<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)">  <style>  </style>  </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple> <div class=Section1> Paris, Wednesday, June 03, 2009<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Dear Sustran Friends,<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> This forum has been so very useful since the day in October 1999 -- almost ten years ago already? --  that I signed in to join  Paul Barter as the first enthusiastic participant in this great collaborative adventure. But after years of vitality, we appear  to have lost steam, So with your permission I would like to swap a few ideas with you all – after all there are 133 of us – about ways in which we can now be more useful to each other. And above all to be able to make much needed contributions to the reform to sustainable  transport in the Sustran region.  Here are my best thoughts on this today:<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <![if !supportLists]>1.      <![endif]>Expand membership: We need to recruit new members, bring in new blood, energy and ideas.  What if each of us reaches out at least to one respected colleague to bring them into this group dialogue?  More than one, great! <o:p></o:p> <![if !supportLists]>2.      <![endif]>Extend regional coverage: And certainly if we can stretch our wings in China, Korea and other parts of the region who until now have been notably absent in the exchanges. We need to hear from them about projects, initiatives and ideas in and from their countries – including very bad ideas and policies, awareness of which is surely part of our job. We just do not thus far have a sufficiently wide reach within our region. <o:p></o:p> <![if !supportLists]>3.      <![endif]>Gender parity: And we do need to bring more women into this great forum. More than 90% of our group are X- chromosome deficient. Not only that, we know that transport policy and investment have in the past – i.e., the mess in which we find ourselves today – have been the exclusive domain of males. We need not only to bring in women leaders and participants in the new mobility movement to ensure transport that is not only equitable but also efficient and well matched to the needs of all. Strong female participation at the top is about the only way that I can think of to bring this about. <o:p></o:p> <![if !supportLists]>4.      <![endif]>World Streets inputs: I have tried to juice things up here in Sustran on two occasions by plugging us into the World Streets stream, but to my mind this is too aggressive and too generalist to be appropriate to our concerns here. Thus I will cut off this automatic feed tomorrow and instead share with you all more selectively. <o:p></o:p> <![if !supportLists]>5.      <![endif]>Of course we want to have you signing into World Streets on a regular basis – <a href="http://www.worldstreets.org">www.worldstreets.org</a>.  It is after all – or at least this is the way I see it and am trying to execute – a natural complement and extension to Sustran. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> So here we are in what is truly an age of and time for new mobility, and if anyone needed a wake-up call they now have it with the sudden shrinkage of the hard core of the old mobility age, the end really of GM and Chrysler as we knew them.  We need to be here to take up the relay. This is our opportunity.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Let’s put Sustran and World Streets in the front row.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Warm regards from Paris dear colleagues,<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Eric Britton <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>                        World Streets (Plan B)<o:p></o:p> <img border=0 width=243 height=210 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01C9E423.91D5B560" alt="cid:image001.jpg@01C8DAF3.F7EBC130"> <o:p></o:p>                Technology transforms time and space<o:p></o:p>                                              . . . and our minds<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>   New Mobility Partnerships  – <a href="http://www.newmobility.org/">http://www.newmobility.org</a> <o:p></o:p>        & check out World Streets -- <a href="http://www.worldstreets.org/">www.Worldstreets.org</a> <o:p></o:p>       Europe:   8/10 rue Joseph Bara,     75006 Paris,  France    <o:p></o:p>         T:  +331 4326 1323  or  +339 7044 4179   Skype: ericbritton<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html>