25 January 2007 Thanks Eric for this excellent exercise. Pune I would say is in Category 3 and somewhat stuck there. I will write in some detail soon. Warm regards, -- Sujit <div> On 1/25/07, <a href="mailto:eric.britton@free.fr">eric.britton@free.fr</a> <<a href="mailto:eric.britton@free.fr">eric.britton@free.fr</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> 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 -------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via YAHOOGROUPS. Please go to <a href="http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss">http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss </a> to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). </blockquote></div> -- ------------------------------------------------------ Sujit Patwardhan <a href="mailto:sujit@vsnl.com">sujit@vsnl.com</a> <a href="mailto:sujitjp@gmail.com"> sujitjp@gmail.com</a> "Yamuna", ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 India Tel: 25537955 ----------------------------------------------------- Hon. Secretary: Parisar <a href="http://www.parisar.org"> www.parisar.org</a> ------------------------------------------------------ Founder Member: PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum) <a href="http://www.pttf.net">www.pttf.net</a> ------------------------------------------------------