beneficial and progressive at many levels. 5) The State Council has issued a number of Opinions, included SCO 46 which encourages the prioritisation of public transport, the making available of facilities and improving the conditions, etc. As far as I know, genuine efforts are being made at this level. Bus fleets have expanded in many cities, and BRT is gaining a strong foothold in many Chinese cities. While there is more to be done, I don't think this is the critical pinch-point. 6) What is less clear is whether there is a real commitment either to the serious restriction of the use of private car traffic or the genuine promotion of cycling and walking and giving it equal treatment with the car in roadspace. I think this is where the battlelines are more likely to be drawn. 7) It is not clear who is your target for these actions. I suggest that you would need to have both central support at the Ministry of Construction (to embed concepts and actions at national policy level), and real support at the Mayoral level in a selected set of cities (to get real implementers). Of course, the best option would be to link with existing initiatives rather than start new ones (I guess you're doing that anyway). 8) I think that there would be great benefit in study tours and meetings between counterparts (e.g. Mayor to Mayor, heads of municipal planning and traffic,heads of traffic police, etc.). These are the people whose jobs are on the line and who can push or block initiatives. Discussions with their counterparts allow them to explore the real aspects (positive, negative, implementation methods, benefits) of what is proposed. 9) Finally, it needs to be clear whose problem is being solved here. Is China the problem that the rest of the world needs to solve? Or, do Chinese cities have both common and unique problems to solve, where co-operation with others would offer new perspectives and lead to beneficial outcomes? Personally I prefer the latter approach. I hope this perspective contributes to the discussion. With best wishes, Brendan. _____________________________________________________________________________________ >From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd. e-mail : etts@indigo.ie tel : +353.87.2530286 ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Britton To: Sustran-discuss@jca.apc.org Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 1:37 PM Subject: [sustran] The Great Leap China Car Free Days Idea Factory The Great Leap China Car Free Days Idea Factory Outline draft proposal for an open brainstorm Kindly preserve Subject line in future posts; It's soon 2007 and we have now accumulated a dozen years of international experience with Car Free Days of many sorts in many places. Against this background the goal of this proposed group thinking exercise is to see what we might get out of it if we launch an open group brainstorm on how the best of this experience and past lessons may be put to work in China in the months and years immediately ahead. Caution: We are certainly not talking here about anything like some direct "transfer of experience", not least because in fact the overall record of accomplishment of the Car Free Days movement internationally is, despite occasional successes, hardly what one might call a model of success. But there are in all this some germs of ideas, and the goal of this group think and talk exercise will be to see if we can scratch together and come up with something that might have some uses. Eric Britton. I. The Three Great Truths . . . of China, Cars and the Future. 1.. They are going to be more and more cars coming onto the streets and roads of China -- and coming at rates never seen anywhere in the world in the past. And these cars will be used. Ineluctably. And there is nothing that anyone else can do about it. It is thus not only an 'all-China' problem, but it is also an 'only-China' problem when it comes to addressing and solving it. 2.. There are at least three basic reasons why this challenge truly needs to be met, as a huge priority: 1.. For the country and its citizens, its environment and its future; 2.. For the rest of the world in terms of the potential for huge world wide negative environmental and climate impacts; and 3.. For a world badly in need of new models of behaviour and collective problem solving in areas such as these. 3.. On the positive side of the ledger, the Chinese elephant is just about unique in the world, in that it is one which can turn on a dime, when it decides to. This means, for better or worse, that once the political decisions have been made at the appropriate level, the country can embrace entirely new patterns of behaviour. II. The Challenge 1.. These very very large numbers of cars are going to have enormous environmental, social and economic impacts. 2.. Much of this is going to be very negative indeed. 3.. The absorption capacity of almost all Chinese cities and towns for these large numbers of new cars are very very limited. 4.. There are however choices - though it would seem that these are not very clear to those who are making the decisions (or really much anyone else) these days. 5.. The 'time locks": There are two that come to mind: a. Most important, the environmental and other impacts which are already underway and which threaten the country both in specific places and indeed as a whole. b. And the coming great events, including the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World's Fair in Shanghai. It may be that for various reasons it will be the concerns about the latter which drive the move toward a pattern break. 6.. The country is keen to innovate and to demonstrate new patterns in the process. III. First Great Leap Brainstorm 1. Use all the available distance and group work tools to somehow get together with Chinese experts, politicians, the media and civil society to have a look at one specific idea. 2. Specifically to see what might be done if they were to build on the dozen plus years of experimentation and lessons learned in the Car Free Days movement in many other places. a. To concentrate entirely on the challenges of cars in towns and cities. b. NOT to accept any of the existing Car Free Day models, but rather to search and innovate one that just might open the door to new thinking and new practices which can possibly lead to a major "pattern break" and a new model, both for China and for the world. 3. To carry out this idea search in a way that those of us who are not Chinese understand fully that our role if any is simply to try to lend a hand on the understanding that the ultimate decisions and solutions will be entirely of their doing. Put in other terms our goal is to put our experience and a certain number or raw materials into their hands for them to work with. 4. Here are four possibly useful examples that I propose we start by looking over and discussing to see what if any useful lessons can be derived from them. (This is my personal shopping list on this and I put it forth her just to get the ball rolling. You will most probably have ideas of your own. I would hope.) a. The, I would like to call them, Enrique Penalosa Car Free Days in Bogot?. (I will be pleased to discuss why I chose to call them as such.) b. The Italian Ecological Sundays - (Domeniche Ecologiche) c. The South African national Car Free Days program d. The self-organized Car Free Day events in Pasto Colombia. Again the goal here is not to select some sort of 'top ten' projects as in a beauty contest, but to see if we can open up the exchanges with a first handful of real world examples that differ from each other and might possibly have application potential in the activities that we would like to help make happen there. 5. One idea that I would like to see receiving some attention from the beginning, is not so much that of a uniform national program along the lines that the French and EC have pushed, but rather perhaps a Cities Program, even some sort of cooperative competition in which specific cities carve out a particular idea that they are ready to run with, and to this in public and as a contribution not only to their own citizens but also to other cities and groups across China who are looking for ideas that can make a difference 6. How to develop and advance these ideas: a. Through exchanges if possible focusing on a single main collector site -I suggest the Lots Less Cars Idea Factory at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LotsLessCars/ b. On the other hand this will have to outreach to bring in the many people and programs who have expertise and competence in these areas. This is quite a long list and perhaps at a next stage we can begin to scope it out as well. c. Some group work tools that we might want to think about using in addition to the above: i. Some kind of dynamic Wiki(pedia) group work project ii. Google Documents (This note is posted as an open document which you can rewrite as you wish at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df9b63x7_28g7dpc3.) iii. Also posted to The New Mobility Group Blog at http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2006/12/great-leap-china-car-free-days-idea.html where comments are invited. 7. And now it's your turn! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via YAHOOGROUPS. Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061208/4f108130/attachment.html From richmond at alum.mit.edu Sat Dec 9 20:35:43 2006 From: richmond at alum.mit.edu (Jonathan E. D. Richmond) Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 12:35:43 +0100 (Romance Standard Time) Subject: [sustran] Death is a Wicked Problem Message-ID: I have written the following for ACCESS in memory of Mel Webber, but thought those of you who might not see ACCESS would like to see it --Jonathan! Perhaps death is not a wicked problem, for there is only one inevitable destination at the end of the road. Perhaps this is why Mel sent a number of us a cryptic last message, emailed after his death. "Goodbye," he said, with finality. And that was all he said. An end without doubt. A conclusion without the complex and confounding series of choices that characterize wicked problems. An end to the thought, writing and speech associated with one of the few truly great minds of planning over the last half century. I first encountered Mel during a brief stay at Berkeley. I had left MIT with a trail of debt and unwisely registered for a PhD at Berkeley with only partial financial aid. Rather than worry about the unpaid rent at International House that now embelished the five months of unpaid dorm rent I had left at MIT, I became utterly absorbed in the two most astonishing courses I have taken anywhere. One was taught by C. West Churchman, the other by Mel Webber (very ably assisted by Karen Christensen). The courses had similar themes, but a difference in emphasis. Both West and Mel had as central concern the human failing of turning the complex into the simple in order to find an easy answer that rarely proves to be an effective solution. Both of these deepest of thinkers called on their students to identify and question their assumptions in order to avoid the pitfalls of so much planning. But, while West led us to encounter the great philosophers as a way to lay bare the inadequacies of our own thought, Mel was more practical, and gave hope that there was in fact a path to better planning, one that we could all embrace. Much of what is called "planning theory" is deadly boring, with too many courses in the subject a sort of fraternity initiation ritual students are made to undergo before they can become certified planners and then forget everything they have read. Mel's unforgettable course could not have been more different. To start with the examples - about real transportation systems, real cities, and real people - were lifelike and demanded attention. The theoretical readings, though voluminous, were carefully selected and came to life through the questions Mel led us to explore in class. And the most profound message that Mel gave us was that there was a way to confront those things we found complex. Simple analyses, such of the demand for a transport system, may prove inadequate without consideration of social, environmental and larger urban contexts, but Mel did not tell us not to conduct such studies. Indeed, as we learned, a good deal of Mel's own work in transportation made effective use of conventional tools of economic data analysis, but used the findings as a starting point for asking deeper questions, which could then lead to a rearticulation of the original analysis. Mel's teaching always had a great clarity which drew in his students. Indeed, the concept of "wicked problems," which he developed with Horst Rittel, was explained by him with such immediacy that it was readily understood and became a larger-than-life phenomenon nobody in the class could let themselves forget whenever a planning or other social problem presented itself in other classes and, later, in professional life. Wicked problems have no one solution, have no ending point. They are messy, and often the obvious problem we first encounter requires other problems to be confronted to give any chance of progress. So is traffic congestion about providing more roads? Or allowing less cars on the roads we have? About providing public transport - what sort of public transport? About changing our work patterns and the geography of our cities? About changing out very concept of place - Mel introduced us to the "non-place urban realm" - and with it out notions of community (now to be "without propinquity") and the sorts of travel implied (do existing concepts of public transport work at all?) And so the choices go on, and it becomes clear that wicked problems can lead to endless other problem formulations, strategies, and surprising outcomes which then generate new wicked problems. Mel found a way to teach his students such things without heaviness. We left his classes feeling empowered and uplifted. The complexity he led us to confront may have been "wicked," but the concepts Mel taught us were vivid and compelling. And the message from Mel's course was that there are ways to tackle complexity and become better planners, and that we would all be better planners if only we would open up our minds, become aware of the choices to be made, and act in the light of a wisdom Mel had given us the power to produce even at our young age. Powerful stuff. We certainly did not have to attempt to attack all elements of complexity -- we would doubtless go crazy if we attempted to do so -- but if we could recognize and act on at least a part of that mess we would do good work. Despite the "wickedness" of problems, we could come up with solutions. They might not be the only possible solutions, or optimal (there is no such thing as an "optimal" solution to a social problem in any case), but they would provide good paths forward which could contribute to the growth and wellbeing of cities. Mel was an excellent writer. He expected high standards from his students' written work, and had no hesitation in identifying defects and prescribing remedies. His demands for clear thinking permeated all areas of his work, and are in evidence in this very issue of ACCESS. For, if my original words have shown any sign of lapse, you can be sure an editor will have cleaned them up before they meet your eyes. Too many academics write poorly, but Mel insisted that all writing is a form of communication and must grip the reader as his teaching did his students. Perhaps death is a wicked problem after all, at least when we face how to confront the legacy of a magnificent human being. Death may have a physical finality, but we have choices on how to honor and learn from a life well-lived. Do we continue work that was in progress? Do we use the ideas as a basis for our own future thinking? How are those ideas to be understood in a variety of contexts? How must those very ideas change as transportation systems, cities, communities metamorphose over time? Ideas can live on and are perhaps our only way to immortality. Mel's ideas were powerful as well as humane, demanding generosity of spirit and leading to paths of constructive change. If we can incorporate at least some of Mel's principles in our own, the result can be anything but wicked. ----- Jonathan Richmond Visiting Professor Logistique, Transport et Tourisme Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers 5 rue du Vertbois 75141 Paris Cedex 03 France Home: 40 rue Paul Delinge 95880 Enghien-les-Bains France 1 (617) 395-4360 (US number forwards and rings in France. All calls billed as if to Massachusetts) e-mail: richmond@alum.mit.edu http://the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond/ From majero at adb.org Sat Dec 9 23:03:05 2006 From: majero at adb.org (majero at adb.org) Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 22:03:05 +0800 Subject: [sustran] May Antoniette Ajero/Consultants/ADB is out of the office. Message-ID: Thank you for your email. I'll respond to it after I return to the office on December 18, 2006. I have left for Better Air Quality (BAQ) 2006 Workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. While there, I may not have consistent access to email/internet. I will try to check if technology and schedule permits. I may be reached through mobile +62-81392885183. From eric.britton at ecoplan.org Tue Dec 12 02:48:37 2006 From: eric.britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:48:37 +0100 Subject: [sustran] New Mobility Agenda website overhaul - please critique Message-ID: <045901c71d4c$ae691230$6501a8c0@Home> Dear Friends, I have just spend much of the last week trying to make our New Mobility Agenda website at http://www.newmobility.org into a friendlier and more useful place for you and anyone who might come here for help, information or insight. It has been quite hard work, and at one point as you can imagine one actually becomes a bit snow blind and can no longer make out the balance and clarity of all this. Hence this call for help and a bit of independent judgment. It actually is a rather busy site, with anywhere from 30 to 100 people a day dropping in. Over the last two days, for example, we have had guests from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Serbia And Montenegro, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden , Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela. Which suggests to me that this is probably worth the work. So I wonder if I might ask you to go in, play with it a bit as your time and interest allow, and then let me know via a private note your views -- and above all what you think we need to do here to make this into something more useful and easier to get around in. Don't spare me your toughest criticism. That's just what we need. Kind thanks and I do hope you too find some use in this. Eric Britton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061211/d4ed5014/attachment.html From eric.britton at ecoplan.org Tue Dec 12 02:47:49 2006 From: eric.britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:47:49 +0100 Subject: [sustran] New Mobility Agenda website overhaul - please critique Message-ID: <045201c71d4c$8db4e0f0$6501a8c0@Home> Dear Friends, I have just spend much of the last week trying to make our New Mobility Agenda website at http://www.newmobility.org into a friendlier and more useful place for you and anyone who might come here for help, information or insight. It has been quite hard work, and at one point as you can imagine one actually becomes a bit snow blind and can no longer make out the balance and clarity of all this. Hence this call for help and a bit of independent judgment. It actually is a rather busy site, with anywhere from 30 to 100 people a day dropping in. Over the last two days, for example, we have had guests from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Serbia And Montenegro, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden , Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela. Which suggests to me that this is probably worth the work. So I wonder if I might ask you to go in, play with it a bit as your time and interest allow, and then let me know via a private note your views -- and above all what you think we need to do here to make this into something more useful and easier to get around in. Don't spare me your toughest criticism. That's just what we need. Kind thanks and I do hope you too find some use in this. Eric Britton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061211/9ea2ccc8/attachment.html From Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org Tue Dec 12 02:49:18 2006 From: Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:49:18 +0100 Subject: [sustran] New Mobility Agenda website overhaul - please critique Message-ID: <045e01c71d4c$c0dc6de0$6501a8c0@Home> Dear Friends, I have just spend much of the last week trying to make our New Mobility Agenda website at http://www.newmobility.org into a friendlier and more useful place for you and anyone who might come here for help, information or insight. It has been quite hard work, and at one point as you can imagine one actually becomes a bit snow blind and can no longer make out the balance and clarity of all this. Hence this call for help and a bit of independent judgment. It actually is a rather busy site, with anywhere from 30 to 100 people a day dropping in. Over the last two days, for example, we have had guests from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Serbia And Montenegro, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden , Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela. Which suggests to me that this is probably worth the work. So I wonder if I might ask you to go in, play with it a bit as your time and interest allow, and then let me know via a private note your views -- and above all what you think we need to do here to make this into something more useful and easier to get around in. Don't spare me your toughest criticism. That's just what we need. Kind thanks and I do hope you too find some use in this. Eric Britton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061211/63115b79/attachment.html From Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org Tue Dec 12 20:41:01 2006 From: Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:41:01 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Abject apologies for the triple hit . In-Reply-To: <000901c71dde$4d7050a0$01bbaa3c@coutwbbequrro> Message-ID: <02f001c71de2$78b65c60$6501a8c0@Home> Abject apologies for the triple hit on my request for your comments yesterday on our new website at http://www.newmobility.org . My computer ran amuck on me. Sigh. Eric Britton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061212/555e44c0/attachment.html From edelman at greenidea.info Fri Dec 15 09:59:59 2006 From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman) Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 01:59:59 +0100 (CET) Subject: [sustran] Asia's greenhouse gas 'to treble' Message-ID: <14312.194.149.113.177.1166144399.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> Asia's greenhouse gas emissions will treble over the next 25 years, according to a report commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). ... a conference in Indonesia has heard that while some Asian governments should be praised for toughening vehicle emissions standards, with many phasing out leaded gasoline, much work still needs to be done. "Transport is growing faster in most cities so transport emissions are a big part of the problem," Lew Fulton, a transport expert with the UN Environmental Programme, told the three-day Better Air Quality Conference 2006 in the city of Yogyakarta. "We're not only seeing increases in pollutant emissions. We're seeing huge increases in fuel consumption which is coupled tightly with (carbon dioxide) emissions," he said. "It's costing cities and countries ever increasing amounts of foreign exchange with the high oil prices that we've got." The World Health Organization said increased pollution in Asia is estimated to cause as many as 537,000 premature deaths each year, as well as a rise in cardiopulmonary and respiratory illnesses. Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6178683.stm ------------------------------------------------------ Todd Edelman Director Green Idea Factory Korunn? 72 CZ-10100 Praha 10 Czech Republic ++420 605 915 970 Skype: toddedelman edelman@greenidea.eu http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain Green Idea Factory, a member of World Carfree Network From Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org Sat Dec 16 20:55:53 2006 From: Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:55:53 +0100 Subject: [sustran] BRT videos - in progress In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <065701c72109$24d99510$6501a8c0@Home> Dear Colleagues, BRT videos: This - a readily available library of free videos and film clips which show how BRT works (and why not, where it may not) - may be available somewhere out there on the web -- but I for one have been unable to uncover anything quite like it. So we have decided to get to work and see if and how we might make something along these lines available on the New Mobility Agenda site (http://www.newmobility.org ). So if you go the New Mobility site today and look down way at the end of the left menu, you will see a final slot labeled Brainfood, then More, then click to BRT videos to see the beginning of this collection. The goal is to see how we might all get together to add materials that will be of use to cities, groups and people who want to know more about how this "new" transportation concept works. So if you have anything that we can add here, please either send it on in a form that we can then upload to YouTube -- or better yet to it yourself and let us know when it is on line. Let me know what you think about this, including your harsh criticism of the little introductory video, which as you will immediately see could be greatly improved. ;-) BRT Photos: Likewise we have started a collection of photos of BRT systems and details (that being where the devil is), kicking it off with a collection covering Paris's very nice indeed Mobilien systems - which you can see if you click first to the Media Library link on the left menu (toward to top) and then quite simply Paris BRT. But if you have others that you think might help cities and people to better grasp what this is all about, please either send us links, the images themselves, or create your own web album (you'll see how that works on the site). Eric Britton * Chinese * Dutch * English * French * German * Italian * Japanese * Korean * Portuguese * Russian * Spanish PS. You may or may not have noticed yet, but the entire New Mobility Agenda site has been massively overhauled to get us ready for the big push that is to begin in 2007. The year that is going to mark the difference. Stay tuned. Get involved. You are part of the solution. Machine Translations: Here is one example of how we are trying to apply simple free tools which can open up all the information contents of all these sites under the Agenda to people who may have some difficulties with the English language text here. The attached for example has been taken from the opening summary page for the New Mobility site, and if you click any of the indicated languages you will find a rough machine translation that pops up in another window. Handy, but just to be sure you may wish to click the link to the Help Desk that appears just below each of these translation boxes. [ Opens in own window ] [Click for * Help desk * ] PPS. Anyone out that who can tell us if the Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Russian 'translations' are working more or less correctly? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061216/fa7fc7b7/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 5806 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061216/fa7fc7b7/attachment.jpe From Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org Sat Dec 16 20:54:41 2006 From: Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:54:41 +0100 Subject: [sustran] BRT videos - in progress In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <064f01c72108$fb2c7c00$6501a8c0@Home> Dear Colleagues, BRT videos: This - a readily available library of free videos and film clips which show how BRT works (and why not, where it may not) - may be available somewhere out there on the web -- but I for one have been unable to uncover anything quite like it. So we have decided to get to work and see if and how we might make something along these lines available on the New Mobility Agenda site (http://www.newmobility.org ). So if you go the New Mobility site today and look down way at the end of the left menu, you will see a final slot labeled Brainfood, then More, then click to BRT videos to see the beginning of this collection. The goal is to see how we might all get together to add materials that will be of use to cities, groups and people who want to know more about how this "new" transportation concept works. So if you have anything that we can add here, please either send it on in a form that we can then upload to YouTube -- or better yet to it yourself and let us know when it is on line. Let me know what you think about this, including your harsh criticism of the little introductory video, which as you will immediately see could be greatly improved. ;-) BRT Photos: Likewise we have started a collection of photos of BRT systems and details (that being where the devil is), kicking it off with a collection covering Paris's very nice indeed Mobilien systems - which you can see if you click first to the Media Library link on the left menu (toward to top) and then quite simply Paris BRT. But if you have others that you think might help cities and people to better grasp what this is all about, please either send us links, the images themselves, or create your own web album (you'll see how that works on the site). Eric Britton * Chinese * Dutch * English * French * German * Italian * Japanese * Korean * Portuguese * Russian * Spanish PS. You may or may not have noticed yet, but the entire New Mobility Agenda site has been massively overhauled to get us ready for the big push that is to begin in 2007. The year that is going to mark the difference. Stay tuned. Get involved. You are part of the solution. Machine Translations: Here is one example of how we are trying to apply simple free tools which can open up all the information contents of all these sites under the Agenda to people who may have some difficulties with the English language text here. The attached for example has been taken from the opening summary page for the New Mobility site, and if you click any of the indicated languages you will find a rough machine translation that pops up in another window. Handy, but just to be sure you may wish to click the link to the Help Desk that appears just below each of these translation boxes. [ Opens in own window ] [Click for * Help desk * ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061216/0ef20008/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 5806 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061216/0ef20008/attachment.jpe From edelman at greenidea.info Sat Dec 16 23:18:28 2006 From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman) Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:18:28 +0100 (CET) Subject: [sustran] Re: BRT videos - in progress In-Reply-To: <065701c72109$24d99510$6501a8c0@Home> References: <065701c72109$24d99510$6501a8c0@Home> Message-ID: <19745.194.149.113.177.1166278708.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> Hi Eric, This is not a link to a video, but to a very high quality presentation, so perhaps it is useful, especially since it is in the USA? http://www.mta.net/projects_programs/orangeline/images/ol_interactive.htm - T > Dear Colleagues, > > > > BRT videos: > > This - a readily available library of free videos and film clips which > show how > BRT works (and why not, where it may not) - may be available somewhere out > there > on the web -- but I for one have been unable to uncover anything quite > like it. > So we have decided to get to work and see if and how we might make > something > along these lines available on the New Mobility Agenda site > (http://www.newmobility.org ). > > > > So if you go the New Mobility site today and look down way at the end of > the > left menu, you will see a final slot labeled Brainfood, then More, then > click to > BRT videos to see the beginning of this collection. The goal is to see > how we > might all get together to add materials that will be of use to cities, > groups > and people who want to know more about how this "new" transportation > concept > works. > > > > So if you have anything that we can add here, please either send it on in > a form > that we can then upload to YouTube -- or better yet to it yourself and let > us > know when it is on line. > > > > Let me know what you think about this, including your harsh criticism of > the > little introductory video, which as you will immediately see could be > greatly > improved. ;-) > > > > BRT Photos: > > Likewise we have started a collection of photos of BRT systems and details > (that > being where the devil is), kicking it off with a collection covering > Paris's > very nice indeed Mobilien systems - which you can see if you click first > to the > Media Library link on the left menu (toward to top) and then quite simply > Paris > BRT. But if you have others that you think might help cities and people to > better grasp what this is all about, please either send us links, the > images > themselves, or create your own web album (you'll see how that works on the > site). > > > > Eric Britton > > > > > > > > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_zt> Chinese > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_nl> Dutch > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_en> English > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_fr> French > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_de> German > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_it> Italian > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_jp> Japanese > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_ko> Korean > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_pt> Portuguese > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_ru> Russian > > * > g/wtpp/general/in-brief.htm&&lp=en_es> Spanish > > > > PS. You may or may not have noticed yet, but the entire New Mobility > Agenda site > has been massively overhauled to get us ready for the big push that is to > begin > in 2007. The year that is going to mark the difference. Stay tuned. Get > involved. You are part of the solution. > > > > Machine Translations: Here is one example of how we are trying to apply > simple > free tools which can open up all the information contents of all these > sites > under the Agenda to people who may have some difficulties with the English > language text here. The attached for example has been taken from the > opening > summary page for the New Mobility site, and if you click any of the > indicated > languages you will find a rough machine translation that pops up in > another > window. Handy, but just to be sure you may wish to click the link to the > Help > Desk that appears just below each of these translation boxes. > > > > [ Opens in own window ] > [Click for * Help desk * ] > > > > > > PPS. Anyone out that who can tell us if the Korean, Chinese, Japanese and > Russian 'translations' are working more or less correctly? > > -------------------------------------------------------- > IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via > YAHOOGROUPS. > > Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to > join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The > yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to > the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like > you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement. > > ================================================================ > SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, > equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries > (the 'Global South'). ------------------------------------------------------ Todd Edelman Director Green Idea Factory Korunn? 72 CZ-10100 Praha 10 Czech Republic ++420 605 915 970 Skype: toddedelman edelman@greenidea.eu http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain Green Idea Factory, a member of World Carfree Network From edelman at greenidea.info Sun Dec 17 23:10:51 2006 From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 15:10:51 +0100 (CET) Subject: [sustran] South American BRT field trip in 2.2007! In-Reply-To: <065701c72109$24d99510$6501a8c0@Home> References: <065701c72109$24d99510$6501a8c0@Home> Message-ID: <26595.194.149.113.177.1166364651.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> >From APTA website: http://www.apta.com/conferences_calendar/documents/south_american_brt_program_draft_11_17_06211.pdf ------------------------------------------------------ Todd Edelman Director Green Idea Factory Korunn? 72 CZ-10100 Praha 10 Czech Republic ++420 605 915 970 Skype: toddedelman edelman@greenidea.eu http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain Green Idea Factory, a member of World Carfree Network From eric.britton at ecoplan.org Mon Dec 18 02:38:15 2006 From: eric.britton at ecoplan.org (Eric Britton) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 18:38:15 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Etymological evolutions Message-ID: <00ad01c72202$2496a580$6501a8c0@Home> I am interested in the evolution of English-language words, particularly when that evolution is related to political agendas. George Orwell said that he developed *1984* by simply extending trends to their logical extreme. With regard to language, he wrote, The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees..., but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted..., a heretical thought... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. This was done... chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings.... Economics, particularly, suffers from an ambiguity of terms that other sciences do not allow. Economists sometimes take pains to qualify their use of these terms for greater precision, but politicians glom onto the results while substituting misleading definitions. Some of the substitutions are as follows. * "Invest" for "acquire" or "control." Encouraging investment is seen as a good thing, but this is in the sense of "putting something into," as distinct from "acquiring" or "controlling." A clear example of this usage is the parent who "invests in his child's education." In many cases, investment and control or acquisition go hand-in-hand, as when a person invests in his own business, etc. However, acquisition can occur without investment, as when one purchases stock without transferring money into the company purchased or property without making improvements to that property. * "Income" for "earnings." "Income" used to mean "that which comes in," especially of its own accord -- what we now call "passive income." When people in the 18th and 19th century debated the merits of income tax, passive income is what they had in mind. Today we speak of the "earnings of stock" and the "income of labor," completely reversing the original definitions and thereby clouding the issue. Today's so-called income taxes are actually earnings taxes, and are to a significant degree payroll taxes. * "Wealth" for "obligations." When Adam Smith wrote *Wealth of Nations*, he was careful to distinguish between actual wealth that made the entire nation more prosperous and obligations between one citizen and another that had no effect on wealth. Today we encourage "savings" of money in banks at the expense of inventory in warehouses. As some deposit money and others borrow it, we are increasing obligations, not wealth. * "Value" for "utility." Smith was also careful to distinguish "value in exchange," or what we now call market value, from "value in use," or utility. Popular arguments that "all value is subjective" stem from confounding market value with utility. * "Capital" for "assets." This is similar to the confounding of wealth and obligations. Economics is predicated on three factors of production, land, labor and capital. For capital to be intelligently discussed as a factor of production, its definition must, at the very least, distinguish it from other factors. Yet we frequently see all assets, including land and debt obligations, described as capital. * "Human capital" for "labor." This is just an extension of the previously described ambiguity. * "Labor" for "unions." As a factor of production, labor must include all people whose input, whether physical or mental, contributes to the productive process. However, both the supporters and detractors of labor unions use the term "labor" to mean "unionized labor," or, at least, "wage labor." * "Spending" for "exchanging" or "rendering" When a candle is spent, the candle no longer exists, but when money is spent, it is merely in someone else's hands. While increasing the circulation of money is considered to be good for the economy, spending money, which means exactly the same thing, is treated as bad for the economy. While wasteful government spending can indeed be bad for the economy, the presumption that spending money is a negative unto itself comes from this confounding of meanings. * "Savings" for "loans." This is an offshoot of confounding money with wealth. Putting money in a bank is not saving wealth, but is making a loan to a borrower with the bank as an intermediary. * "Rights" for "privileges." Rights in the sense of free speech, universal suffrage, due process, etc., are fundamentally different from privileges that are conferred, such as "the 'right' to operate a taxi, etc. Terms like patent rights, broadcast rights, contractual rights, property rights, etc., are given weight and sanctity by their sharing a term that also applies to universal human rights. * "Privatization" for "patronage." Privatization is one of the more recent euphemisms. It rarely means government stepping out of the picture or even giving up control. More often, it means government hiring a company to provide a service instead of hiring individuals directly. Tammany Hall, the most notorious patronage machine in American history, was based almost entirely on contract patronage. The switch to direct employment and civil service was one of the great reforms of the progressive era. * "Common" for "government" or "collective." Prior to Marx, "common rights" were individual inalienable rights that each person held as a human being and a member of a society that respected those rights. Both the left and the right are quick to confound the two. (I wrote an essay on this at: http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html * "Free market" for "status quo." The left and the right both refer to the status quo of business relationships as the free market -- one in attacking it and the other in defending it. One libertarian wag even argued that the emancipation of slaves was an interference in the free market, which would have solved the slavery problem on its own. The absurdity of a free market in slaves was lost on him, and less obvious ways in which the status quo cannot be called a free market are lost on many people from across the political spectrum. * "Capitalist" for "landlord." An owner of a $9 million apartment building on a $1 million dollar lot is referred to as a landlord, even though his asset is 90% capital and only 10% land. Yet an oil company is referred to as capitalist even if its assets are 90% land and natural resources and only 10% capital. * "Single owner" for "monopoly." The term "monopoly" used to refer to any asset that was controlled by a subset of the population to the detriment of the rest of the population. Thus, import tariffs gave domestic producers the ability to charge a monopoly premium, etc. Neoclassical economists deflected anti-monopoly sentiments by simply redefining the term. However, the original term is still understood in common speech, as when women complain that the louder, more aggressive men tend to monopolize the conversation. This evolution of terms has a variety of causes, I think. In some cases, mere self-image concerns are sufficient to cause the substitution of a more flattering term. Certainly a person would rather describe himself as "an investor" than "an acquisitor." Other times it is common usage spilling into usage as an economics term, as when an apartment owner is referred to as a landlord. Sometimes it is ad-hominem analysis substituting for process analysis. Is a capitalist someone who owns capital or someone who believes in capitalism, and why is analyzing that person a substitute for analyzing the process in the first place? And, sometimes it is part of an intentional effort to deceive, as when the neoclassical school of economics was founded by people who had explicitly stated their interests in changing the debate from being pro or anti monopoly to being pro or anti socialist. In any case, I am looking to trace these etymological changes back to their roots. Some words go back even farther, and are quite interesting: "Mail," "impost" and "tax" were close synonyms. (The tax collector used to supplement his income by carrying letters and goods from one taxpayer to another, which is how the tradition of government employees carrying the mail began.) Those who could pay their taxes in silver were paying "white mail." As poorer people who had no money were taxed by portions of their goods being taken, it was called "black mail." The OED says that "real," as in "real property" or "real estate" comes from the latin "res," and is unrelated to "royal." Yet the word arose when real property was distinguished from the commons as "property held by the Crown" (or held by a landlord under the auspices of the Crown) at a time when "royal" was indeed spelled "real." It therefore seems odd that the obvious connection to royal property is not the recognized connection. Similarly, the title to land originated as part of the royal title. For example, the lands of Sussex went to the Earl of Sussex, and when the king granted the one title, he automatically granted the other. My understanding is that the official ceremony, wherein the king laid his sword on the shoulders of the person being titled was called the "deed," from which the term of title deed arises. These etymological evolutions and etymologies have a great deal to do with the fuzzy thinking that dominates economics and politics. If anyone has other examples, I would like to add them to this list. If anyone has ideas on how to further research the evolution of these terms, I would also be interested in that. Sincerely, Dan Sullivan -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 9896 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20061217/b1bb0177/winmail.bin From SCHIPPER at wri.org Mon Dec 18 13:00:11 2006 From: SCHIPPER at wri.org (Lee Schipper) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:00:11 -0500 Subject: [sustran] Are the streets safe in Hanoi? Message-ID: Looking down on the street from the Melia Hotel in Hanoi I can confirm the traffic this article describes. Caught in the swarm How Hanoi's chaotic traffic system fascinated, and almost killed, MIT computer-science guru Seymour Papert (AP Photo) By Matt Steinglass | December 17, 2006 THE FIELDS OF computer science and education suffered a blow on Dec. 5, when Seymour Papert, the 78-year-old cofounder of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, was struck by a motorbike in Hanoi. Papert, who had come to Hanoi for a conference on teaching math with computers, remained in a coma as of Friday. Article Tools * PRINTER FRIENDLYPrinter friendly * SINGLE PAGESingle page * E-MAILE-mail to a friend * RSS FEEDSIdeas RSS feed * RSS FEEDSAvailable RSS feeds * MOST E-MAILEDMost e-mailed * REPRINTS & LICENSINGReprints & Licensing * Share on Facebook * Tag with Del.icio.us Save this article * powered by Del.icio.us More: * Ideas section | * Globe front page | * Boston.com * Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | * Breaking News Alerts Strangely, shortly before the accident, Papert had been discussing how to build a computer model of Hanoi's notoriously chaotic traffic. He found it an interesting instance of a theme closely associated with his work: "emergent behavior," or the way that large groups of agents following simple rules, with no central leader, can spontaneously create sophisticated systems and activities. Examples include schools of fish, anthills, bee swarms, and, apparently, Vietnamese motorbike drivers. Papert's involvement in emergent behavior grew out of Logo, a child-friendly programming language he invented in the 1970s for teaching math. Kids initially used Logo to drive an electric toy, which Papert called a "turtle." To program the turtle to drive in various patterns, the kids had to figure out how to do plane geometry. Logo turtles exemplified Papert's interactive educational philosophy, which he calls "constructionism." Like all the best inventions, Logo turned out to have applications far beyond those it was built for. Once modified to run multiple on-screen, virtual turtles, it turned out to be a perfect way to model emergent behaviors. Programmers could create thousands of turtles, then program them to hunt for "food" and follow the trails of other turtles that had found it. Pretty soon, they had an anthill. Other turtles might be programmed to stay close together, move quickly, and avoid hitting each other or any obstacles -- and become a flock of birds. As the inventor of Logo, Papert helped set off an explosion of interest in emergent behaviors in the 1990s, when many of the Internet's early enthusiasts began to see the global online network as a kind of self-organizing swarm composed of human beings. In his 1994 book "Out of Control," Kevin Kelly, then executive editor of Wired magazine, praised the superiority of distributed intelligence over central control. He was particularly enamored of bee swarms, coining the term "hive mind," which he claimed encapsulated "the true nature of democracy and of all distributed governance." Like bees, Hanoi motorbikes move in swarms, unrestrained by laws, lanes, or traffic signals. Somehow, the swarm self-organizes to keep people moving and, mostly, not crashing into one another. Papert was fascinated, and spent his first days in Hanoi talking with his former student, Northwestern computer scientist Uri Wilensky, about how to use NetLogo (Wilensky's modification of Logo) to model the city's traffic flow. As the two were crossing a six-lane road separating their hotel from the university, Papert was hit. That Papert was struck by Hanoi's traffic while thinking about how to model it is ironic, in the proper sense of the word. It's as if he had been hit by one of his own turtles. One of the first people to use Logo turtles to model traffic was Papert's MIT colleague Mitchel Resnick, author of the 1994 book "Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams." Resnick, like Kelly, was an evangelist: he saw recognition of emergent behaviors as part of an epochal shift away from Newtonian mechanical models and toward biological ones. The thrill of such spontaneous organization is familiar to anyone who has ridden a motorbike in Hanoi. Traffic in Hanoi is a self-defining flow of merging groups. Lights are few and often ignored, and divisions between lanes are determined less by lines on the ground than by a shifting, implicit group consensus. "Hanoi is one of the first places I've been, even more than in Delhi, where traffic really is organic," says Wilensky. "It really is more like a herd of buffalo." The system would be impossible without a large reserve of tolerance and informality. Newcomers to Hanoi, who are often unable to figure out how to cross the street, are told to step into traffic at a steady pace; the motorbikes will part around you. When the city began introducing traffic lights some years ago, a Vietnamese performance artist went to one of the busiest intersections in town and videotaped himself repeatedly crossing against the light to see whether traffic would make way for him; it did. "People were still nice," as he put it -- they hadn't yet embraced the tyranny of traffic lights. So far, so emergent. But there's a problem: as Vietnam grows richer, the number of motorbikes and cars on the street is rising furiously. >From 2002 to 2004, the percentage of Vietnamese households owning motor vehicles went from 22 percent to 33 percent. These new vehicles are pouring into a hopelessly inadequate grid of winding alleyways, ancient dike roads, and Soviet-style highways. And as density rises, drivers behave more aggressively: 9,400 Vietnamese died in traffic accidents in the first nine months of this year, up 8 percent from the same period in 2005. Worse, Wilensky says that when Papert was hit, he was obeying the Hanoi rule he'd been taught: walk across at a steady pace. But the driver failed to make way for him. Clearly, the rules are changing. And when rules change, the swarm no longer functions very well. "If you don't have uniform rules, then you don't have as much predictability," Wilensky says. Density also increases the risk of ripple effects from faraway events, which create sudden unpredictable moves by other drivers. All of this, Wilensky says, argues for more formal regulation -- traffic lights, crosswalks, speeding tickets. "If there were any good that could come out of this, it would be that they pay some attention to the traffic problem. It's out of control." One thing about emergent phenomena that the pioneers of the field tended not to emphasize is that they are often unkind to their constituent agents: Ant colonies are not very solicitous of the lives of individual ants. Hanoi traffic is a fascinating emergent phenomenon, but it didn't take good care of Seymour Papert when he became one of its constituent agents. As a result, the world risks losing one of its greatest thinkers about emergent phenomena. "Seymour is still, at 78, extremely actively contributing to so many things, intellectually," says Wilensky. "He was not at all done." Let's hope he still isn't. Matt Steinglass lives in Hanoi, where he reports for the Globe and other publications. ? Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company. From edelman at greenidea.info Tue Dec 19 12:35:13 2006 From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman) Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:35:13 +0100 (CET) Subject: [sustran] Recent developments in hybrid guided "bustrams", ultracaps and BRT Message-ID: <13940.194.149.113.177.1166499313.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> Hi, Following is a rather recent development for a hybrid guided "bus" or tram?... and it seems an evolution from previous concepts of guided (but not rail-based) tram/bus systems as it incorporates engines and flywheels and offers fuel cells and docking stations for flywheel or ultracaps as options. It is also in testing mode, not just an idea. The Die Welt article is in German. Also, after that I include some info on ultracap applications in DMUs and a very-interesting adjustable-length bus for BRT and other applications: Hybrid bustram or trambus... from company website: Description: Description, in short PDF form: Description, in longer, detailed PDF: *** Article from Die Welt in November: Green car congress article, including interesting technical (but very readable) discussion below: ************* This is a recent presentation about ultracap tram in France and its possibilities for adaptation to light and medium-sized DMUs: ************ This is adjustable-length (!!!) bus for BRT and other bus systems, a cousin of the Autotram above... no pictures yet it seems, but I will try to get some: - T ------------------------------------------------------ Todd Edelman Director Green Idea Factory Korunn? 72 CZ-10100 Praha 10 Czech Republic ++420 605 915 970 Skype: toddedelman edelman@greenidea.eu http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain Green Idea Factory, a member of World Carfree Network From Eduardo.Kohlberg-Ruiz at hubner-germany.com Tue Dec 19 16:49:46 2006 From: Eduardo.Kohlberg-Ruiz at hubner-germany.com (Eduardo Kohlberg-Ruiz) Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:49:46 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Antw: Recent developments in hybrid guided "bustrams", ultracaps and BRT In-Reply-To: <13940.194.149.113.177.1166499313.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> References: <13940.194.149.113.177.1166499313.squirrel@mail.smartweb.cz> Message-ID: <4587A7A9.A697.00AE.0@hubner-germany.com> Hi Todd, That is an interesting article, I am really appreciated!! Thanks again Eduardo Kohlberg >>> "Todd Edelman" 12/19/06 4:35 >>> Hi, Following is a rather recent development for a hybrid guided "bus" or tram?... and it seems an evolution from previous concepts of guided (but not rail-based) tram/bus systems as it incorporates engines and flywheels and offers fuel cells and docking stations for flywheel or ultracaps as options. It is also in testing mode, not just an idea. The Die Welt article is in German. Also, after that I include some info on ultracap applications in DMUs and a very-interesting adjustable-length bus for BRT and other applications: Hybrid bustram or trambus... from company website: Description: Description, in short PDF form: Description, in longer, detailed PDF: *** Article from Die Welt in November: Green car congress article, including interesting technical (but very readable) discussion below: ************* This is a recent presentation about ultracap tram in France and its possibilities for adaptation to light and medium-sized DMUs: ************ This is adjustable-length (!!!) bus for BRT and other bus systems, a cousin of the Autotram above... no pictures yet it seems, but I will try to get some: - T ------------------------------------------------------ Todd Edelman Director Green Idea Factory Korunn? 72 CZ-10100 Praha 10 Czech Republic ++420 605 915 970 Skype: toddedelman edelman@greenidea.eu http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain Green Idea Factory, a member of World Carfree Network -------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via YAHOOGROUPS. Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). From schipper at wri.org Wed Dec 20 08:08:32 2006 From: schipper at wri.org (Lee Schipper) Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:08:32 -0500 Subject: [sustran] Re: [KyotoWorldCities] - India Pune should focus on public transport Message-ID: Story is accurate except it forgot to mention that EMBARQ and partners in the three cities did the study, NOT ADB or CAI per se, although their support and inputs were invaluable. The final report and city reports are on the CAI web site... Lee Schipper Director of Research EMBARQ, the WRI Center for Sustainable Transport 10 G St. NE Washington DC, 20002 +1202 729 7735 FAX +1202 7297775 www.embarq.wri.org >>> eric.britton@ecoplan.org 12/19/06 8:58 AM >>> Pune should focus on public transport: study Friday, December 15, 2006 http://www.indiaenews.com/business/20061215/32637.htm Asian cities like Pune need to give priority to public transport that meets their economic requirements rather than accommodating more vehicles, says a new study backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). 'In many cases, the emphasis has been on adding roads or building high cost systems such as rail-based metros at the expense of more environmentally sustainable modes such as non-motorised transport and lower-cost bus systems,' says the study 'Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia' made available Friday. The result is high level of pollution, says the research carried out by the Partnership for Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia (PSUTA), a pilot programme of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia). The study was funded by the Swedish International Development Agency and the Shell Foundation through ADB, and the World Resources Institute's Center for Transport and the Environment. Done in partnership with three Asian cities (Hanoi in Vietnam, Pune in India, and Xi'an in China), the study is aimed at helping decision makers better understand the long term viability of the urban transport systems and develop more structured approaches to policy making. 'The air pollution from motor vehicles is particularly serious in Pune but also bad in Xi'an and in Hanoi, because roughly 50-70 percent of all trips in these cities are made on foot or by two or three-wheeled vehicles. Exposure of a majority of people to direct emissions from motor vehicles is a problem,' the study states. 'Vehicle fleets are doubling every five-seven years,' Bindu Lohani, director general of ADB's Regional and Sustainable Development Department, is quoted in the study as saying. 'Poor road safety, increa