[sustran] Re: UN "ambassador" for public transport?

[Sunny]

Ah yes as the good prof says Ken Livingston would not be a bad 
ambassador. He even rides public transport and also a good example for 
political will!

cheers
sunny

Madhav Badami, Prof. wrote:
> Where's Mahatma Gandhi when we need him? There was a man who literally walked the talk (he also travelled third class; and as I recall, the only time he travelled First Class -- in South Africa -- he got ejected. Do UN ambassadors have to be living? Could we not use the example of people like Gandhi and Ivan Illich, a theologian who wrote more sane stuff about transport than most transport types, in addition to people like Senor Penalosa and Ken Livingstone?
>
> Speaking of Ivan Illich, I would recommend his "Energy and Equity" from the 1970s, which contains such insights as: motorized vehicles "create remoteness which they alone can shrink" and "create distances for all and shrink them for only a few"; automobile passengers "become consumers of others' time", and steal time from poor groups and reallocate it to usually richer groups, and finally, the transportation industry, in common with many of our other "service industries", exercises a radical monopoly by creating and shaping the need which it alone can satisfy.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Madhav
>