The basic idea behind these informal collaborative investigations is to see if we can find a way to harness the communications capabilities and working links that are increasingly available to us in the sustainable transportation community, in order to build a bit of useful knowledge together. For one example of how this is being done in another forum of The Commons, we would refer you to the special report on carsharing that is being constructed by the members of the @CarShare Consortium.

Here under this forum, we are taking as our first trial joint project a question about the eventual data and links that may exist between certain kinds of transportation investments and land use values in a given place. Here briefly is how we see this process as working:

1. The first step is to uncover a specific issue that is of eventual broad use to planners, policy makers, researchers and citizen groups working in the field of sustainable transportation, broadly defined.
2. This issue is then formulated in question form, and discussed and fine tuned by a small informal working group before being posted for comments, feedback, etc.
3. Once we have a good clear statement of our question, it can then be posted both on the @Access Forum and the several best specialized international Discussion Lists, most of whom we already know well and have worked with for some years.
4. The responses can then either be posted publicly and directly to this site (via the Group Mail utility), posted back to that Discussion List (which then needs to be monitored for these non-directed responses), or sent directly to the person here or elsewhere who has volunteered for the job of project manager (whose enviable job it is to chase all this stuff down and then to meld it into the final report).
5. After several weeks, a first short report is posted here in the @Access Library, and at the same time all those who have contributed the first wave of materials and suggestions are also contacted to let them know that a first set of results is already available.
6. Likewise, an effort will be made to provide links in the Links/Media section to the projects, programs and sources that risk to be of most use to the group as a whole.
7. These results can then be further commented and added to - all of which via either of the above means of communications.
8. Subsequently a "final report" can be posted in the @Access Library for all to consult and use freely.
9. If appropriate, these files can be added to and updated periodically.

That briefly is how we see it as working. Now, if you want to see the results of a first joint investigation (which is still in process), read on.

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If you have any ideas or reactions to any of this, you are invited to use Group Mail to contact the forum as a whole or a private note to the @Access team.

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