[sustran] [Fwd: Re: Slowth (was "Slow transport?")]

Carlosfelipe Pardo carlosfpardo at gmail.com
Wed Jan 2 07:49:59 JST 2008


didn't go through for some reason....

-------- Original Message --------

Yes! This was more or less what I was aiming at when I asked my initial 
question about "slow transport" or "slowth" or whatever name comes out 
of this. Other than the "tortoise and hare" concept, there are other 
arguments such as the whole idea behind slow food, slow cities and slow 
living in general (there have been various documents on this recently, 
such as the book by Wendy Parkins or the work of Paul Virilio).

It's also interesting to see what Peter Newman mentioned about human 
capacities of 20-30 km/h. If you look at the history of the bicycle, 
everyone was afraid to ride it because of the risk of getting "bicycle 
face" (your face would suffer a deformation due to the "high speeds" of 
the vehicle). Also, people did not like the train ride because they 
didn’t feel they could perceive the journey and its surroundings, due to 
its very high speeds (initially, around 30 km/h!).

And to make it all more complex, we have followed a process of “speed 
desensitization” (not sure if this term is right, it’s the shortest way 
to describe the concept): in the 19th century, trains h were 
“excessively fast” as were also bicycles, Today, speed limits of 30 km/h 
are difficult (or impossible) to enforce and bicycles and choo-choo 
trainers are the slowest vehicles one can think of. Thus, we don’t 
perceive the impressive acceleration of our daily lives, but we want to 
go faster.

To reiterate the idea from the beginning: In transport and land use, 
greater speeds generate greater distances traveled, which in turn can 
generate the idea (or action) of living farther from work, study and 
everything else. This normally has greater sprawl as a consequence, and 
thus greater energy use and increased emissions. Most of this is common 
to many, but the issue of speed as a factor in this is normally neglected.

I really think there should be more work on this issue of speed, and 
I've seen that speed (or slowness) has not been treated as a goal, but 
as a means for something else. If we improve the situation, we could see 
as a result: lower speeds = reduced distances traveled = living closer 
to work, study, etc =more appropriate densities = reduced energy use = 
reduced emissions… increased quality of life.

Thanks for your feedback, especially around new year!

Best regards,

Carlosfelipe Pardo


eric.britton wrote:
>
> Thanks, Carlos, Todd, Lee, Sujit, Simon.
>
> Much in this spirit I have for some years been a firm supporter of the 
> concept of “slowth” – that which occurs in situations when your top 
> speed is limited but somehow you get there first. Myriad examples 
> abound, and in addition to Aesop’s good write-up of this highly 
> technical point a few years back, we have the example of thousands of 
> cities – Paris being one -- in which you or I just about invariably 
> get there first if we take our bike and not our Ferrari.
>
> (I am not sure as to when or where I first ran into this word, but I 
> have been using it rather often in my own work for more than a decade 
> now.
>
> A traffic system based on slowth is going to be carefully calibrated 
> to lower top speeds – way 20 or 30 kph works well for me – but where 
> the entire system leads to far steadier flows and throughput, and, 
> with it, greater safety, lower emissions, and higher quality of life 
> all around.
>
> If I were a young traffic engineer, I would certainly want to make 
> this a pillar of my life work – which of course is exactly what 
> wonderful people like Hans Monderman, Jan Gehl and a growing cohort of 
> young practitioners are now doing. It’s a splendid thing to do.
>
> Eric Britton
>
> PS. Just looked slowth up in the Urban Dictionary which provides the 
> following, to me, rather unpromising definition: “Slowness. Generally 
> sloth-like behavior, especially of computers or co-workers.” 
> (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slowth)
>
> PS2. That done I next looked up slowth just now in the Wikipedia and 
> found no entry. But now if you go to 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowth you will see the following entry, 
> which I hope that one or more of you may wish to jump in and complete. 
> It’s a very important concept and really does need a far higher 
> profile. Words count.
>
> Slowth is a New Mobility 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Mobility&action=edit> 
> transport planning concept, describing a physical situation, usually 
> in a city, in which lower top speeds can lead to shorter overall 
> travel times.
>
> (The traditional "model" for this is of course Aesop’s tale of the 
> race between the tortoise and the hare, in which the slow turtle 
> arrives well before the fast rabbit.)
>
> This is a powerful model which transport and city planners are only 
> recently starting to take seriously.
>
> A traffic system based on slowth is carefully calibrated to lower top 
> speeds – 20 or 30 kph on most city streets is one common target – but 
> where the entire system leads to far steadier flows and throughput, 
> and, with it, greater safety, lower emissions, and higher quality of 
> life all around.
>
> ************ now help make this better. ******
>


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