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

[Alan Howes]

Sounds rather like what our esteemed founder Sir Colin said in 1964, in
"Traffic in Towns" (and again in "I told you so" more recently).
 
Alan
 
--
Alan Howes
Associate Transport Planner
Colin Buchanan 
4 St Colme Street
Edinburgh      EH3 6AA
Scotland
email:  alan.howes at cbuchanan.co.uk <mailto:alan.howes at cbuchanan.co.uk> 
tel:      (0)131 226 4693 (switchboard)
           (0)7952 464335  (mobile)
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www: http:/www.cbuchanan.co.uk/

 

________________________________

From:
sustran-discuss-bounces+alan.howes=cbuchanan.co.uk at list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+alan.howes=cbuchanan.co.uk at list.jca.apc.
org] On Behalf Of Eric Britton
Sent: 25 September 2006 13:57
To: Sustran-discuss at jca.apc.org; utsg at jiscmail.ac.uk
Subject: [sustran] 'elephant in the bedroom' computer
game?'utsg at jiscmail.ac.uk



Is this true or not? The 'elephant in the bedroom
<http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Bedroom-Automobile-Dependence-Environmen
t/dp/0932727654/ref=reader_req_dp/002-3342033-9727231?ie=UTF8> ' 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 'old mobility'
approach <http://www.ecoplan.org/briefs/general/old-mobility.htm#quick>
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 mobility system
<http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/wt_home-houston.htm> .

 

Eric Britton

 

 


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