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The idea behind this section on "building blocks" is to provide some first words of introduction to a fair range of new mobility projects that we have worked with and learned from over the years both directly and in association with international partners in many places. Our idea here is that in your city one or more of these topics could be the subject of useful discussions and exchanges during the course of the one or several days that we would be spending with you as part of the outreach program in association with the presentations.
The basic idea behind the new mobility mission is not only to present our findings from the formal sessions, but also to take advantage of presence there to discuss and brainstorm on whichever of these strategies and tools may be of particular interest to the city in question. Our experience in the past suggests that these individual sessions be organized with the city hosts and kept on an informal basis. But that also via the mechanism of the final report, some of these findings and conclusions are shared all involved and interested in this collaborative project.
While more detailed information on all of these topics is available of course from the usual references and can be Googled in most cases, as well as checking the longer list of products and approaches which will find just a bit down at the same section, we thought it would be useful to share a few words on each of them here so as to get some idea of our particular approach in each of these cases. You will know that we have not attempted to cover the full range of measures and tools which are available to planners and policymakers, plus you will not find immediately below even brief introductory comments on many important concepts such as Transportation Demand Management, traffic calming, pedestrianization and the like. You will however find references and links on these important concepts as well in the final section just below.
Finally, it is important that we stress our understanding that these various sessions are led by qualified local hosts and organized so that the exchange that learning process works in multiple ways. The fact is that We As Representatives of the New Mobility Agenda will share with them what we know, react to their questions and suggestions as best we can, but at the end of the program the people who are going to do the job are going to be those who stay and work in the city.
| Brainstorming topics for consideration | |
Now let's have a look at some of the projects and approaches which we propose to review with you for these joint sessions:
- 20/20 programs:
You will find more on this approach in the section that immediately follows below. - Award & prize programs:
fact of the sayings that continuously comes up in our work and observations is that "you can never tell where the next good ideas going to come from". So with this in view be continuously tried to sponsor ourselves and to encourage awards and prizes programs in order both to seek out and then is appropriate to award outstanding local efforts and accomplishments. - Barriers to change:
In order to bring about significant improvements in local transport, we need to be closely attuned to the barriers to change which merit careful attention in all cases. And just because somebody does not share our enthusiasm about a given measure or project, this is not something that automatically requires a confrontational approach. In each case let's take the time to listen to and understand people who do not necessarily agree with us. On the one hand they may have some good ideas which we have overlooked, including criticisms which are worth at least careful consideration. It also suggests that dialogue is a more effective strategy than trying to bulldoze the opposition. - Bicycle helmets :
The situation concerning mandated bicycle helmets is one which is worthy of careful attention and discussion. (Click here to see some disucssion of this.) - Bus, PT, etc. reserved lanes, strategies (including BRT, Mobilien) :
There can be no doubt that a critical part of our strategy for the conversion of the old mobility system lies in capturing road space and lanes for more effective movers of people. But if you look around at the successful projects, you will observe that they are very subtle and always carefully melded with immediate local considerations. This is not an area of transport policy and practice in which "one size fits all". - Car control strategies:
We have to massively reduce the number of poor to use private cars in the traffic stream in our cities, and above all during periods. There are a considerable range of ways of going about this, better and worse. In this session, let's see what we can come up with concerning the former. - Car Free Days:
This is a hopefully didactic approach which was actually initiated by the New Mobility Agenda back in 1994, and which has seen some successful and many more less successful applications. Let's have a look at the lessons of this experience before giving it one more whirl in your city. - Carsharing:
We call this "the last nail in the coffin of old mobility". If you look just below you will find some further background on this approach, which incidentally is by and large in adequately understood and supported by city administrations. Getting carsharing right is a matter which can lead to lively discussions and exchanges under this local outreach program - City bikes projects, implementation: PBS, Public/Shared bicycle projects.:
I'ts 2008 and it seems like just about every city is excited about the idea of having free or almost free bicycles on their streets through a city bicycle program. Nice idea, but as you might guess not quite as easy as that. - City center renewal - The new mobility metric:
When you start to get large numbers of people getting around in the city on foot and by bicycle and public transit, this means that a new "metric" begins to take its place, this time as opposed to the cars evisceration of the city giving value to proximity. So people began to buy in the neighborhood, and to patronize stores and services which can be reached by this new metric. This has a positive influence on downtown commerce and on real estate values in the areas covered. - Congestion charging, Road pricing, tolls.
: This is one of the hot new mobility ideas as results of the projects that we've seen in London and Stockholm of late, and many cities are considering how they might put this approach to work. Not as easy as you may want it to be. Let's talk about - Contingency planning (natural disasters, oil emergencies, climate emergencies, strikes) :
It's amazing when you consider how little serious contingency planning is carried out in our sector when you take into consideration the unstable world in which we live. What do you do when some critical part of the system makes down? That is not only something which is possible policy makers need to be asking themselves in providing for, but it also opens up the possibility of testing new approaches in a relatively conflict free environment. Sometimes this can lead to some changes and practices which otherwise have had to wait four years. Let's have a look. - Critical Mass, bike and skate "masses" : These protests rides are often great fun events for those involved, but do not always end up as instruments which help lead to better and fairer to the arrangements in the city. How to integrate the two?
- Demand-responsive transport (DRT): DRT has been around for many years and many variants, and by and large has continued to be a substantially underutilized mobility tool. The fast-changing profile of the IT and communications sectors means that surely this is going to be far more important in the future. (Also see xTransit)
- Digital hitchhiking: This is properly a subset of ridesharing, however because of the explosive potential for the use of mobile phones as information interfaces between transport providers and transport users, is a rich area for discussion and implementation.
- Distance work :
Getting your work accomplished without necessarily having to make that commuter trip every day. A wide range of options are available here, including telework, telecommuting, etc. - Economic instruments:
Most people may not be ready to alter their behavior just because the planet is at risk, but experience shows that there are far more prone to make different choices in the basic economic and cost parameters change. There are a wide range of economic instruments available to policy makers, and if Road pricing and tolls are getting most of the play these days, there are many other ways in which these tools can be put to work. - Elderly and handicapped transport :
We can do a lot better in these areas and there is considerable international experience showing how to do this in ways which not only increase the range and convenience of services available but which are also considerably more cost-effective than some of the more established arrangements in the sector. - "Free" public transport:
There is more to this than may at first seem to be the case. If you think back to how people use their cars, you will see that most of them regard that next trip is something which is essentially free. That is part of a great power of the private car. So if we are to facilitate use of the public transportation system, we will do well to take a page out of the car book. It's not exactly, necessarily "free", there is every reason for that it should be perceived as such by its users. This leads to some very interesting things. - Green driving:
Much of what goes on under the New Mobility Agenda tends to be perceived as anti-car. It is important that this not be allowed to be the case. There is a lot that technology and policy can do to make driving your car is more convenient, less costly, and more environmentally and socially friendly means of transport. It is important to provide positive incentives and support a better driving in cities. There's a lot we can do to ensure. - Integrated fare cards:
Public transportation and new mobility will never flourish if each of the transportation modes and transactions are handled on a case-by-case, hand in the purse manner. In the best of cases your citywide transit pass will not only permit immediate no-wait access to all parts of the system, but will also be configured so as to facilitate direct access to programs such as car or bicycle sharing. - Job creation in the mobility sector:
Traditionally the transport sector over the last half-century has been driven by the desire to reduce costs, which interprets in almost all cases to reducing labor costs. But this just may not be a good thing. Perhaps we should be using the transport sector as a means for generating useful jobs and training in our cities in which such employment opportunities are all too often in scarce supply. - Marketing (selling) new mobility projects, programs:
Public Awareness and Behavior Change. Almost any New Mobility project is for many people going to be unfamiliar, and possibly even threatening since it is all about change in a world in which most people don't really want to change. These projects need to be carefully and with great imagination explained and sold to the public. This requires techniques and levels of creativity which stepped well beyond traditional practices and sector. - Mobility Diets (cars, lanes, roads):
There is quite a range of variants here, including ideas and operational concepts for cutting back on car use, reduction of infrastructure given over to inefficient mobility users, etc. - Odd/even zone entry schemes:
Too many cars coming into the city either in general or at some time of day? Well one old approach is to apply an odd/even entry scheme they say on the last digit of the license plate number. Most of these approaches work very poorly. There are a few successes, but these have relied on very careful preparation and organization. - People-friendly streets and roads :
As is well known traditionally in the half-century our street systems have been made extremely car friendly. This has brought on considerable number of problems in its wake, and over the last decades a wide variety of approaches have been developed, and are well worthy of consideration in any city. Among these: Slow streets, clear zones, living streets, slow zones, home zones, green streets, Woonerfs, play streets, etc. the list is long and well worth close attention. - Public space projects:
the link between good public space projects and new mobility is a very close one and worthy of imaginative inquiry and its reputation. - Ride-sharing: car, van, bus pools. :
It's always a good idea to figure out ways of getting more people into each car. Ride sharing has been around in any forms for decades, but has always proven to be difficult to organize and even harder to maintain in the longer run. But new tools are becoming available permit the creation of much more robust systems. - School program:
This is a learning-by-doing program aimed at younger pupils, of which there are many variants. - Shared and group taxis. Taxi innovation, negotiation:
Taxis have been traditionally the odd man out in the transportation policy in cities. In most places they have lumbered along and constrained by old ways of doing things and a legal framework which tends to make any form of innovation or adaptation of the difficult or impossible. With today's technologies there are many ways of getting more people conveniently into each taxi. These are worth looking at closely, all while bearing in mind that the challenge of negotiating any such changes is one to be taken very seriously and from the outset. - Speed control basics ("Slowth strategies"):
Motor traffic in cities will ideally move at rates far slower than the motorized vehicles are capable of and that their drivers wish to drive. The old mobility syndrome is characterized by behavioral patterns and infrastructure which favors straight lines, large vehicles, heavy weights, and high speeds. None of these make much sense in densely settled cities. So now what? This is a rich and very area of inquiry and application. - Street venders and commerce:
streets are above all public spaces, and while motor vehicles have their place so do pedestrians, children's, cyclists, skaters, and street vendors. Street vendors render public spaces safer and more agreeable for many. - Streetblog.org:
http://www.streetsblog.org/ is an independent media project of the Open Plannign Project in New York City. Should your city be looking into something along these lines to support sustainable transportation and the New Mobility Agenda? - Telecommuting, Telework, :
If for some people, some tasks, and sometimes we can use electronic communications to substitute for physical transport, everyone is best off in this process. There was a time in the 90s in which considerable attention was being given to these options, but in many places they have dropped out of active consideration. Now is the time to look at them again, not least because the technology continues to evolve and makes possible today but may have been considerably more difficult yesterday. - Teledelivery:
As the new mobility agenda begins to kick in, you're going to find more people going to stores on foot or by bicycle. They will go back home carrying a relatively small package of mainly high-value products. But there is still the need for them to be able to obtain a full range of purchases. This is where 21st century teledelivery kicks in. - Three worlds of cycling - strategies:
Very few cities in the world have until now developed strategic approaches to cycling as transport on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand starting the 90s a number of cities began to create facilities to support both leisure and sports cycling on the one hand, and to a lesser extent commuter cycling. These are three very different use patterns and cities policy will do well to distinguish between them and to accommodate them all. - Value capture: this is an important potential financing tool for which a considerable amount of work has been done and experience accumulated but which is nonetheless an entirely unexploited option in most places. Let's have a look.
- Walk (bike) to school:
These are great programs, there are many of them, and they all are heavily locally based. Children should walk or bike to school. This is cities mobility in school system does not permit that, some major rethinking is called for. - Women, equity and transport:
Our transportation systems, cities and others, have traditionally been planned by and for not only man but also a man with jobs and enough money to get around by own cars. It is important on many grounds to increase the participation of women in the discussions and in leadership positions in the sector. Indeed without that, the prospects for the improvements we need are going to be dim. - xTransit: xTransit: getting people in and around cities in road vehicles, smaller than full sized buses, driven by real human beings, dynamically shared with others, and aided by state of the art communications technologies -- and all of that as no less than the only way to offer "car like" mobility in most of our 21st century cities without killing the cities themselves (the old mobility way).
And finally, it may be useful in ths conext for you to a quick look at Other Tools to Get the Job Done.
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