[sustran] 'elephant in the bedroom' computer game?'utsg@jiscmail.ac.uk

[Eric Britton]

Is this true or not? The 'elephant
<http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Bedroom-Automobile-Dependence-Environment/dp/093
2727654/ref=reader_req_dp/002-3342033-9727231?ie=UTF8>  in the bedroom' thesis
of cars and cities?

 

A key tenet of the New Mobility Agenda and the core of all that concerns us here
is that there is a rather simple but ineluctable geometric conflict between cars
and cities. Namely that most cities can accommodate a certain quantum of private
cars in traffic and within their existing urban form and infrastructure up to a
certain point - beyond which something has to give. 

 

Either (a) you adapt the city to the exigencies of an expanding population of
cars - by adding capacity, expanding infrastructure, increasing vehicle speeds
and throughput, etc.  (the
<http://www.ecoplan.org/briefs/general/old-mobility.htm#quick>  'old mobility'
approach to transport in cities.) Or alternatively you search for  ways to
advance and adapt the mobility system to keep within the dimensions and social
and economic dynamics of the historic city.  The sine quo non in both cases is
that the mobility arrangements whatever they are not undermine the local economy
and the overall sustainability of the city (otherwise after a bit you will have
no city left, or at least one with a very different economic and life quality
profile).

 

Against this background, my question today is to ask your counsel in the
following?

1.      Do you know of the existence of a game which demonstrate visually the
'carrying capacity' of a city for car-based transport - and can also help us to
understand what happens when you reach some kind of critical threshold and
decision point?

2.      It might be a board game -- or probably far better something along the
lines of Sim City which can handle the variables that need to be factored in and
inspected in terms of their cumulative results.

3.      The ideal game to my mind  would be a somewhat interactive game that
would permit the player to set a certain number of parameters which reflect the
situation in their city, and then so start to play with the numbers.  And when
we reach a decision point and decide, as has all too often happened in the past,
to increase capacity, speeds etc. for the car component, it would be good to see
the results of the 'space take'; of this policy. 

4.      And while I dream, I would also like to have some kind of ballpark
estimates of performance under these various views of the city: fuel
requirements, CO2 production, even accidents, something about under- or
un-served groups, and a few other things. Should not be impossible, don't you
think?

 

And if such a game does not exist, might you be interested 

 

a.       To participate in a project which would have as its objective first to
research and define that main guidelines and parameters of such a game?

b.      And to look for some agency or other to help finance such an effort?

 

It would be lovely if you would be able to share with us information on such a
game and how we all can access and use it. And failing that to have your
comments and ideas for this proposal (which I have to think is not original, so
if we can link to something already underway along these lines, that would be
just splendid.

 

I leave you with a link to a shot of a well working old
<http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/wt_home-houston.htm>  mobility system.

 

Eric Britton

 

 

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