[sustran] World's Most Congested Cities - Better, faster, cheaper

[eric.britton at free.fr]

		"Is this a new mobility agenda or a new travel agenda? - Dave
Holladay wrote on this date (See below)
 
I have tried over the years to provide my clearest possible answers to this
excellent challenge -- to which I can answer in brief that the crux of the New
Mobility Agenda, as I understand it, includes the refocusing of transport policy
and practice along much the lines that Dave has set out here.
 
Recently I tried to put it all on a virtual "page", which you can find at
Http://www.newmobilityadvisory.org/tfl.htm. If you do make it over there the
five minute video introduction and the "Philosophy" notes might be worth a
visit. In the latter in particular (in the whole thing in fact but your time and
interest may not allow for that) I would be most grateful for your critical
comments and suggestions. The whole thing is very much work in progress (after a
couple of decades what else might be expected), so anything that you kick in,
including challenges of course, will be very much welcome. 

In fact at the end of the day this is really a collective statement, with me
just serving in this instance as a temporary mouthpiece or amanuensis for the
best thoughts and strategies of my caring  international colleagues world-wide.
But this stuff, these points, this strategy do very much need to be brought into
the fore of the planning and decision agenda. Don't you think?
 
Kind thanks Dave for those good words,
 
Eric Britton
 
PS. What we call today the New Mobility Agenda has a fairly long "etymological"
history. Back in the early seventies we first called it by a whole range of
names with emphasis on words like "alternative transportation", "access",
"paratransit", "Telecommunications Substitutes for Transportation", and a few
others. By 1988, we were trying out for size "Cities without Cars?" (then in a
quick next step we got rid of that question mark), followed by "Sustainable
Transportation" (but it kept getting interpreted all around as a mainly critical
even negative concept), then on to "ACCESS", from which in the mid nineties to
STEP (Sustainable Transport Emergency Program), and only about a decade ago did
we hit the nail on the head and decide to call it the New Mobility Agenda, with
the emphasis on breaking the old mobility gridlocks and a clear eye to
sustainable development and social justice. But without endlessly waiting for
the promises of all those storied technology fixes and the rest to take care of
the problems without the pokey nose of civil society and active and informed
citizens. And so there we are today. Warts and all.
		 
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choices, placing them and ourselves firmly on the path to a more sustainable and
more just world.

 
		 
		-----Original Message-----
		From: WorldTransport at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:WorldTransport at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tramsol at aol.com
		Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 6:03 PM
		To: WorldTransport at yahoogroups.com
		Subject: Re: WorldTransport Forum World's Most Congested Cities
- Better, faster, cheaper
		 
		Is this a new mobility agenda or a new travel agenda?
		 
		Underground and overhead transport systems have a fatal flaw -
in order to deliver people to the diverse places that they want to get to each
'destination' requires an access point. and the economics (and commonsense)
dictate that we can only have a limited number of access points (stations) or
intersections on the freeway.  Real mobility is to actually get the person (who
is the fundamental focus of this exercise) between places they need to be for
the functions of living.  The ultimate is of course to live such that you expend
the minimum of effort and resources in doing this, by having living and working
space close together, and food and water supply equally convenient. Sadly the
style of many modern lives is one of dependency on others and dependency on the
need to travel distances at the cost of time and other resources, which given
the numbers doing this and the means by which they do it, in order to achieve
that individual journey package delivers congestion.
		 
		Reading Henry George particularly highlights how our Progress is
more to Poverty (of life and living conditions), as we claim to be increasing
our Prosperity.  However we've made our bed and part of the issue is making it
comfortable to lie in.  People do discover the convenience of abandoning the
motor car in towns, and flock to use cycles or buses, or walk because it works
for them, and this really turns a corner when enlightened authorities make sure
that the hierarchy of pedestrian primacy makes it easy to walk to the places you
need to go.
		 
		When you realise that there are more people slipping round
Oxford Circus on the 2-3 metre wide footways, than pass though on the 6.3m
carriageway you can see the answer to the congestion conundrum.  Around 200
people per minute can pass along a road lane width comfortably - compared to
clearing 20 cars with the typical 1.2 people in them as an uninterrupted flow
-add in junctions and stop-start features and that will plummet to 10
cars/minute or less.... concentrate a few thousand cars at an out of town
shopping mall and watch what happens when the shops close and they all try to
leave at the same time.... 1000 cars will take at least 1½ hours to get out of
one car park egress.....
		 
		       
		 
		Dave Holladay
		Glasgow

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