[sustran] Another Penalosa link

[Robert Cervero]

Mr. Penalosa gave a talk this week at the University of California's Center 
for Latin American studies.  You
can find the presentation at:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/spring2002/04-08-penalosa/index.html

I'm teaching a course on comparative international transport this semester, 
and took my 25 graduate
students to Mr. Penalosa's talk.  The students seemed almost 
spellbound.  Mr. Penalosa definitely won over some converts to his vision 
of the sustainable metropolis.  What I found most telling was his 
perception that what people
most value -- happiness, quality of life, security for kids -- are things 
that can't be quantified.  Yet we
in the transportation profession are taught to express everything as 
metrics -- V/C ratios, accessibility
indices, net densities, etc.  Mr. Penalosa challenges us not only to 
rethink how we envisage cities
of the future, but also how we evaluate programs, monitor progress, and 
package things so as to allow elected officials to make informed judgements.

My first visit to Curitiba was in 1992.  I recall being bowled over by 
their seminal BRT system, but also being
struck how the city was, outside of the CBD, utterly un-walkable and 
un-bikable.  Subsequent visits haven't changed my opinion.  What most 
impresses me about Bogata is that it's move the cliche of "balanced, 
multi-modal" transportation from theory to practice.  It's a place where 
indeed one finds multiple respectable mobility options to the car.  I 
suspect meteorological conditions are just as favorable to biking/walking 
in southern Brazil as the highlands of Columbia.  Political leadership and 
thoughtfully ploughing resources into NMT, I suspect, largely account for 
the difference.