The ACCESS program hs been established in 1988 - originally under the name "Cities without Cars" -- as an independent international collaborative and support effort aimed directly at the challenge of first defining and then implementing sustainable transportation systems. The program builds on more than two decades of cross-disciplinary research and advisory work at EcoPlan and its associate groups with the problems of transport, the economy, energy, environment, industry and quality of life, and more generally with the broader challenges of managing technology in society.

The point of departure for ACCESS was the obvious conflict between cars and cities. But that was only the beginning. The next step was to recognize a gradually growing uneasiness that something has gone badly wrong: that private cars no longer work particularly well in cities, or at least not all cars in all cities. This hard fact is proving awkward for planners and policy-makers alike. Despite the problems they have brought in their wake, cars continue to perform a variety of functions and are perceived by many people as essential to their daily lives. As a result they have been planned into the system. And now that they are in there, their extreme complexity of function effectively rules out any easy solutions. For this reason we cannot in most places sensibly talk about cities without cars -- but rather places with fewer and much better managed cars.

The problem of cars in cities is, in truth, part of a much broader set of social and technology management issues which are coming into increasingly high relief. The links to pressing environmental and energy concerns are obvious and critical, as are impacts on quality of life, safety, urban form and economic efficiency. More subtle are the links between cars and human behavior, including such problems as urban isolation, alienation, violence, rejection of responsibility, and loss of human vitality, intimacy and neighbourliness. A great deal of good work is going on in many places around the world aimed at parts of this complex problem, but much of this is not widely known. And there is a requirement for altogether new approaches which has yet to be met.

It was against this background that the ACCESS is now established, with the goal of developing a long term (ten year), independent and vigorous international collaborative effort, untrammeled by bureaucratic requirements and run on an open basis with creative inputs and support from a wide variety of co-operating individuals, sources and institutions.

Five general objectives, strategic thrusts have been set to guide the program over the coming decade:

1. Provide concrete evidence showing how modern communities can work without today's overwhelming and damaging dependence on cars -- drawing attention to leading techniques, groups and places that have successfully tackled parts of the problem.
2. Encourage the development of much broader agendas of issues and approaches to the problems of transport in cities -- thereby bringing into the discussions and solution process actors and interests beyond the limits of traditional transport agencies and specialists.
3. Contribute to improving international communications, co-ordination and exchanges of information and expertise in the full range of disciplines and approaches involved -- so that each new project, anywhere, is able to build knowledgeably on the experience and accomplishments of the past.
4. Work to stimulate further research, tools development and problem solving as needed to improve our collective knowledge and mastery of these issues -- and find the means to inform and involve the public in both the debate and the decision process.
5. Encourage and contribute to exemplary projects and programs in leading cities and communities around the world, working in close collaboration with highly qualified local partner groups and sponsoring institutions both at the specific project levels and as needed to contribute as one among many groups and programs working in this important area of socio-technical innovation.

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