[http://www.strategy.newmobility.org] <div style="text-align: right;">Eric Britton, Editor, World Streets, Paris, France </div> World Streets is not exactly what you would call a neutral source. We have a very definite view concerning transportation policy and planning, which has itself come out of long <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_kbTo-M_pSuw/Sdm9FO8uKfI/AAAAAAAAAiI/JxoGbBK0G4M/s1600-h/eb-23mar09-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 178px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_kbTo-M_pSuw/Sdm9FO8uKfI/AAAAAAAAAiI/JxoGbBK0G4M/s200/eb-23mar09-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321492332324727282" border="0" /></a>experience with working with and observing transport in and around cities in many parts of the world. It would not be true to say that these views are unique for to us; indeed they have been distilled over the years as result of our conversations, contacts, in collaboration with farsighted colleagues and policymakers in many places. It is only appropriate that I clearly state the underlying philosophy of this new sustainability journal in no uncertain terms here at the outset. The New Mobility Agenda in brief The main reference point for all that you will read and commented on in these pages is the long-term program, the New Mobility Agenda, an international collaborative program focusing entirely on transportation in and around cities which has been in operation since 1988 with continuous interactive presence on the Internet as one of the pillars of the collaborative knowledge building process that is behind it. And this is what we have concluded: Virtually all of the necessary preconditions are now in place for far-reaching, rapid, low cost improvements in the ways that people get around in our cites. The needs are there, they are increasingly understood -- and we now know what to do and how to get the job done. The challenge is to find the vision, political will, and leadership to get the job done, step by deliberate step: But we have to have a coherent, ethical, publicly announced, checkable, overarching strategy. Without it we are destined to play at the edges of the problems, and while we may be able to announce a success or improvement here or there, the overall impact that your city needs to break the old patterns will not be there. We really need that clear, consistent, omnipresent strategy. The Agenda provides a free public platform for new thinking and open collaborative group problem solving, bringing together more than a thousand leading thinkers and actors in the field from more than fifty counties world-wide, sharing information and considering together the full range of problems and eventual solution paths that constitute the global challenge of sustainable transport in cities. What is wrong with "Old Mobility" We make a consistent distinction between what we call "old mobility" and "new mobility". The difference between the two is quite simple. And substantial. Old mobility was the form of transportation policy, practice and thinking that took shape starting in the mid twentieth century, at a time when we all lived in a universe that was, or at least seemed to be, free of constraints. It served us well, albeit with expectations, though we were blind to most of them most of the time. It was a very different world. But that world is over. And it will never come back. The planet was enormous, the spaces great and open, energy abundant and cheap, resources endless, the "environment" was not a consideration, "climate" was the weather, technology was able to come up with a constant stream of solutions, builders able to solve the problems that arose from bottlenecks by endlessly expanding capacity at the trouble points, and fast growth and the thrill of continuing innovations masked much of what was not all that good. But this is not the reality of transport in the 21st century, and above all in our cities which are increasingly poorly served by not only our present mobility arrangements, but also the thinking and values that underlie them. Our rural areas are likewise suffering and without a coherent game plan. We now live in an entirely different kind of universe, and the constraints which were never felt before, or ignored, are now emerging as the fundamental building blocks for transportation policy and practice in this new century. It's time for a change. And the change has to start with us. You see, we are the problem. But we can also be the solution. And it must be understood that the shift from old to new mobility is not one that turns its back on the importance of high quality mobility for the economy and for quality of life. It's just that given the technologies that we now have at our fingertips, and in the labs, it is possible for us to redraw our transportation systems so that there is less inefficient movement (the idea of one person sitting in traffic in a big car with the engine idling is one example, an empty bus another) and more high efficiency high quality transportation that offers many more mobility choices than in the past, including the one that environmentalist and many others find most appealing: getting what you want without having to venture out into traffic at all. Now that's an interesting new mobility strategy too. What makes Worldstreets and the New Mobility Agenda tick? Here you have in twelve short summaries the high points of the basic strategic policy frame that we and our colleagues around the world have pieced together over the years of work, observation and close contact with projects and programs in leading cities around the world under the New Mobility Agenda. (And if you click here you can see in a short video (4 minute draft) a synopsis of the basic five-point core strategy that the city of Paris has announced and adhered to over the last seven years. With significant results.) 1. Climate-driven: The on-going climate emergency sets the base timetable for action in our sector, which accounts for some 20% of GHGs. At the same time GHG reduction works as a strong surrogate for just about everything else to which we need to be giving priority attention in our cities, chief among them the need to cut traffic. Fewer vehicles on the road means less energy consumption, less pollution in all forms, fewer accidents, reduced bills for infrastructure construction and maintenance, quieter and safer cities, and the long list goes on And what is so very interesting about the mobility sector is that there is really a great deal we can do in a relatively little time. And at relatively low cost. Beyond this, there is an important joker which also needs to be brought into the picture from the very beginning, and that is that these reductions can be achieved not only without harming the economy or by quality for the vast majority of all people, but even as part of an economic revival which places increased emphasis on services and not products. 2. Tighten time frame for action: Select and gear all actions to achieve visible results within 2-5 year time frame. Spend at least 50%, preferably 80% of all your transportation budget on measure and projects that are going to yield results within this time frame. Set firm targets for all to see and judge the results. No-excuse transport policy. 3. Reduce traffic radically. The critical, incontrovertible policy core of the Agenda - BIG percentage cuts in VMT. If we don't achieve this, we will have a situation where all the key indicators will continue to move in the wrong direction. But we can cut traffic and at the same time improve mobility. And the economy. That's our strategy. 4. Extend the range and quality of new mobility services available to all: A whole range of exciting and practical new service modes are needed if we are to keep our cities viable. And they need to COMBINE to offer better, faster and cheaper mobility than the old car-intensive arrangements or deficit-financed, heavy, old-technology, traditional public transit. We need to open up our minds on this last score and understand that what is more important than being stuck in the past with the 19th century version of how "common people" best get about, and move over to a new paradigm of a great variety of ways of providing shared transport mediated in good part by 21st-century information communications technologies 5. Design for women: Our old mobility system was designed by and ultimately for a certain type of person (think about it). And so too should the new mobility system: but this time around it should be designed to accommodate specifically women, of all ages and conditions. Do that and we will serve everybody far better. And for that to happen we need to have a major leadership shift toward women, and as part of that to move toward full gender parity in all bodies involved in the decision process. It's that simple. 6. Packages of Measures: As distinguished from the old ways of planning and making investments what is required in most places today are carefully interlinked "packages" of numerous small as well as larger projects and initiatives. Involving many more actors and participants. One of the challenges of an effective new mobility policy will be to find ways to see these various measures as interactive synergistic and mutually supporting projects within a unified greater whole. A significant challenge to our planners at all levels 7. The shifting role of the car: State-of-the-art technology can be put to work hand-in-hand with the changing role of the private car in the city in order to create situations in which even car use can be integrated into the overall mobility strategy with a far softer edge. These advantages need to be widely broadcast so as to increase acceptance of the new pattern of urban mobility. The new mobility environment must also be able to accommodate people in cars, since that is an incontrovertible reality which will not go away simply because it would seem like an ideal solution. We are going to have plenty of small and medium-sized four-wheel, rubber tired, driver operated running around on the streets of our cities and the surrounding regions, so the challenge of planners and policymakers is to ensure that this occurs in a way which is increasingly harmonious to the broader social, economic, environmental objectives set out here. 8. Full speed ahead with new technology: New mobility is at its core heavily driven by the aggressive application of state of the art logistics, communications and information technology across the full spectrum of service types. The transport system of the future is above all an interactive information system, with the wheels and the feet at the end of this chain. These are the seven leagues boots of new mobility 9. Play the "infrastructure joker": The transport infrastructures of our cities have been vastly overbuilt. And they are unable to deliver the goods. That's just great, since it means that we can now take over substantial portions of the street network for far more efficient modes. 10. Frugal economics: We are not going to need another round of high cost, low impact investments to make it work. We simply take over 50% of the transport related budgets and use it to address to projects and reforms that are going to make those big differences in the next several years. 11. Partnerships: This approach, because it is new and unfamiliar to most people, is unlike to be understood the first times around. Hence a major education, consultation and outreach effort is needed in each place to make it work. Old mobility was the terrain in which decisions were made by transport experts working within their assigned zones of competence. New mobility is based on wide-based collaborative problem solving, outreach and harnessing the great strengths of the informed and educated populations of our cities. Public/private/citizen partnerships. 12. Pick winners: New approaches demand success. There is no margin of error. So chose policies and services with track records of success and build on their experience. To move ahead in time to save the planet and improve life quality of the majority of the people who live in our cities (no, they are not all happy car owner-drivers: get out there and count them. You'll see.), we need to have a fair, unified, coherent, and memorable strategy. This is the challenge to which World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda are addressed. -- Posted By Eric Britton (Paris, France) to <a href="http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/04/welcome-to-world-streets.html">World Streets</a> at 4/06/2009 10:39:00 AM