[sustran] Rewarding Initiative (Todd Litman)

[eric.britton at free.fr]

Paris, Thursday, January 18, 2007

 

Dear New Mobility, World Transport, Kyoto Cities, LotsLessCars, Land Café and
Global South Colleagues, wherever you may be this morning:

 

This is to express my heartfelt thanks to Todd Littman for all the fine work he
has done over these last years, and which he so generously continues to share
with all of us who care about these important matters.  Cracking the hard nut of
unsustainable transport and cities in desperate need of new ideas, examples and
practices is not something that any one of us will ever be do in isolation. But
by continuing to put our heads (and hearts) together, we will, I absolutely
promise you, be able to make a difference.

 

All this comes to mind this morning as I race over the two latest of his rich
offerings which just came in here yesterday: (a) “Win-Win Emission Reduction
Strategies” at http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf;
<http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf>  and (b) “Win-Win Transportation Solutions,”
at http://www.vtpi.org/winwin.pdf.  And then beyond that of course all that he
shares with us via the Victoria Transport Policy Institute and the ever-useful
Online TDM Encyclopedia at http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php.  What I so much
appreciate about Todd’s contributions and perspectives is that he takes on the
same issues which are right up the center of our preoccupations here of what we
call the New Mobility Agenda and which by any name is our common cause, and
gives us his specific vision and interpretations. Through all that he shares
with us, Todd informs me, reminds me, challenges me, and initiates a process of
questioning and rethinking which I find most useful and enriching.  

 

So thank you Todd for all that – and now what? Well, to get the ball rolling, in
addition to this all too brief note of thanks, I have just popped a small video
note ( a minute and a half) in which I try to set out a couple of ideas on this,
o which you can click directly from here via
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8312398871175245527
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8312398871175245527&pr=goog-sl>
&pr=goog-sl. (No big deal of course, but it always strikes me that richer forms
of communications such as this at times have their place, and this is one of
them) 

 

As you will see there, the idea is simply to provide an indication of our
collective thanks, possibly through a short (or less short is that is what you
prefer) email, possibly copied to the New Mobility Agenda Idea Factory via the
address NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com so that we can eventually work them into
some sort of compendium. In the past we have through our collective efforts
found ways to gain high profile public recognition for the work of several of
our colleagues and partners who are making important contributions to the
sustainable cities and sustainable lives challenges. I would just remind you
that thus far our list includes people like Enrique Penalosa (Bogotá), Hans
Monderman (Groningen), Jan Gehl (Copenhagen), Ken Livingstone (London), Lee
Myung-Bak (Seoul), Sue Zielinski (Toronto), and Wolfgang Zuckermann. As well as
a fair number of projects that are leading the way in areas such as carsharing
(Helsinki, San Francisco, Paris, Gothenburg), Walk to School programs, and yes
even Car Free Days here and there. 

 

Now I am not quite sure how all this ties in to how we might express our thanks
to Todd for all his hard work that serves many of us so well, but here you have
a thought and now let’s see what we do with it.  It’s your turn.

 

Eric Britton

Sustainable transportation, sustainable cities and sustainable lives: One city,
one project, one person at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

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