[sustran] Re: Final comment on MCs

[Todd Edelman]

Setty wrote:

> Yes, people break the law, car drivers, mcycle drivers and also
> pedestrians
> and cyclists.  But that does not give the right to governments to ban one
> or
> all of thegroups from any location and decrease their mobility and
> increase
> their costs.  We need to be creative to produce solutions which convert
> our
> present urban structure into safe precincts for every one.  Those of us
> who
> have worked in Asia know that mcycles are family vehicles and they are
> actually the cars of the middle income people.
>
> The issues are complex and I have yet to see a simple and universal
> solution.  Whatever environmental rules we wish to abide by, they should
> be
> non-discriminant.
>
> Cheers from Vancouver.

I simply disagree that mobility should be the goal. If mobility is the
goal, then transport - and it could be any kind of transport - is the
solution, and sometimes it means that the richer one is the bigger the
negative effects their transport on others, and sometimes this is not the
case at all.

If access is the goal, which means bringing the things one needs closer to
the person who needs it, the mobility is decreased, but quality of life is
not.

"Solutions which convert our present urban structure into safe precincts
for everyone" should mean exactly that, conversion of the urban structure,
not simply a different transport solution for the same urban structure.

The "two-wheeled family car" is just a mobility tool, a transport
solution. A better solution is to determine how to bring this family what
it needs in the simplest, cheapest and most environmentally friendly way.
This means a real conversion of the urban structure is more important than
a modification of what moves inside the urban structure. Increasing
access, with proxmity - not mobility - as the way to do it, automatically
decreases discrimination, but it also means that the one cannot use a
transport means which discriminates against a simpler, slower one. This
means that walking is at the top of the hierarchy, bicycling is next,
followed by public transport, followed by motorcycles and cars until the
improvements of the first three make these last two unnecessary and
unwanted and impossible.

Their HAS to be a hierarchy. Any "solution" to allow pedestrians and
motorcycles to share the same space will always be far less than perfect.
Ideally the structure is made best for pedestrians, so everything else is
less than ideal, and has to have less priority.  Eventually, when a
motorcycle is not allowed, this does not mean increased discrimation
against motorcyclists and car drivers, it means a decrease of
discrimination against PT, cycling and walking.

Access via proximity, rather than by mobility (alternatively: Access via
proximity, rather than mobility via transport) needs to be a main goal for
quality of life in cities (and elsewhere). This is what we need to start
talking about, and this is what we need to tell others (politicians, "the
people") about.

- T

------------------------------------------------------

Todd Edelman
International Coordinator
On the Train Towards the Future!

Green Idea Factory
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++420 605 915 970

edelman at greenidea.info
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