Press release

Press Release

FOR RELEASE 3 September 2007 (907 words)

More: Eric Britton: +331 4326 1323 media@ecoplan.org

The New Mobility Advisory/Briefs
Briefing papers & policy advisory for decision makers

Paris and Los Angeles, 3 September 2007

Program announcement

New thinking about mobility
The New Mobility Agenda today announces the launching of a low-cost interactive subscription program offering expert briefing papers, accelerated learning sessions, and on-line policy advisory services to help decision makers improve the quality of transport service, life quality and the economy in their cities. The Briefs are aimed directly to inform city leaders and ultimate decision makers; mayors, city managers, council presidents, chief aldermen. To those who aspire to those jobs in the future, and are ready to make the decisions today. And to local groups and agencies working to reshape the transport/life quality agenda in their city.

Transport in cities: A Convenient Truth
Unlike the recent film of former Vice President Al Gore which brings the message of the enormity of the consequences of climate modification and all that lies behind it, the New Mobility Agenda steps away from generalities and focuses on the specifics of transport in cities. The good news is that the present system is so completely overbuilt and so grossly underperforming that there is a great deal that can be done to make huge near term improvements at low cost. And that is the core of the New Mobility Agenda and the Briefs.

The city holds the key
After close to two decades of hands-on experience in both leading and lagging cities world wide, the team behind the New Mobility Agenda concluded that the key to turning these problems around lies in the hands not of national governments, transport experts, academics, industrial suppliers, nor in the next big mega-project which promises all -- but rather in very specific near-term actions and packages of linked and affordable initiatives that local governments can plan and implement, working hand in hand with citizens, voters and local organizations.

Accelerated/Learning (A/L):
The Briefs cover a very wide range of measures, policies and approaches which are all too often insufficiently well understood by policy makers in cities, which means that important opportunities are being missed. The Briefs, with the concise Executive Summaries, detailed supporting volumes, and focused two-day A/L sessions .provide a time- and cost-effective way to bridge this gap.

No Big-Bang solutions The Briefs identify practical actions and projects that have in recent years proven their worth in cities not unlike yours, can be put on the street in a matter of months, demonstrate their full impacts within two to three years, and get the job done with only modest amounts of taxpayer money. These big improvements come from combining a number of very smart relatively small things, right away. Packages of measures.

Sisterhood of world cities
There is a sense in which towns and cities have more in common with each other than they do with provincial or national governments. They have similar problems (cars, schools, garbage, the homeless, eroding tax bases, etc.) and less fealty to political systems. And they often have considerable autonomy to innovate -- and they can learn from each other.

Large numbers of small things:
Among the innovations to be charted for local policy makers in the year ahead, the Briefs open with a report on city strategies to introduce and support carsharing (today more than six hundred cities in the world already have it).

They then go on to a critical appraisal of congestion pricing and its possible role and variations (such as we are seeing today on London and Stockholm with considerable success), major advances in busways (hot topic!!), innovations in shared taxis and small bus systems, some surprising ways to make residential streets safer and more convivial for those living there, and better ways of getting our children safely to school.

Each Advisory Brief . . .

Presents an expert synopsis of decision information on a lesser known but proven mobility concepts, drawing on successful experience of leading cities and innovators worldwide;
Is drawn up specifically to serve time-starved, city leaders, councils and local government and agencies;
By reporting directly to decision makers provides them with an independent expert source of information and counsel
Synthesizes an enormous base of information and views, including from hard-to-get sources, in many languages and of widely diverse quality and reliability;
Is supported by more than one hundred outstanding international authorities, thinkers and contributing editors, leading the field of sustainable transport planning and implementation world wide;
Is introduced by a three minute video and two-page Chief Executive Summary for the busy reader which gives them a chance to carry on. Or to lay it aside for today.
Presents its findings and recommendations in 20 tightly drawn pages, with leads to best sources of further information and follow-up for planning and implementation.
Provides implementation guidelines for local task force follow-up and project support.
Offers subscribers a hotline, follow-up consultation and advisory services by video and voice conference.
Is supported by Accelerated Learning sessions and conferences organized in Europe and North America..

The New Mobility Advisory/ Briefs are being brought on line to help our city leaders, elected officials and concerned citizens open up the window of innovation and show how to let fresh air into our cities. It's about time!

About the New Mobility Agenda

The New Mobility Agenda was launched in 1988 as is an independent international NGO and public interest program, to provide a wide open world-wide platform for critical discussion and cross-border collaboration on the challenging, necessarily conflicted topic of sustainable transportation and social justice. The Agenda hosts more than a dozen focus programs, each providing a useful first-step shop for information, insight and peer commentary and documentation on the targeted transportation topic.

For background on the Agenda and its programs:www.newmobility.org.

The Kyoto 20/20 Emergency Program was launched by the Agenda in the closing months of 2004 in a reaction to what we called 'the empty chair in Kyoto'. While it is well known that traffic accounts for more than half of all CO2 pollution threatening our cities, the Protocols proposed nothing concrete on this important topic. Yet 70% of all people live in cities and increasingly get about in them using motor vehicles which burn fossil fuels and contribute both to global warming and a wide array of local public health problems. This wide-open international collaborative program was created by the Agenda and its associates to take direct aim at this challenge. It is very ambitious and proposes rigorous, open and checkable short-term performance targets at the level of each participating city.

For information on Kyoto World Cities: http://www.kyotocities.org .

The New Mobility Advisory/Briefs project took shape over 2005 and 2006 as a result of a very large number of meetings and exchanges between more than a hundred leading specialists working in more than forty countries, East and West, North and South, rich and poor. But all with traffic congestion and underperforming urban transport systems, and all the negative environmental and economic impacts that go with it.

For full background on the Briefs, click to http://newmobilitybriefs.org

For more here is how to get in touch:

For further background or to organize interviews, etc, please contact: Eric Britton, Editor

In Europe:
The Commons, Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara
75006 Paris, France
T. ++331 4326 1323. E. media@newmobility.org
Skype: newmobility. Videoconferencing: via http://www.newmobility.sightspeed.com/

In North America:
EcoPlan International, 9440 Readcrest Drive
Los Angeles CA 90210
Tel. ++1 (310) 601-8468. eric.britton@ecoplan.org
Skype: ericbritton Videoconferencing: via http://www.ericbritton.sightspeed.com