Overview: What, how, who, when.

Our approach:

More background here:

The politics of transportation and decision making

This project is above all about the politics of transportation and decision making at the level of the city. Yes, the quality of the ideas, measures and technical capabilities of all involved are important to ensure success. But at the end of the day they are but raw materials to feed a much broader process -- and it is this process, with its combination of vision, leadership and effective communications and consensus building in pluralistic democratic societies of great diversity of habits, views and interests, that will make it work .

The program set out here consists of two main components: (a) the cycle of focused quarterly briefing papers aimed at informing local decision makers in a highly compact and authoritative manner as to how to identify, chose and implement known effective but lesser known remedial measures in their city, made available on an annual subscription basis; and (b) a supporting process of information, dialogue and interaction which is available to subscribers and which has its intention to work with and support the Briefs one by one, to turn them from twenty nicely written text pages on their selected topic into effective instruments of on-street in-lung change in your city.

Your first visit here?

If so welcome -- and let's see if we can now give you a couple of quick hints that will help you navigate your way through this rather extensive set of materials, supporting information and leads without getting lost or wasting time:

Start here: Put here to give you a running start, we urge you to take five minutes to make your way down it in order to get a first feel for the issues and approaches that underlie this project. And then once you have done this, to make yourself a cup of coffee, kick up your feet, get comfortable, and spend twenty minutes or so with . . .

"Jump Start": A set of short videos compiled for you in an attempt to point up the universality of the problems of transport in cities, at its worst and eventually at something a lot better than that. For the most part not professional films, but if our topic interests you at all you should find some sharp reminders and brain food there.

Program Overview (this page): Not a bad place to start to get a feel for what this project is all about.

The Challenge: Why we are here.

Implementation guidelines: And finally, since the Briefs as 'print documents' are only the first step in the much broader process that needs to be engaged to make the necessary on-street changes needed to move your city one step closer to sustainability, we would suggest you check out at least the opening page of the Implementation section to get a feel for how this can work in your city.

Site Map and Search: Two very handy tools in case you get lost in this rather big site or need to find something. You will see the Site Map link always on line in the left menu toward the top. The Search box at the base of the menu should also be helpful

There you have it. Our best quick guide for your first visit. We hope you find it both enjoyable and useful, and challenging. And if you have thoughts as to how to make it better, or indeed any ideas or questions for us, all you have to do is click the Questions? link to top right and get in touch. And oh yes, by the way we answer our mail.

The Briefs - in brief

The Briefs have been created to offer mayors, city managers, Councils and local government, their staff and key policy makers, and groups and concerned citizens within their city who care about sustainability and the integrity of their transportation system - the people who hold the key to bringing on sustainable transport in cities - with . . .

A set of useful tools and thinking exercises which can help those who care enough in your city to turn the very general concept of "sustainable transport" into specific on-street reality

Presented in a highly readable format that gets to the point quickly - each Brief can be scanned for relevance in a few concentrated minutes and read in entirety in one hour.

Compiled and verified by leading world-wide practitioners and thinkers in each selected specialty area.

Saves countless days and months of research efforts on topics that are in general poorly understood from a practical policy perspective.

Gives the local leaders and their staffs the information they need to make more informed decisions.

With the key support material needed to promote their own proposals.

Saves them and them constituents much money and time by avoiding costly errors others have committed

Provides structured reinforcement for environmental and other groups in the city that are already engaged in the restructuring process.

Opens up some useful doors in case they want to take these new approaches further.

Presents and supports a process of interaction, consensus building and implementation at the local level which makes these far more than just twenty more passive pages that will end up on someone's bookshelves.

And all that for less than it costs you to send one staff person to a one day conference out of town or, if you prefer, one winter tire for one of your city buses.

Subscriber services/support

Private New Mobility Advisory Forum: Subscribers are given access to this reserved forum which has been set up to serve as an announcement and message center, discussion area, place to ask questions of the group, private library and key links - and in short serve as the main group communications turntable for both subscribers and all the active contributors to the Briefs, including the various editorial panels and the International Advisory Council.
Plan/project reviews: As subscribers begin to organize their ideas around a specific measure for local testing or application, they are invited to submit their draft plans for confidential review and commentary.
Hotline Support: Subscribers have access to the New Mobility Hotline support services to ask questions, discuss specific issues of special interest or to exchange ideas on implementation strategies in their city, specific projects or actions which they may be considering, and otherwise to seek counsel and whatever insights and leads that we can provide from here.
Private or Group Conferences: We can also organize in cooperation with one or more subscribers group conferences or review sessions via either telephone tie-ins, Skype group sessions, or several kinds of videoconferencing links. In each case, we need to get together to set out an agenda identify the participants, and set a convenient time, and make sure that everyone has in hand all that they need to participate efficiently and easily. For first information on the various kinds of links possible, click the Questions? link above.

More on the Briefs

Published quarterly, the Briefs are purpose-designed to inform, motivate and support mayors, aldermen, city managers, Councils, local government and decision makers on the lookout for new ideas and approaches to transform their cities. And just behind this first line, as a source of world-level information and leads for their planners, support staff, local consultants, transport and environment agencies and the main concerned public interests groups, stakeholders and agencies in their city.

Each issue tackles a pattern-breaking New Mobility measure, project, program, or action of high current interest - one that, while not in the traditional transport repertory, is today working and showing solid results on the street. And in a city not altogether unlike yours.
Each Brief focuses on a single near term policy, project, or action that can be identified, prepared and brought on line in your city -- and then demonstrate significant results within a period of months -- and certainly within a two-three year time horizon.
The job of each Brief is to winnow down the thousands of publications, reports, web links, and conflicting views on each topic to a readable authoritative policy guide that can be absorbed in a single hour.
The main source of content and authority starts from the New Mobility Agenda and its international focus programs, extensions, and the several thousand individuals and groups around the world who regularly check in and contribute to the discussions and exchanges in the various fora and networks.
Each Brief is overseen from beginning to end by a specialized Editorial Panel, brining together some of the leaders in the field, practitioners and expert observers representing a range of city types, countries and points of view - and thus ensuring the authority of the final report.
A Brief does not argue for its targeted approach -- rather it develops a considered, independent expert view of the topic in an informed and entirely neutral way.
It also, in a closing section entitled Better, Faster Cheaper, steps back from the selected approach and takes an independent look at ways in which some of the critical objectives that the city may have that underlie the desire to give this particular approach a try, might otherwise be achieved.

The Briefs are intended to be serve as base documents and working tools for a local Task Force representing different competences and portfolios (transport environment, local economy, etc.) and charged to scan these measure and report back succinctly to the mayor, Council or other local decision center to give their views on its eventual suitability for their city or community. (The subscription invites each city to print as many copies of each Brief as they need for these internal working purposes.)

By working with the local Task Forces and reporting directly to city leaders and decision makers, we are endeavoring to supply at very low cost and high efficiency an alternate set of ideas, background materials and support, beyond those which are presently being put forward by most purely transport experts and hierarchies. The Briefs, in a phrase, expand your available toolset, and not least inviting all concerned to think in entirely different ways about both problems and solutions.
A critical feature of each Brief is not only to clarify how a given policy, measure or tool can be organized for success in itself -- but also (and this is critical) to clarify what is needed from the city and the various concerned agencies to ensure full success, taking into account that none of these actions can be properly prepared and implemented in isolation. The system is, well, . . . systemic.

Each twenty-page Brief covers its topic succinctly reporting the leading practices and results to date world wide (including problems and solutions where they have been found), and features . . .

The Mayor's Page (In two parts: a three minute video report to the mayor, supported by a parallel two-page written Executive Summary with recommendations and cautions)
State-of-the-art overview: World-wide, in three concise pages
Guest Editors/Moderators, with in-depth operational experience and usually a recognized leadership position in the field
Critical commentary by an invited Op Ed contributor - who will be reporting mainly on the downside or potential difficulties or traps
Concise bibliography identifying most important and useful print and web sources
Contact information on leading sources of expertise, etc.
Better, Faster, Cheaper (See above)
Final click-to annex with synopsis of review commentaries from the Panel that point up the wealth and diversity of views and work on the topic from various parts of the world.

Vol. 1, No. 1, Winter 2007. Carsharing: Strategies for cities

Work plan and supporting materials
Editorial panel for Vol. 1, No. 1

The Briefs are supported by a professional Hot Line which provide an opportunity for the Task Forces, city leaders and their staffs to seek further counsel and background on each issue.

Subscription

Subscription rates: €450.00/US $495.00 year.

Introductory offer - good to 30 March 2007: €250/$295.
Click here for details.

Part II. Now some background on our topic & approach

The world-wide traffic jam
(of vehicles of course, but more difficult yet, of our thinking)

Most people appear not to have grasped this yet, but if you have your eyes open you will see that the simple truth is that we have arrived at a point of major discontinuity in our transport arrangements, in our cities and in our lives. If you look around your own city, what do you see? Increasing traffic congestion. More lost time year after year. Mounting pollution and associated public health problems. Accidents. City center in duress. Poorly served groups and areas. Swelling subsidy costs. And the long and sad list goes on. The old system may once have worked, but today it is clearly no longer doing its job.

What is worse yet, is that despite huge amounts of money spent to great promises, and even real point or sub-system innovations and improvements here and there, the overall trend is both already threatening on economic as well as environmental and life quality grounds. And getting worse at accelerating rates year after year as nothing effective is being done and the macro-trends for just about every metropolitan area ON THIS PLANET is degrading at an increasing rate. And now on top of all this, fears of $100 oil and global warming that becomes less of an intellectual question every year.

Fortunately not all the news is bad. Quietly a new era is taking shape and has already made sufficient progress so that it can be seen and learned from in the places where it is already doing its job -- offering real world, on-street and in-pocketbook improvements, many of which can be put to work in your city or community. And by contrast with traditional practices, these new approaches can generate results within an extremely short period of time -- and at much lower levels of cost.

What's the difference between the old transportation model and the one that is quietly taking its place? Well, the one that is winding down, often with considerable pain, is the hugely costly "all car/no real choice" system which has dominated public policy and private practice for more than half a century in most cities around the world. The big problem with the old system is similar to that of any kind of dominant monoculture: it simply lacks the variety and flexibility and hence the resilience and adaptability needed to ensure long term survival in a changing world.

What is starting to replace the old model in enough places and with enough success to mark the clear dawning of a new era is the "New Mobility Agenda", an international move to a more varied, complex, robust and synergistic transportation polyculture. What is striking about this is that the main driver for this transition lies not in fears of environmental catastrophe or oil shut-down, and not even in our collective good sense or our ethics, but rather in the fact that enough successful new practices and models are starting to show results that we now, finally, start to have real choices.

The job of the Briefs is to introduce the best of these approaches to you and your support team, one by one and with concise, informed and balanced appraisals for your policy decisions. In a world of almost endless newsletters, websites, reports and other sources of purported wisdom and wildly diverse counsel and views, the Briefs zero in on what we have learned from experience is the key missing link today: more informed and focused decision making at the level of local government. The city holds the key.

Each Quarterly Brief focuses on a single carefully selected priority topic; targets actions that can be brought on line in months and then show visible results in less than two to three years; reports specifically to the mayor, city manager and chief policy makers in the city; demonstrates proof of high competence in each of the areas tackled through their quality and the outstanding credentials of the international team behind them; (e) and finally they are, well, . . . brief!

Check it out. You will see that you have some new choices and that you almost certainly will be able to put some of these good ideas to work in your city. And if you are mayor today and like your job, the odds are that if you do this and get it right you will be mayor tomorrow. This stuff works.

The Briefs: How we fit in

The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Our activities and competences here at the Agenda are quite different from those of most of our more established international colleagues and working partners, who in all cases have much broader ranges of competences, challenges and interests, and more often than not stressing longer term thinking and solutions. Their work is very important. What we bring to the table with the Agenda by contrast is a very specific short term program with a single focus: very sharp CO2 and traffic etc. reductions within a target period of two to three years or less. And that's it! That's all we do.

As you will see if you click to Leading Groups link you will see more than one hundred groups and programs thus far identified as actively engaged in this or at least related areas world wide: each in their own way, in their chosen own target area, with their own time focus, with their own tools and goals. And, if they are lucky, with resources to do the job. In which case it's a fair question to ask: why should we as an informal world citizen consortium with no assigned institutional mandate dare to think about adding with our own efforts to all that? Might it not be preferable for us just to get out of the way let all these other people simply get on with the business at hand? Hmm.

Certainly no one thing is unique about what you will find here, other perhaps than the fact that like Sir Isaiah's diligent hedgehog we know only one thing: the need for dramatic, effective, short-term, no-excuses action in our chosen target area of transport and sustainability in cities. Against this backdrop here are the defining factors that in our view combine to make the Briefs a bit different from the rest, and quite possibly a good partner for you and your colleagues.

Single focus: a) Traffic in cities, (b) congestion, CO2 or other indicators of systemic dysfunctionality, (c) very sharp targeted decreases (20%?) in publicly targeted indicators, and all of that (d) to be achieved in a very short period of time. That's it!

Geographic coverage: Program coverage is world wide (but can only work if it takes on one city at a time). This is above all a city project, a city decision, a city action. It does not depend on international treaties, other levels of government to foot the bill; it works within the city, its existing asset base, quality of leadership and degree of public support. In that city!

Open targeting: Once you get your working group and plans in order in your city, you then take up the challenge, do your homework and when you are fully ready set the targets that are going to do the job in your city. And then you either succeed or you fail. And all that firmly in the public eye. (No place to hide.)

Big House/Open Doors: Invites enormous diversity of disciplines, backgrounds, geographies and competences, reaching way beyond the 'normal' transport or even environment groups, enriches the perspectives. Both for the Kyoto program overall and at the level of each city.

Strong female leadership and participation. In large part motivated by dissatisfaction with traditional male dominance and the values that appear to go with it.

Car-like mobility: This may surprise, but quite frankly we do not see democratic pluralistic societies agreeing to accept large downgrading of their mobility arrangements. Which gives us our target: as good or better conditions of transit with the new modes than they are getting our of their cars under present arrangements. (More on this below.)

International peer support network: The personal engagements, combined with the very high quality and great variety of backgrounds of the distinguished individuals who have agreed to support the International Advisory Council. Members have both an international support role, and also are helping to create "clusters" to support discussions and initiatives in their own city.

Working partnerships: Organized from outset as an open international partnership project, working links are being set up (a) with international and national groups with broader sustainability agendas, and (b) at level of individual cities informal working groups are being created to lay the base for their local projects and programs.

Comfort Zones (and lack thereof): Many programs and almost all committees seek to achieve "Comfort Zones" in which all interests present of lurking in the background come to a general agreement as to priorities, what needs to be done, how to do it, etc. Kyoto Cities seeks quite the reverse: a large number of competing ideas and points of view, plenty of room for internal contradictions and conflicts, and a good and continuing dose of cognitive dissonance as a means for accommodating all this necessary variety.

Supporting context of intensive technology-based IP networking: The state of the art, practical, user friendly The Bridge holds the underlying key to brining the pieces of the puzzle together and thereby making the whole thing work.

Culture change: This project is above all about governance, democracy and citizenry in the 21st century. In its own way it proposes and tests a new model. Once one of these projects has been carried out and the results assessed, your city will never look again in quite the same way at their transport, environment or other problems of governance and quality of life. Bringing up the interesting question: what next?

* * *

The ideas and leads you find here can be sorted through, tailored and structured into an integrated program that cities can, if they wish, start to engage immediately. It is certainly not the only thing that they or the rest of the world should be doing to confront the challenges of environment and the costly dysfunctional transport arrangements that hinder almost all of them in their life quality and economic viability. It may not even be the best one. But to us it looks like one fine place to start. Today! (Or should we keep on waiting and hope for the best?)

Implementating the Briefs

The other half of this program are the implementation strategies: our process recommendations for ways in which these pages of dry text about specific measures and approaches can be put to work in your city.

As it happens there are times in life when seemingly impossibly complex overwhelming, even devastating problems can be serenely picked apart with care and deep insight, and through this process of calm analysis come up with leads suggesting that there may in fact be some relatively simple solutions at hand, which with hard work and leadership skills can turn the whole dismaying mega-situation around. This turns out to be exactly the case when it comes to making major and effective change in our transport arrangements in our cities.

The whole thing is a bit the other side of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth coin, the recent film in which the former American vice president vividly documents the inexorable climate changes being set off by out-of-control use and technology patterns, with little or no help from ineffective governance in the face of these challenges. Gore's presentation tells us dramatically about the realities and problems of climate modification, which is important. And he reassures us, most usefully, that the economic analyses point up that responsible environmental protection is possible and that remedial actions can be brought on line without wrecking the economy or driving us all back into the Stone Age. That is all well and good but, and perhaps unsurprisingly given his very wide focus and concentration on climate matters, there is nothing here that can help us make the break in terms of our topic and interests. But he does set the stage and it is now time for us to take it from there. In our selected patch of transport in cities.

Our Convenient Truth here at the New Mobility Agenda is the precisely result of the glaring systemic inefficiencies of our present-day transportation arrangements in virtually every city in the world. This grotesque situation is at once our problem -- and once we are aware of it the first vital step toward the solution. Here and with a tip of the hat to America's favorite living Vice President are eight steps to take you in the two or three years directly ahead a considerable way toward a sustainable transportation system in a sustainable city: Anywhere in the world.

Infrastructure strategies: Redraw the existing (overbuilt and exceedingly inefficiently used) street and parking infrastructure so that it is realigned to favor 'space efficient' transportation. (Note: if whatever it is makes better use of the streets it almost certainly has corresponding positive environmental, economic and other key impacts).

Supply strategies: Expand the supply and range of transport services that make use of this new reserved infrastructure. This means not only more and better organized conventional public transport (fixed route scheduled services) and cycling access (and support), but also a gradually expanding panoply of what in many cities are less familiar and log neglected other service options, the bottom line of which is shared uses of small, driver-operated systems.

Barrier strategies: Review the existing laws and ordinances in your city which in many ways prevent the needed innovations at all levels - and do something about them.

Time strategies: All measures and packages should be selected and brought into play on the grounds that they will have significant visible, checkable impacted within a maximum of three years, ideally with a supporting 6/12/18 month performance screen and package. (The Kyoto Cities targets are, for example, 20% improvements in selected indicators in 20 months or less. Now this is possible for every city on this planet. I only hope that Al Gore is listening.)

Targeting strategies: Once the projects or package of projects has been prepared, provide a system of public information which tell citizens how their new system is doing. Against stated performance targets step-by-step progress toward which needs to be independently verified and made known.

Participation strategies: Since most of us do not really like change much, and especially when it involves changes in some of our daily habits, it is going to be necessary to find ways to reach deep into the community to get support for these new measures. And the best way to do that is to involved as many people and interests in the program from the beginning. The so-called Big House approach.

Leadership strategies: In a pluralistic democracy leadership does not reside in a single person or institution. It must be much more far reaching. But there must be early champions to create these kinds of changes, and one of the most important early accomplishments of any given city program will be to find them and bring them on board.

Success strategies: The entire program MUST be framed both to guarantee success - and more than that, early and visible successes. Happily, enough experience has now been accumulated with these approaches in enough different places, that a carefully planned package can be handled in a way that guarantees these successes. (And if you can't feel confident about this, then you probably should not even try.)

Why we concentrate on near term measures

Yes, Keynes did indeed remind us that in the long run we are are . . .well, dead! But this is not the reason why within the New Mobility Agenda and this program in particular we are not giving what some may regard as "due attention" to long run considerations and strategies in our clearly benighted sector.

Here in a few quick bullets is why we have decided to concentrate our efforts over the next several years within the Advisory/Briefs program one hundred percent on the very short term:

There are plenty of groups and programs around the world busy focusing on long term considerations, which if course is absolutely critical if we are to be responsible. (Click here for a good sample.) Typical planning and action horizons string out to 2020, 2030, 2050 and beyond, enriched by projections, forecasts, predictions, scenarios, re-forecasts, backcasts, Delphi exercises and other tools of the long term planning industry. In many cases these programs have very significant financial and institutional support. And this is all well and good. But if we were asked to give our evaluation of these efforts on the basis of what we have seen thus far and in the face of the overall priorities as we understand them, we would judge them as "necessary but insufficient".
Within the New Mobility Agenda by contrast we are struck with a sense of emergency and a need for immediate action in a way which is closer to that of deciding what needs to be done in the face of a natural disaster or war zone. Thus, we say that this is a situation of High Emergency!
High emergency? Either it is or it isn't -- and if you click to the Challenge section here you will see our reasons for the position we take on this. And what do you do in a situation of high emergency? You look hard, you mobilize, you act, and you never stop looking hard as things continue to develop and evolve day after day on the battlefield.
And behind this all, we need to bear in mind that every day we put off specific near term strategic action and start to generate the pattern changes that are called for in our cities (and on our planet for that matter), there are (a) people, groups and interests that continue to damaged and handicapped by the gross dysfunctionality of our transportation arrangements. And in parallel with these, there are (b) groups and interests who each day are doing very nicely indeed out of the present inertial arrangements and are in fact profiting from keeping things much as they are. ( I'll leave it to you to figure out who they are, and if you happen to know any of them personally tell them that they have a chance to make a difference for their cities, their families, and yes for themselves by getting behind programs for meaningful short term changes that can show visible results in two or three years. Nothing will ever look the same once we have set off on that path. Which brings us to our last point.)
Changing a transportation system, even some parts of it, changing a city, making a difference in people's daily lives is not only a cerebral and technical but also a muscular activity. It is not something that you can achieve solely by sitting in front of a computer screen or meeting with people much like yourself. And since it requires a level of intensity of effort and involvement which is far difference from our former ways, it seems reasonable to expect that we will emerge from this first round of intense activity changes with rather different views of what it is that needs to be done and what indeed we can do about it. We will, like the walker or cyclist, be whipping ourselves into collective shape to do something about all this in time to make a difference.
And finally, by taking action we will for sure alter once and for all our perceptions of the entire problematique. This is important and needs to be made clear. We are today looking at the issues and trade-offs from a position of (a) gross systemic dysfunctionality and (b) long held habit of inertia which lock us into (c) 'old mobility' thinking . To be unkind but accurate, we are today in this one respect at least losers and thus take a certain passivity and loser attitude to the challenges before us. But once you and your city begin to make real progress, once the people there start to see that they can change and make a difference, a whole new world of attitudes and priorities will certainly emerge. Thus, if we move on this now, when it comes time in 2010 to think again about the longer term and what we can and should do about it, things are going to look very different indeed.

And that Sir, as our 'man in the street' says in the short video clip here, An Unexpected Interview in Groningen: "We are the inventors of a new world, my Friend. Statistically you can prove it". ;-)

Conclusion:

50% of all funding in the sector in and around cities between 2007 and 2012 should focus on short term changes

Your views on this recommendation?

Click here to send to your comments to the New Mobility Idea Factory.

And what do we purposefully ignore here?

The key to understanding what is perhaps among the most outstanding characteristic of the New Mobility approach lies in the specifically targeted strategic time dimension: i.e., that pragmatically capped three year upper limit of our focus and concern in a first instance. And in parallel with that, the stress on high-impact/low-cost measures and strategies. (You have of course our very long list of such exemplary measures if you click the left menu, but for now let's look quickly at what we don't try to do or cover.)

Here for examples are some of the kinds of measures and investments that do not enter our strategic policy frame here. Without turning our back on the need for long term visions and investments, we have decided to concentrate on our patch and leave the rest to their able proponents and their experts in each case, but with a strategic qualification as will be seen below:

Building new parking structures

Electric or hybrid vehicles

Emission offsets or trading programs

Hydrogen technologies

ITS (Intelligent transportation systems)

Light Rail, tramways

Major road or bridge construction

Major extensions of vehicle parc of transit operators

Metros or urban rail, either new lines or major extensions

Monorails (A classic example of what not to do in any case)

PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) or any other of its ambitious high tech variants.

We also turn our back here purposefully for our very specific strategic purposes on things like electric or hybrid bus programs (too much time needed, and too little environmental, etc bang per buck once they are there). Nor do we counsel in this context any major incentive programs to support or increase the number of "softer technology" motor cars. All of this simply takes too long to bring on line and start to generate visible impacts. It also dilutes and confuses, for in our view no good reason.

As an example of something that starts to push toward our upper time threshold, we might add any larger technology-based road pricing project. First on the basis of the time required to plan and bring on line (check out the London and Stockholm examples if you need confirmation on that). And on the basis of cost. That said, we are looking closely into road pricing and its several main variants here in one of our early Briefs, not only because it is so topical with so many cities looking at it today, but also because we appreciate anything along these lines which can serve to break the pattern and open up our generally rather sclerotic sector to new thinking and new approaches. Moreover, the planned Road Pricing/Economic Instruments Brief will certainly be useful to the extent that is also looks into a number of BFC (Better, Faster, Cheaper) variants, which may be able to obtain many of the original objectives at lower cost and more quickly. Which of course is a central part of our strategy here.

In conclusion, this is not to say that we are suggesting that the city should cease thinking about longer term future considerations, needs and remedial measures that stretch beyond the three year limit for a first phase New Mobility package. There must of course be a responsible longer term vision for your city and phased program for meeting it. It is just that we are utterly convinced - and we can point to examples which bear this out - that once your city has embarked on this new strategic approach, so many lessons are learned that the future - and what is needed to prepare for it - start to look markedly different.

In the event we do not have to worry about these high cost projects disappearing from the local scene any time in the near future, since the money making potential is so very great in many cases, the various interests and lobbies so well entrenched, that they are not about to forget you and will for sure continue to knock at your door. But give it a couple of years of success with your new strategy, and you may well end up looking at them with rather different eyes.

The 20/20 Challenge: A first outline

The 20/20 challenge program (20% reductions in target indicators in a period of 20 months) steps beyond the individual Briefs and has as its goal to provide a targeted short range strategy for putting a package of measures and policies such as are identified in the Briefs to work in your city via a focused priority program with high public visibility. As such it represents a full step beyond the individual Briefs, but in most cities the time to start thinking along these lines is now. There is no reason to wait. Here is how a 'generic' 20/20 project looks in outline:

The 20/20 challenge has a single objective: For example, target and achieve for your city a 20% reduction of CO2 from traffic via a carefully studied and phased 20 month implementation period.
You may chose another target, some indication of traffic or congestion for example, as you work on it you will see what makes most sense for your city at this time. Or it may be some package of indicators, including such things as ridership on public transit, bicycle traffic, reduced accident rate, etc.
You can expect to be told that these are far too ambitious targets. hat they are naive, unachievable, with a long list of reasons as to why. They are not. Believe in them and you can make them happen. You will be cautioned to "be reasonable". Do not be intimidated. With proper preparation and public support these targets can be met and exceeded.
Once you have launched the necessary preparatory steps, investigations and negotiations, you may find that a modified set of targets may be more appropriate for your city. Who knows better than you? Not to mind: look hard, recalibrate and keep going!
It is likely that in your city a number of the measures that are needed are already in some way operational or under study. What the 20/20 program offers in this context are two things: (a) Better support and higher visibility for the good things that are already out there and working, and (b) an overarching set of criteria which help to turn all these measures from a list of lots of good things to do into a unified, time defined, high profile program that the public can see, understand and judge their city government on.
The goal is to mobilize the entire city around a broad-based multi-part remedial program which can then go on to generate visible results against specific announced targets out there for all to see and judge their performance. (No possible ambiguity; no place to hide; no term so long that ultimate responsibility can be ducked.)
This target and level of ambition has been publicly accepted as feasible by a large and growing body of international experts and authorities (many of whom are identified here in the International Advisory Council.
With the appropriate level of political and public support, the planning, negotiation, preparation phase to lay a solid base for success can be carried out within an intense 3/6 month period..
What is required to get the job done is to create and implement a quite complex but entirely do-able integrated package of proven measures attacking the problems on many fronts.
And it will cost you less than another yard of urban freeway..

Mrs. Mayor: The ten advantages of a 20/20 program for your city

It is ambitious (as it needs to be to make a difference.)
It is focused (20/20 and that's all)
It is simple (hence easy to communicate and sell)
It builds on and engages a broad local base.
It is effective. (It can handle the challenge.)
It is cheap. (Can be made to work within your existing resources.)
It is positive (Targets "car-like mobility" for all, a very different way of thinking about transport in cities).
It can be guaranteed (through careful planning and consultation)
It provides a consistent, high profile, broad overarching policy umbrella and incentive package for doing and better supporting all the good things you certainly should be doing anyway.
It is great politics. (Visible successes during electoral term. Great national and international visibility for your cityI)

"Car-like mobility" as a goal

Our point of departure here is one that is as pragmatic as it may be surprising. Most recommendations for more sustainable transport systems seem to have as their underlying thesis that: "people should shift away from cars and move over to public transport". Nice thought. But to be truthful, an absolutely awful beginning!

We very much doubt that citizens in 21st century democracies are going to support in most places degraded levels of access as a result of such a program, no matter how noble its goals. For better or worse, people have come to look at car-like mobility as the best way to get around. But that is not the end of the story: it is just the beginning.

What they are saying when they look steel-eyed at your ideas for a more sustainable set of mobility arrangements is not so much that they "love their cars and will never give them up" (though that very often is their heart-felt opening shot in the debate) -- but that they have come to expect a certain degree of convenience in their conveyance. So if what you, the environmental guys, planners and authorities, propose something that will be worse, then they simply are not willing to go along. We must take this as a fact of life and build out plans around it.

The goal of a 20/20 project must therefore be precisely to seek out and combine services, measures, and innovations so that at the end of the day most people are now going to have ways of getting there faster, cheaper and safer than under the old car-based system, which anyway has entailed longer times of being stuck in traffic with each year that passes.

We are a smart society and we have a huge number of tools at our disposal for doing better. Moreover, the present system is so grossly out of phase, so shockingly underperforming that it is not, in fact, all that tough a target to improve on. It's not as if the whole thing were close to perfect. So now under the whip of Kyoto we have the chance to put these more innovative and politically realistic to work. Let's not miss this golden opportunity.

Next steps you can now take to help this program succeed

Once you have worked your way through this site and all these materials and arguments for action, you may be thinking about what if anything you can do with them. With your permission, we'd like to suggest a few things that might be of help:

Associate your group, program with this cause: Let the world know that you think these issues of transport in cities require high visibility and priority near term attention. Click here to add you name and link to our listing..
Give us your suggestions on topics and priorities for future editions of the Briefs, either from the very long list that appears here or with your own candidates.
Identify cities: You may already have some ideas about one or more cities, perhaps your city, that could make use of this approach. Can you help us get in touch with individuals or groups there that might find some interest in this approach and be willing to take a lead there in the early stages? We are ready to work with them closely.
Identify partners, allies: We have already identified well more than one hundred groups working in the broad areas that share the underlying concern of the New Moblity Agenda in terms of climate, environment, economic well-being, quality of life in the city and social justice. But for many of these we do have thus far have lively working contacts. Perhaps you have some specific contact suggestions for us? Or yet other groups and programs with whom we should be in contact to make this work.
Get the media involved: Help us let the print and electronic media know as well about what we are trying to do and where to come for more. High international visibility is part of the toolkit we need to put in place to make this work. Share these materials with your media contacts; it's a terrific timely story and they should be interested to pursue it. Get actively involved in the articles and programs yourself -- after all you understand the issues, you know your city, and you are right at hand. And if we can be of help, well you now how to get in touch with us here and we have long experience at working with the media on this sort of thing. Team work!
Pass on the message: Please pass on news of this collaborative project, the web site and your views of it to your colleagues, contacts and discussion groups working in these areas, both locally and around the world. We are going to need to get the news out to many thousands of our colleagues and connections world wide if this is to gain the necessary momentum and support.
- Click here for latest Media Release.
And of course . . .

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