[sustran] Old Mobility rules - 5 kinds of cities

[eric.britton at free.fr]

I should like to propose to you a thinking exercise. It works like this.

Looking at them from a sustainability or Old/New Mobility perspective, I would
propose that there are basically five gross categories of cities in the world
today. Moreover, it's my guess that as you work your way down this list you find
that the number of cities in each progressive category grows much smaller. 

Here it is in a nutshell, with "worse" of course meaning more traffic, more CO2
et al each year.

Category 1.	Those cities who are doing nothing, getting worse fast, and
don't seem to care 

Category 2.	Those doing nothing, getting worse. . .  but who are starting to
worry. And who just don't know what to do about it.

Category 3.	Those who overall are continuing to do worse (i.e., who continue
to have growing traffic, more CO2, etc.), but have started to do a few better
things - examples, building some pedestrianization, cycling paths, buying more
buses, improved intermodal links, traffic engineering to smooth flows and
provide most consistent speeds.  And above all talking a lot about it. But who
from the bottom line are still spending their money in the wrong (old) way, such
that the only real impact of all this is to provide a cover for not really
attacking the problem at the root.

Category 4.	Those who have decided explicitly to break with past practices
and are starting to do long lists of good things. About these there are three
important things to be said: First that they are an extremely small minority.
Second, in every case I know, the basic bottom line traffic and environmental
indicators continue to move in the wrong direction.  And finally when you look
at the budgets they are still at the end of the day spending more on roads and
parking than on the rest. 

Category 5.	Cities how have bought into the New Mobility Agenda and have
adopted an aggressive integrated retrofit strategy for the sector with clearly
defined, publicly available benchmarks and indicators of both micro and macro
progress.  Who have radically revised their budgets in the transport and related
sectors, and are spending more on the new measures and programs than on road
building, etc. 

To close with three questions/requests. 

*	First to invite your comments, corrections, critical remarks,
refinements etc on the above. 
*	Second, to ask you where in this rough ranking you would put the city or
cities you know best.
*	And finally, to ask if you can tell me one single city in the world who
have made it to the final level --  one in which the move to sustainability is
currently on track and, in being so, able to provide a shining example for the
rest. (Though we have some great examples of cities that are real trying to dig
in at Cat. 4, and that already is a wonderful start. After all, it's a big shift
and we have to start somewhere.).

Kind thanks. 

		Eric Britton
		

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