A 20/20 Target Initiative for Your City? Further thoughts

In Brief: The 20/20 policy consists of a quite sizeable, meticulously coordinated complex of time-phased 'carrots and sticks', all of which are geared to making more efficient use of the existing transport infrastructure of the city. At the leading edge in Europe and elsewhere we have seen that many of these measures are well known. But not all of them.

It is the combination of packages of new measures, new ways of applying and coordinating known ones, and the creation of an overall coordinating framework with strong and extensive public commitment and corresponding technical competence that lies at the heart of this approach.

Hmm. At first glance this sounds a bit unlikely, at least for our city ("we are different") but is it . . .

• Is it desirable? Something that seems to you and the voters in your city consider to be desirable? Or is it so far off the political screen as to merit no attention?

• Is it realistic? Is it an impossible goal for your city? We would certainly expect that your initial reaction should be at the very least skeptical. But hold on. Are you all that sure? Might it not be a good idea to have at least a closer look?

• Is it divisive? Is it a policy that is going to divide your population into two divisive groups and involve many negative, anti-car measures? Well, we think not, but this is certainly something that needs to be kept in mind as you move head in preparing any eventual program in this often conflict-ridden area of public policy and private practice.

• Is it costly? Is it going to require major increases in the amount of money available to the sector? The answer is, quite simply: No!

Back to top

The Four Keys to success

1. Carefully setting clear, understandable, ambitious but safely meetable performance targets.
2. Strong commitment of local leaders from the top -- at least to take this through the first Blueprint Go/No-Go phase.
3. A very broad base of public support and participation.
4. A highly committed local implementation partner with the technical virtuosity needed to get the fine detail planned carefully, executed and then consistently fine-tuned -- and the open community spirit and orientation needed to get the job done.

How to get this done? The short snswer is: very carefully!

• A 20/20 program can only be accomplished in your city with strong leadership and communications skills, because behind there must be a broad based public/private/community partnership that will bring together and integrate the active participation of a far broader number and range of groups and interests than traditionally involved in the planning and implementation process.
• The preparatory and planning process - which we advise should be carried out in an intensive, broad-based 3/6 (six months absolutely top we think) month "Blueprint Go/No Go Decision" effort - must be highly inclusive and carried out in an Open Society initiative. It should target to bring into the process not only those groups that traditionally favor environmental initiatives, but also those who have their doubts, including groups and interests who traditionally have opposed anything other than the now suddenly old-mobility process (i.e. and in brief: build and spend your way out of the problem).

Different from the rest: As you will note this approach breaks many of the 'established rules of the transportation game', to the extent that it may well appear as 'foreign' or even uncomfortable in light of existing administrative and planning routines in the sector which have tended to be much longer term in general. We are talking about a project that is to be decided, fully planned, implemented and evaluated for next stages within the time period that most transportation projects are just starting to get off the drawing boards. This is going to make the partner search more challenging for sure.

Variations: It may be that after the careful Blueprint Implementation plan is completed, a rather different set of targets will emerge. One distinct possibility is that a consensus that 20/20 per se is simply too ambitious for your city. Fair enough. The team might end up proposing instead a 10/20 or even 5/20 program. Would that be a problem? We don't think so. Even if "all" the city were to target and achieve would be, say, a 5% reductions over twice as many months, they would still be inching toward what we call "Kyoto Compliance". Indeed, such a performance would be notable and offer great improvements which would mark your city apart from the rest who are simply and passively submitting to what they believe to be their destiny.

Please note: We are well aware that in many cities there is a lot already going on to make specific point improvements and if the city is lucky many qualified citizen groups and associations that are getting involved and trying to make their contribution both in terms of steering policy in the direction of being more sustainable, and in terms of specific actions on their part to make this happen. The objective of the New Mobility Initiative is not to get in their way or supplant their efforts in any way, but rather to reinforce them and define a consistent and supportive overall structure within which their energies and projects can be better supported and coordinated.

International Networking: We are hopeful that we will be able to set up a small but highly efficient IP mediated network to permit the first group of pioneer cities to share materials and results in an international co-learning exercise. It is also intended that projects will be open to representatives of visiting cities, who will be invited not only to observe but also to share their critical comments and recommendations to the host team.

What's the downside: It is our firm belief that if you approach this with the care, energy and commitment needed, there is no downside. It may turn out that after your pre-study, you will elect different objectives and levels of ambition. But who can criticize a city for taking this challenge seriously and spending a relatively small amount of money and time to see if they can get on the right path?

Back to top