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POSTED BY ERIC BRITTON (PARIS , FRANCE) AT 18 :54

Viral: Street Code strikes again

Viral: Our piece on this of 25 March (click here) got picked up by Tree Hugger's reporter April Streeter and

is getting an interesting range of comments, positive and negative, over there. Click here to check out their

article and its comments. Thanks April. Thanks Treehugger. Thanks virus.The Editor.

Streetcode Proposes New Rules for the Road -

Heaviest Vehicle Bears the Weight of Responsibility

by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04. 3.09

Page 1 of 21World Streets: 3/29/09 - 4/5/09

4/12/2009http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009_03_29_archive.html

Photo Julia Fullerton-Batton via Foxtongue @ flickr.

There is a highway code - a set of expected rules, best practices, and behaviors when manipulating your

vehicle on those long ribbons of public road. There isn't, as of yet, much of a corresponding city street

code - a set of guidelines that help walkers, bikers, scooter, truck, and car drivers - maneuver the streets

of a city in a safe and (as important) polite way. New mobility consultant and WorldStreets editor Eric

Britton is proposing the street code start with a fairly simple rule.

The biggest vehicle bears the burden of responsibility, and in

the case of an accident, also the burden of proving innocence. If streets are for cars, as Britton says, than

there isn't much need for this type of street code.

But if streets are multiple use vias (and in the U.K. 12 towns are adopting the 'shared space concept' to

improve quality of life) where cars are just one player, Britton says:



"The idea is...legal responsibility for any accident on street, sidewalk or public space, is

automatically assigned to the heavier faster vehicle. This means the driver that hits the

cyclist has to prove his innocence."

The idea of a street code is not entirely new, but is starting to gain a little more traction as city planners

think about designing streets on more of a shared use model.

Lest you think this seems utopian and far-fetched, in Belgium the insurance company automatically

pays damages in collisions between cyclists or pedestrians and motor vehicles, no matter who’s at fault,

according to a document on street codes on Livable Streets. Via: World StreetsNote: Graphic adapted

by John Brooks via Livable Streets.


Event: The ShLOW! (Show me How Slow) project

The ShLOW! (Show me How Slow) project, led by the European Transport Safety

Council (ETSC), is organising a Camp on Speed Management to take place in Brussels

from 3 through 9 May.

ShLOW! focuses on the work of committed young

students who will be encouraged to run a local

campaign or concrete action to reduce speeding in

road transport with the support of ETSC and its

partners. The first stage for the students is

participation in a "Camp" in Brussels, which provides a

one-week training on speed management.

Using the knowledge acquired during the Camp, the students will, on their return

home, carry out an individual project on Speed Management at the local level. During

their projects, the students will receive the support of consortium partners. At the end

of ShLOW!, the most successful student will be invited to Brussels to receive an award.

50 places on the Camp are available. All types of student are eligible - undergraduate,

masters and PhD.

Further information and application forms for the Camp can be found on the ShLOW!

website - http://www.shlow.eu/ . Note that the deadline for applications has been

extended, and that they can be accepted until the end of April.

Oliver Carsten, [email protected]

Professor of Transport Safety

Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds

Leeds LS2 9JT UK

tel +44 (0)11...



Editor's note: And we thought that our word "slowth" was terrbily ugly. Shlow poses a

serious threat.


Honk! Removing unnecessary walkers and bikers

Just in from Dr. Lee Schipper, the notable Mr. Meter of transport reform.


Public Bike Supplier Interviews – Spring 2009

Introduction to PBS Interview Series

The city bike -- shared bike, community bike, or public bicycle system (PBS) as it is variously called -- is

a quite new as well as a very effective way of getting around in the city, at least as it is practiced at the

leading edge . Most certainly the fastest growing form of urban transport in the world today (admittedly

from a minuscule base), it is at once the darling of the media and a favorite photo op of mayors and

public officials all over the world.

However there is a small problem. That being that while they

look simple enough at first glance – bunch of bikes, bunch of

stands for parking them, and Bob's your uncle -- the reality

turns out to be far more complex. (For a quick heads-up on

that click to "Not just one more pretty bike project" here.")

This has lead to a situation over the last couple of years



where many cities are showing great enthusiasm for the

concept, without necessarily fully appreciating what is required on their part to make them into

successes. As a result we are seeing far too many weak projects and weak plans in city after city around

the world. But it does not have to be this way.

Where to turn for solid counsel on how to plan and implement your city bike project? Certainly if you are

able to dig deep into the interstices of the most successful projects – not always easy to do for a variety of

reasons – there are valuable clues to be had. Beyond this however certainly one of the most solid sources

of information and perspective is the leading supplier groups who have partnered with the best projects

thus far to get them up and running. But how to make this contact in a positive and creative way?

This turns out to be something of a challenge because in project after project we are seeing the suppliers

being treated less as partners and more often as almost adversaries. It is the rare city indeed that

manages to get this relationship right. Of course the suppliers are profit-making firms whose business it

is to get and execute a good contract under favorable terms. But if you are a member of a city team

considering a project of your own, do not lose sight of the fact that they are also your best information

partners. How to bridge this gap?

Here is where this new series of World Streets is hoping to step in. We have planned to carry out a cycle

of in-depth interviews over the next two months with a selection of the leading suppliers active in the

field worldwide, in an attempt to ask some of the questions that you may have in your pocket. We will be

speaking with program leaders in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Japan, Spain, the US, the

UK, and possibly by the time we are finished one or two others as well.

If you have questions you would like us to add to our list of ten for each interview, pass them on and we

will see what we can do with them. And once we publish them, your comments and questions will be

welcome on each profile (using the Comment link under the respective interview). Likewise if you have

more general points to share with us, we invite you to Comment in the link at the end of this entry.

Further Q & A: We are inviting each of the interviewees to visit the Comments section in the weeks

following their posting, and, as they feel it appropriate, to give their attention to comments and

questions that readers of Streets may have logged in.

The Editor

* For the record, one of the most valuable sources of information on this topic is the World City Bike

Consortium started by the New Mobility Partnerships in 2006 as a place to share information and ask

questions from people directly involved at the working level. You can consult this site freely at

www.citybike.newmobility.org.


LABELS: B IKESHARING, C ITY B IKE , PBS , SHARED BIKE

Honk! TransAlt Tasked with Renaming American Autos



Release Date

April 1, 2009

Press Release Contact

WASHINGTON - In a move that stunned industry insiders, President Obama announced that the New

York City-based nonprofit Transportation Alternatives would be responsible for renaming hundreds of

American-made automobiles. The decision, a last-minute addition to his auto-Industry bailout package,

is considered a precursor to the President's larger 'Truth in Advertising' agenda.

"I'm sick of all their lies," said President Obama, when asked why he ripped off the Suburban name-plate

on his Presidential vehicle and replaced it with a bumper sticker reading "Jerk Mobile."

The President has disliked corporate doublespeak for many years. It now appears that he has set his

reformer-sites squarely on an industry renowned for misrepresenting its product through ads and

branding.

"This guy is awesome," said Transportation Alternatives executive

director Paul Steely White, as he and President Obama unveiled

the Cadillac Bailout XXXL (Obesity Edition).

Other names introduced in this first-round of rebrands include the

Chevrolet Impaler, the Dodge Stratospheric Ozone Depleter, the

Ford Impotenza, the Jeep Mangler, the Chevrolet Asthma, the

GMC (Saudi) Envoy and the Pontiac Pen15.

###

[Editor's note: I am sure that the TransAlt rename team will appreciate international help for their

gigantic task. Send your nominations right here to their fearless leader Mr. Steely White who awaits

them with real interst. And you tell tell him that we sent you.]

Source: Image courtesy of New York Observer article.


Editorial: Welcome to World Streets

Eric Britton, Editor, World Streets, Paris, France

World Streets is not exactly what you would call a neutral source. We have a very definite view

concerning transportation policy and planning, which has itself come out of long experience with

working with and observing the sector in its daily operation in and around

cities in many parts of the world. It would not be true to say that these views



are unique for to us; indeed they have been distilled over the years as result of

our conversations, contacts, in collaboration with farsighted colleagues and policymakers in many places.

It is only appropriate that I clearly state the underlying philosophy of this new sustainability journal in

no uncertain terms right here at the outset. Our position on this is clear: namely that we face a major

planetary emergency that requires immediate high priority action at the very core of public policy, and

that we have the means available to make the difference. But until now we are not addressing the issues

at the level of intensity required. We need a plan of action. So let's have a look.

The New Mobility Agenda in brief

The main reference point for all that you will read and commented on in these pages is the long-term

program, the New Mobility Agenda, an international collaborative program focusing entirely on

transportation in and around cities which has been in operation since 1988 with continuous interactive

presence on the Internet as one of the pillars of the collaborative knowledge building process that is

behind it. And this is what we have concluded:

Virtually all of the necessary preconditions are now in place for far-reaching, rapid, low cost

improvements in the ways that people get around in our cites. The needs are there, they are increasingly

understood -- and we now know what to do and how to get the job done. The challenge is to find the

vision, political will, and leadership to get the job done, step by deliberate step:

But we have to have an explicit, coherent, ethical, checkable, overarching strategy. Without it we are

destined to play at the edges of the problems, and while we may be able to announce a success or

improvement here or there, the overall impact that your city needs to break the old patterns will not be

there. We really need that clear, consistent, omnipresent, systemic strategy.

The Agenda provides a free public platform for new thinking and open collaborative group problem

solving, bringing together more than a thousand leading thinkers and actors in the field from more than

fifty counties world-wide, sharing information and considering together the full range of problems and

eventual solution paths that constitute the global challenge of sustainable transport in cities.

What is wrong with "Old Mobility"

We make a consistent distinction between what we call "old mobility" and "new mobility". The difference

between the two is quite simple. And substantial.

Old mobility was the form of transportation policy, practice and thinking that took shape starting in the

mid twentieth century, at a time when we all lived in a universe that was, or at least seemed to be, free of

constraints. It served us well, albeit with expectations, though we were blind to most of them most of the

time. It was a very different world. But that world is over. And it will never come back.

The planet was enormous, the spaces great and open, energy abundant and cheap, resources endless,

the "environment" was not a consideration, "climate" was the weather, technology was able to come up



with a constant stream of solutions, builders able to solve the problems that arose from bottlenecks by

endlessly expanding capacity at the trouble points, and fast growth and the thrill of continuing

innovations masked much of what was not all that good.

But this is not the reality of transport in the 21st century, and above all in our cities which are

increasingly poorly served by not only our present mobility arrangements, but also the thinking and

values that underlie them. Our rural areas are likewise suffering and without a coherent game plan. We

now live in an entirely different kind of universe, and the constraints which were never felt before, or

ignored, are now emerging as the fundamental building blocks for transportation policy and practice in

this new century.

It's time for a change. And the change has to start with us. You see, we are the problem. But we can also

be the solution.

And it must be understood that the shift from old to new mobility is not one that turns its back on the

importance of high quality mobility for the economy and for quality of life. It's just that given the

technologies that we now have at our fingertips, and in the labs, it is possible for us to redraw our

transportation systems so that there is less inefficient movement (the idea of one person sitting in traffic

in a big car with the engine idling is one example, an empty bus another) and more high efficiency high

quality transportation that offers many more mobility choices than in the past, including the one that

environmentalist and many others find most appealing: getting what you want without having to

venture out into traffic at all. Now that's an interesting new mobility strategy too.

What makes World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda tick?

Here you have in twelve short summaries the high points of the basic strategic policy frame that we and

our colleagues around the world have pieced together over the years of work, observation and close

contact with projects and programs in leading cities around the world under the New Mobility Agenda.

(And if you click here you can see in a short video (4 minute draft) a synopsis of the basic five-point core

strategy that the city of Paris has announced and adhered to over the last seven years. With significant

results.)

1. Climate-driven: The on-going climate emergency sets the base timetable for action in our sector,

which accounts for some 20% of GHGs. At the same time GHG reduction works as a strong surrogate for

just about everything else to which we need to be giving priority attention in our cities, chief among

them the need to cut traffic. Fewer vehicles on the road means less energy consumption, less pollution in

all forms, fewer accidents, reduced bills for infrastructure construction and maintenance, quieter and

safer cities, and the long list goes on And what is so very interesting about the mobility sector is that

there is really a great deal we can do in a relatively little time. And at relatively low cost. Beyond this,

there is an important joker which also needs to be brought into the picture from the very beginning, and

that is that these reductions can be achieved not only without harming the economy or by quality for the

vast majority of all people, but even as part of an economic revival which places increased emphasis on

services and not products.



2. Tighten time frame for action: Select and gear all actions to achieve visible results within 2-5

year time frame. Spend at least 50%, preferably 80% of all your transportation budget on measure and

projects that are going to yield results within this time frame. Set firm targets for all to see and judge the

results. No-excuse transport policy.

3. Reduce traffic radically. The critical, incontrovertible policy core of the Agenda - BIG percentage

cuts in VMT. If we don't achieve this, we will have a situation where all the key indicators will continue

to move in the wrong direction. But we can cut traffic and at the same time improve mobility. And the

economy. That's our strategy.

4. Extend the range and quality of new mobility services available to all: A whole range of

exciting and practical new service modes are needed if we are to keep our cities viable. And they need to

COMBINE to offer better, faster and cheaper mobility than the old car-intensive arrangements or deficit-

financed, heavy, old-technology, traditional public transit. We need to open up our minds on this last

score and understand that what is more important than being stuck in the past with the 19th century

version of how "common people" best get about, and move over to a new paradigm of a great variety of

ways of providing shared transport mediated in good part by 21st-century information communications

technologies

5. Design for women: Our old mobility system was designed by and ultimately for a certain type of

person (think about it). And so too should the new mobility system: but this time around it should be

designed to accommodate specifically women, of all ages and conditions. Do that and we will serve

everybody far better. And for that to happen we need to have a major leadership shift toward women,

and as part of that to move toward full gender parity in all bodies involved in the decision process. It's

that simple.

6. Packages of Measures: As distinguished from the old ways of planning and making investments

what is required in most places today are carefully interlinked "packages" of numerous small as well as

larger projects and initiatives. Involving many more actors and participants. One of the challenges of an

effective new mobility policy will be to find ways to see these various measures as interactive synergistic

and mutually supporting projects within a unified greater whole. A significant challenge to our planners

at all levels

7. The shifting role of the car: State-of-the-art technology can be put to work hand-in-hand with the

changing role of the private car in the city in order to create situations in which even car use can be

integrated into the overall mobility strategy with a far softer edge. These advantages need to be widely

broadcast so as to increase acceptance of the new pattern of urban mobility. The new mobility

environment must also be able to accommodate people in cars, since that is an incontrovertible reality

which will not go away simply because it would seem like an ideal solution. We are going to have plenty

of small and medium-sized four-wheel, rubber tired, driver operated running around on the streets of

our cities and the surrounding regions, so the challenge of planners and policymakers is to ensure that

this occurs in a way which is increasingly harmonious to the broader social, economic, environmental

objectives set out here.



8. Full speed ahead with new technology: New mobility is at its core heavily driven by the

aggressive application of state of the art logistics, communications and information technology across

the full spectrum of service types. The transport system of the future is above all an interactive

information system, with the wheels and the feet at the end of this chain. These are the seven leagues

boots of new mobility

9. Play the "infrastructure joker": The transport infrastructures of our cities have been vastly

overbuilt. And they are unable to deliver the goods. That's just great, since it means that we can now take

over substantial portions of the street network for far more efficient modes.

10. Frugal economics: We are not going to need another round of high cost, low impact investments

to make it work. We simply take over 50% of the transport related budgets and use it to address to

projects and reforms that are going to make those big differences in the next several years.

11. Partnerships: This approach, because it is new and unfamiliar to most people, is unlike to be

understood the first times around. Hence a major education, consultation and outreach effort is needed

in each place to make it work. Old mobility was the terrain in which decisions were made by transport

experts working within their assigned zones of competence. New mobility is based on wide-based

collaborative problem solving, outreach and harnessing the great strengths of the informed and

educated populations of our cities. Public/private/citizen partnerships.

12. Pick winners: New approaches demand success. There is no margin of error. So chose policies and

services with track records of success and build on their experience. (And there are plenty of them out

there if you are prepared to look and learn.)

Where to from here?

To move ahead in time to save the planet and improve life quality of the majority of the people who live

in our cities (no, they are not all happy car owner-drivers: get out there and count them. You'll see.), we

need to have a fair, unified, coherent, and memorable strategy.

There may be other ways, better ways one would hope, of facing this emergency, and if so we are ready

to learn. Let us hear from you. This is the challenge to which World Streets and the New Mobility

Agenda are addressed.


Toolbox: Walk Score your city



Here is an interesting tool that Christopher Hart, Director of Urban and Transit Projects of the Institute

for Human Centered Design in Boston brought to our attention in the last days:- Walk Score

To quote from their webpage on “How It Works”

Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address

by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a

car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking.

What does my score mean? Your Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100. Here are general

guidelines for interpreting your score:

90–100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without

owning a car.

70–89 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.

50–69 = Somewhat Walkable: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many

everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car.

25–49 = Car-Dependent: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands,

driving or public transportation is a must.

0–24 = Car-Dependent (Driving Only): Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range.

You can walk from your house to your car!

The Walk Score™ Algorithm: Walk Score uses a patent-pending system to measure the walkability of an

address. The Walk Score algorithm awards points based on the distance to the closest amenity in each

category. If the closest amenity in a category is within .25 miles (or .4 km), we assign the maximum



number of points. The number of points declines as the distance approaches 1 mile (or 1.6 km)—no

points are awarded for amenities further than 1 mile. Each category is weighted equally and the points

are summed and normalized to yield a score from 0–100. The number of nearby amenities is the leading

predictor of whether people walk. (Your Walk Score may change as our data sources are updated or as

we improve our algorithm. Check out how Walk Score doesn't work.

What do you think makes a neighborhood walkable? We built the Walk Score algorithm to measure the

factors that we think are important to walkability. What makes a neighborhood walkable to you? Let us

know and we'll publish your answers on our blog.

== end ==

For the rest click to http://www.walkscore.com/

Now the World Streets angle on this. Until now their algorithm works only in the US. So we got in touch

and asked about what would be needed to make this into an international tool. To which they

answered “we are looking into how we can open source Walk Score to collaborate with people on making

it work better internationally. We're a small, but hard working, team so we're not there yet, but we hope

to be soon.”

So if you have any ideas about how to bring this (or something like it) to your city, you may want to

exchange some thoughts with Mike Maisen at [email protected] . And keep us informed, since I am

sure that many of us living outside the US would like to see how our city stacks up. (I know I would.)

The Editor


Correspondents update: 6 April 2009

We have now entered the second month of World Streets existence, and our almost a week into the

construction of our new World Streets Map, so let me take a few minutes of your time to try to update

you quickly on where this is heading from this point on.

1. Moving target: if you are a little confused about how all of this is supposed to work here at the

beginning, let me assure you that you are not the only one. What we are setting off on here is a

collaborative communication learning process, the basic underlying philosophy and broad goals of

which are I hope pretty clear (see today's opening editorial), with the rest to evolve as we move ahead

and learn. I am comfortable with that and hope that you will be as well.

2. Peer-to-peer: I have always considered that one of the goals of a

really successful public interest contribution is that it is wide open –

i.e., that it provides materials, clues and tools which can help enable

good things to happen without necessarily the provider of the tools



of the initial ideas for ever emerging as the necessary central fulcrum

of everything that the initial push might set off. This is definitely one of the objectives of World Streets,

and I hope that you will take this as an invitation to run with any of this with your own ideas and

initiatives. Of course I have to hope that whatever it is will be consistent with the basic philosophy we so

strongly believe in, but in any event I am confident that the quality of the fundamental ideas and

philosophic principles is sufficient to guarantee that this will pretty much have.

3. Correspondent contributions: As originally promised this is a no obligation activity, and I

propose that in the first months the pattern that will suit you best will be the one that we mutually learn

as the project advances. Again the sections Contributor Guidelines and Correspondents are useful as

background reading which I can heartily recommend prior to posting or commenting if you will. I might

add that we have particular interest in contributions which will fall under the categories including

Honk!, the infamous Bad News Department, Toolkit , outstanding new projects or programs, people or

groups that are making a difference, and basically anything that might be going on in your city or area of

interest which has universal interest and potential application.

4. Eyes on the Street map. This is a pretty good microcosm for the rest. It is intended to illustrate in

a striking manner the way in which we are attempting to combine the global and the local. There are a

couple of ideas that we are looking at integrating into both this map and the project overall:

• Local identification: Each city symbol needs to link to a specific person and a specific

place. When you click a city, take Pune in India as example, this will take you direct to

Sujit. I have tried to take him at his exact address in his neighborhood, 383 Narayan Peth,

but I am going to need a little help from him in order to pinpoint the exact location of his

home. I hope that we will be able to do this for all of our cooperating colleagues. (You will

hopefully appreciate in this context why I have so doggedly insisted on the initial

identification encompassing both the name of our cooperating colleagues and the

city/country affiliation. Also In this regard, kinldy you make sure I have your exact street

address so, as close as possible to attaching it to your listing.)

• Green Map: I am also playing around with the concept of linking each city to a Green

Map (See www.greenmaps.org). As part of this, have already placed links not only in going

but also in Barcelona, Seattle, Cape Town and one or two others.

• Traffic cams: Another possibility that I intend to have a closer look at is that of finding

the nearest traffic cam so that the visitor can get some kind of feel for what the streets

actually look like at different points in time in that place.

4. Expanding World Streets coverage: We already after less than a week have more than 40 kind

colleagues who have indicated that they will be pleased to exercise this item street function in their city

and more broadly. I would hope during the course of April, the second month our new journal, to bring

this up to ensure coverage of something like 100 world cities, i.e. cooperating colleagues.

• Geographic: More coverage of Africa, the Middle East, the former parts of the Soviet

Union and the Eastern Bloc, Latin America and Asia are definitely called for as priorities.

And I think we should be very ambitious about coverage in both China and India.



• Gender: One of the basic pillars of this project is that we need to engage more women in

the process of planning and decision-making. Thus far of the first 40 correspondence

coming in, only eight are women. To rectify this, I intend to adjust the outreach in these

next ages to give heavy reference to qualified female colleagues, so if you have nominations

for me please be sure that they will be immediately activated.

Sorry to have tied up so much of your time with this, but I think it is important that we get off to a strong

start and a shared understanding of the best way to go about all this. Of course as always your

suggestions, corrections, and ideas for doing better are enormously well.

Eric Britton

Editor, World Streets


Honk! Curitiba's Bus Rapid Transit

From Elizabeth Press and our friends from Streetfilms: Curitiba's Bus Rapid Transit. Click here for video.

Curitiba, Brazil first adopted its Master Plan in 1968. Since then, it has become a city well known for

inventive urban planning and affordable (to the user and the city) public transportation.

Curitiba's Bus Rapid Transit system is the source of inspiration for many other cities including the

TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia; Metrovia in Guayaquil, Ecuador; as well as the Orange Line of Los

Angeles.

This video illustrates how Curitiba's public transportation system operates and the urban planning and

land use principles on which it is based, including an interview with the former Mayor and architect



Jaime Lerner. Current city employees also discuss the improvements that are being made to the system

to keep it up to date and functioning at the capacity of a typical subway system. Curitiba is currently

experimenting with adding bypassing lanes on the dedicated BRT routes and smart traffic lights to

prioritize buses. They are even constructing a new line which will have a linear park and 18km of bike

lane that parallels the bus transit route.

- - - -

And note Jaime Lerner's brilliant last words: "If you want creativity from your budget, cut

it by one zero. If you want sustainability, cut it by two zeros. And if you want to make it

happen, do it fast". Let's think about that one. - The Editor


Shared Space progress in the UK

Report from Ashford UK.

Where Ashford leads in urban planning and street design, others follow –

that seems to be the message after it was revealed that more than a dozen

UK towns are also adopting shared space concepts to help improve their

streetscapes.

Last month it was reported that Staines, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hereford

and Edbinburgh were all considering redesigning their urban streets using

the principles of shared space which have been successfully introduced in Ashford over the past year.

Now further research has shown that more than 12 other UK cities and towns are also interested in

adopting the shared space concept.

These include Oxford, the Suffolk towns of Felixstowe and Ipswich, Poynton and Macclesfield in

Cheshire, Torquay and Babbacombe in Devon, Stromness on Orkney, two separate locations in

Blackpool, the Essex town of Colchester and various sites in Dorset.

Local authorities in most of these locations are believed to be in the early stages of design development

as part of local regeneration projects; however Blackpool Council is about to begin construction work on

a shared space scheme covering two sites in the bustling seaside resort.

New Inn Hall Street, in the heart of Oxford’s congested city centre, has been earmarked for

redevelopment using a shared space approach similar to that adopted in Ashford.

In November, Ashford completed the first phase of its award-winning shared space project to transform

its 1970s ring road into quality, two-way streets in which drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have equal

priority. The scheme has opened up the town centre to make it more attractive to residents, businesses

and visitors.



The £15.6m scheme has been implemented by Kent County Council and forms part of a £2.5bn public

and private sector investment programme for Ashford.

Unnecessary street furniture, road markings and traffic lights have been removed and the speed limit

cut to 20mph. Road surfaces have been replaced with high-quality materials, wider footpaths and low

kerbs, to create a distinctive streetscape, while artists are transforming the public space along the road

into an attractive tree-lined environment.

Judith Armitt, managing director of Ashford’s Future, the agency overseeing Ashford’s growth

programme, said she was delighted that the town had created a blueprint for other towns to follow. “The

scheme has made our town centre more attractive to residents and visitors and it’s playing a vital role in

unlocking the commercial development potential of Ashford.”

Kent County Council Leader Paul Carter said: “The scheme looks absolutely fantastic. It's just what

Ashford needs. It's very modern and contemporary, and very well designed. This is the first stage. We

have got to build other highway schemes when we get the funding from the Government or developer

contributions.

“It's a completely different experience. It's a shared space where people change their behaviours - both

motorists and pedestrians. The professionals say it does make drivers and pedestrians more cautious

and has worked in other countries.”

Urban design expert Ben Hamilton-Baillie, who was involved in the shared

space project in Ashford, said he was not surprised that so many town

planners were waking up to the potential of using the shared space

approach to revitalise their public places.

“While it is true that no two schemes or circumstances are ever alike when

comparing the needs of different places, planners in town halls across the

UK are beginning to realise that designing street projects based on shared space principles is the way

forward.”

Source: http://www.ashford.gov.uk/news_and_events/latest_news/more_towns_follow_ashford.aspx


Honk! Homage to Hans Monderman

Unexpected interview in Groningen (on the street and straight to the point)



1 min 20 sec - May 30, 2006

Description: What? You know all about transport in cities and you have never heard of Groningen?

Well, check out this an unexpected street interview in Groningen, a slice of life as lived by our old friend

and transport innovating colleague (and now World Streets correspondent from Portugal) Robert Stussi.

He has titled it: A Homage to Hans Monderman. Hear, hear!


Eyes on the Street (A world observatory)

We live in a world and work in a sector in which not quite reliable information and rather too easy

thinking often abound. Thus while the main objective of World Streets is to provide reliable access to

what is going on at the leading edge of thinking, policy, and practice in the field of sustainable

transportation worldwide, we also at the same time have an obligation not to lure our readers into

thinking too simply about these issues and falling for what they may at first glance think to

be "solutions" to their problems and aspirations. The challenge to sustainable transportation reform is

already tough enough, without being encumbered by half baked ideas and wishful thinking. We can do

better than that.



And that is where our world wide network of correspondents and contributors comes into play. Since

each of these colleagues are not only knowledgeable about the sector, including from the vital

sustainable transport perspective, but are also close to the cities and streets in question, they help us to

develop a more balanced, better informed approach to reporting on the sector. We count on them for

this, and indeed they have been invited to participate because in every case we know them to be

independent critical thinkers.

Global/Local: It is hard to make the point more vividly than the map you see here thanks to Google -

the globe, that is the world we need to band together to defend. And in parallel with this a mapping of

people and cities ("eyes on the street" in the unforgotten words of Mrs. Jane Jacobs), which is where we

have to face and solve the challenges of our cities, one by one.

Geographic coverage: While most of the leading edge innovation is taking place in Europe, and to a

lesser extent North America, there is a lot more to the world than that, with good ideas coming as well

from cities in other places. It is important that Streets goes for more than the low-lying fruit, and we

intend to make an especial effort to get strong coverage in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, the

former Soviet Bloc countries, and all of Asia. And without good coverage of China and India, the whole

thing would be just one more truncated exercise.

Women: World Streets is committed to a policy of gender parity as an essential motor for the

fundamental cultural change that is necessary to move to a policy of sustainability and social justice. We

are trying very hard to engage female correspondents, leaders and change agents in cities around the

world with a wide variety of backgrounds, resources and cultures.

Youth: We are committed to working with younger people in all programs and activities under the New

Mobility Agenda, and in the process help through our association and exchanges further prepare them

for future leadership positions in a world that badly needs their energy and commitment. If you check

out the short profiles that appear in the Correspondents rubric you will see the result of this push.

Groups: We like the idea of bringing in groups of people and actors as "eyes", and if you check out the

latest map you will spot a number of them reporting on street life in their city. The door is wide open for

others.

Map: For the current version of the correspondent map click here.

POSTED BY ERIC BRITTON (PARIS , FRANCE) AT 14 : 17

A thing so slight:

The medium is the message with the Paris public bike project

Eric Britton, Editor, World Streets, Paris, France

Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains

responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and



futilities of city planning. But the destructive effects of

automobiles are much less a cause than a symptom of our incompetence at city building.

The simple needs of automobiles are more easily understood and satisfied than the

complex needs of cities, and a growing number of planners and designers have come to

believe that if they can only solve the problems of traffic, they will thereby have solved the

major problems of cities. Cities have much more intricate economic and social concerns

than automobile traffic. How can you know what to try with traffic until you know how the

city itself works, and what else it needs to do with its streets? You can't."

- Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities , 1961

A bicycle? Two spindly wheels held together by a frail metal frame and launched into wobbly motion

with some kind of bizarre arrangement for your willing feet to move you from A to B. First introduced in

yes! Paris almost two hundred years ago (1817 model just to your right), the bike been around for

something like a century and a half and has had its moments of glory and its moments of ... neglect.

So why should it be that as we move toward the end of his first decade of this new century I should be

taking your time to talk about something that is so small, so trivial, so out of date, so surely meaningless

in an age in which the problems of our daily lives of our planet are enormous and in many ways crushing

us to the mat? To get a feel for that, let’s start with a quick look out the rearview mirror.

A glance back:

In order to make any sense of what an eventual renaissance of the bicycle might make in our daily lives

and in our cities, it will be useful for us to have a quick glance back to recall what happened the last time

a rolling beast of metal and rubber appeared on the scene of our daily lives.

Remember? There we were living and working, going to school in playing in cities and towns across

America, and getting around in our daily lives on our feet, occasionally by bicycle, and as often as not by

some combination of buses, trams and trainings. Of course there were also cars, but these were not

really available to most of us, at least not when the beginning of the car era started to shape up. What

happened?

As prosperity reared its supposedly beautiful head in the wake of the Second World War, more and more

people started to have a new transportation option in the form of their own car. It was, just about

everyone said, a great and wonderful thing.

And then, slowly and without our really being quite aware, they started to change a lot of things in our

daily lives and in our cities. The story has been told many times and perhaps never better than by our

dear Mrs. Jane Jacobs, but the essence of it is that the main contribution of this new bit of technology is

the manner in which it has transformed and in a huge number of cases virtually gutted our cities. Pulling

them apart with seven league boots that simply don’t fit into the perimeter of our cold cities. So in case

after case the city fell apart and moved “out of town”.



Marshall McLuhan told us decades ago that the medium was the message, and indeed that turned out to

be the case with cars. We got the message so that if you look around it's not very hard to figure out what

that message was.

True auto-mobility

Then one day, with little fanfare a transportation revolution started to get underway, and if you have not

heard a great deal about it till now, stay tuned because this is a message that one way or another is going

to get in some form to just about every city of any size in North America, and indeed in many other parts

of the world.

The new message is the “City Bike”, or Public Bicycle System, which is probably today the fastest

growing transportation innovation in the world. They could not be more simple.

The basic principle is that a city creates a new kind of public transport system, this one based on free (or

almost free) bicycles which you can pick up at many points around the city, ride to get you where you

want to go, and then leave it off in another handily located station.

Today there are more than one hundred such new systems underway, with the most famous being the

huge new system brought to Paris in the summer of 2007 under the name Vélib’ (roughly free bike), of

which there are more than 16,000 currently in service and with 20,000 targeted this Spring (2009).

Other large systems are in operation or underway in Barcelona, Lyon, Rome, Berlin, and in North

America there are several dozen cities looking carefully at this idea, with a major project about to come

on line in Montreal in the weeks ahead..

What is interesting about these revolutionary transportation systems is that . . . they work! Think of

them as small, perfectly clean one-person buses that you can pick up where you want, when you want,

leave when you want, and go where you want. Personal Rapid Transit. True ubiquitous auto-mobility at

last.

Come to Paris (or Barcelona, or Lyons, or or ) and have a look for yourself.

Or, if you don’t have a ticket, you can always check it out at World City Bikes at

http://www.citybike.newmobility.org/. The Public Broadcasting System of the United States broadcast a

film on Vélib’ and The Greening or Paris in December 2008. You can pick it up on line at http://www.e2-

series.com/, click Webcast, then Paris. A trailer for the program is available at

http://blip.tv/play/AcvUegA


Bad News Department is really great idea!

Bad News Department is really great idea! I can say it as a contributor to various magazines (mainly

cycling and popular-scientific ones) with 25 years of experience. "Bad news is a good news" approach is



popular rather between the evening papers, but who don't likes gossiping?

From the other hand, early alert may help to take countermeasures -- be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Recently I have had in my Department a meeting about the Public Bike project with people from Public

Transport Authority. What have been their first words? "The mass loss of Velib bikes forces us to rethink

the idea of..."

And -- thanks to the Bad News Department -- I could tell them: "Don't get used too much to this idea.

The news is highly exaggerated. We will make our plan real". They were not very happy -- I've got a

feeling thet they'll start the project just for to write a report: "Running the PBS is non possible".

We'll see...

Marek Utkin

Warsaw, Poland


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Documents

World Streets Correspondents (Program & map in process)ecoplan.org/library/wsw-04-05-09.pdf · World Streets Correspondents (Program & map in process) Click here for further background