[sustran] Tell the world about the leading edge of sustainable transport in the Asia-Pacific region.

[Eric Britton]

Dear Friends,

Please tell me if I have this wrong?

I don't understand why this excellent forum is not being more and better
used. There is so much that is going on in South East Asia, and there was a
time when Sustran was a first rate source of information and independent
critical views on transport projects and policies, good and bad, in cities
across the Asia-Pacific region. But this is not happening now for some
reason.

Is it because someone is doing this better? If so, who is it and how can
one, how can we, plug in to benefit and better understand what is going on?
And in turn communicate some of this to our international readers on World
Streets. (One of the great things about Sustran was that it did not overload
the busy reader. One or two good front line communications or comments a
day, nicely organized by topic. Great stuff!)

It is my view that the key to success lies in sticking to the region.
African, Latin American and readers in other parts of the Global South can
check in here, but I really think it is not the comparative advantage of
Sustran to try to cover the whole of the Global South. Here are World
Streets we are trying to lend a hand with a number of African colleagues, to
get something along the lines of an African Streets forum and news source
going. It's still early days, but if you stay tuned you will surely see
progress there. Likewise our friends in Latin America are gradually weaving
their webs, so I really do not see that the comparative advantage of Sustran
is to try to offer first line coverage of either of these two important
regions. 

One small thing we have recently  introduced over at World Streets is a
"news hot link" which draw attention to the latest posting on Sustran. You
will see it if you scroll down the left column a bit. The idea is to draw
the attention of our pretty substantial readership to Sustran. Perhaps a
start at better interaction and coordination. 

I very much hope that we can inject new life into this great forum.  (Might
this be one more  case of the famous: "location, location and location"?)

Eric Britton

PS. And for my part, I have to say that from World Streets we have ported
too much information over to Sustran in these last months.  Pardon. Let me
see if I can do this in a more time-economic manner. Thinking on it friends.




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