If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Isaac Newton, in a storied letter of 1675 to Robert Hooke

Knowledgeable colleagues around the world are reporting to first rounds of discussions of this proposal, with a fair consensus to the effect that it strikes them as plausible that a city should indeed target something on the order of 20% reductions of peak hour traffic and pollution within a 20 month target period. Excellent! But we will also do well to understand that in many ways, there is nothing altogether new in this (other than the breadth of the package and the insistence on those rigorous and publicly verifiable targets).

20/20 and the New Mobility Agenda are part of a decades-long crescendo of sustainability innovation in the transportation sector, where brave and far-sighted pioneers have gotten behind a new concept and make it work. The truth, as William Blake put it long ago, is that "God is in the details". Here is our personal list of some of these outstanding accomplishments.

New Mobility Honor Roll

1. Circa 120 A.D., Rome. The Emperor Hadrian purported to say of Rome traffic: "This luxury of speed destroys its own aim: a pedestrian makes more headway than a hundred conveyances jammed end to end along the twists and turns of the Scared Way." (That said, he then proceeded to do nothing about it. Sound familiar?)
2. 1958, New York. Demonstrations of neighbors of the Washington Square Park block proposed extension of Fifth Avenue, which would have eliminated this popular park and social oasis. One of the ringleaders of the 1958 demonstration, Jane Jacobs, then publishes
3. 1961, New York. . . the path-breaking The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books opening up the discussions of car restraint in cities as one of the first challenges to the Old Mobility.
4. 1950s-1970s, German, Austrian, Swiss cities hold on to their tramways while the rest of the world "modernizes" with diesel buses. ROW takes a full generation to learn the lesson.
5. 1950-1960s, Washington D.C. City holds on to its shared taxis, permitting it to offer cheap, frequent friendly transport while others look on and scratch their heads.
6. 1960s, Sweden. Färdtjänst (I need a bit of Swedish help on this). Provision of 'car like' transport for elderly and handicapped via community deal with taxi drivers. Now operating daily in virtually all cities in all Nordic countries and spreading.
7. 1965. Amsterdam. Witte Fietsenplan -White Bicycles Community Bike Project. Established by Luud Schimmelpennink with city government. Press announced that project had "failed" within a year as all the old bikes pretty much disappeared. Failure? Today there are scores of such community bike projects in cities around the world drawing on this path-breaking example.
8. Mid-1960s, Hamburg. City creates a unified fare/pass system for all public carriers. Other cities look on and . . .
9. 1968, Groningen, Netherlands. First neighborhood Woonerf. The goal of this at first entirely illegal project led by local residents was to claim back the street for cars and create safe space for people, after several mortal accidents involving children and cars. Sets off an international street reclaiming and slow speed movement that is still gaining force.
10. 1969, Copenhagen. City engineer decides to attack traffic build-up in city by using congestion as traffic control tool. Thus in number of cases when a specific traffic bottle neck was reported, his decision was to do nothing about it, or to make it worse. When asked where it went, he responded: "Traffic is smart. If it can't move it just does away". (And he was and is right.)
11. 1965, Curitiba. City launches first round of attempts to integrate transportation, land use and urban development in its first Master Plan, later leading to one of the developing world's premier model of innovation in the sector.
12. 1970s, USA. HOV (high occupancy vehicle) reserved lanes and roads slowly come into being, with the goals of travel time savings and improved trip reliability of to provide incentives for individuals to change from driving alone to carpooling, vanpooling, or riding the bus. Currently, there are 96 HOV projects on freeways and in separate rights-of-way in 30 metropolitan areas in North America. These account for approximately 2,000 centerline miles of HOV lanes.
13. 1973, Portland, Oregon. Mayor Neil Goldschmidt's administration, following the move of the Oregon Legislature to adopt the US's first set of land-use planning laws, puts them to work in their city and goes on to become on of US's outstanding sustainability practitioners, emphasizing mixed use, walkable neighborhood located rail transit. Residents tend to own fewer cars and drive less than in more automobile-oriented communities
14. 1973. Zurich U-Bahn project voted down in referendum. Leading the city to tackle its transport problems on the surface and in time to create one of the world's most sustainable transportation system. (See. http://ecoplan.org/politics/general/zurich.htm for details.)
15. 1973, Vancouver. Livable Region Strategy provides path-breaking example of the new approaches to citizen involvement in urban planning that began to develop, focusing attention on government/expert plans for major new development proposals such as freeways, subways and expansion of the airport.
16. 1974, Paris. The massive "Voie Express Rive Gauche" urban highway project of French government abandoned by incoming President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing under pressure from environment activist led by Rene Dumont.
17. 1974, Amsterdam. First Witkar electric carsharing station (another Schimmelpennink project) opens for business. Project hung on for close to a decade with minimum government support, and by end had more than 4000 users.
18. 1974, USA. TDM -- Transportation-demand management,: "the art of influencing traveler behavior for the purpose of reducing or redistributing travel demand." Concept institutionalized as part of transportation management system requirement and joint planning regulations set by Federal Highway Administration and Urban Mass Transportation Administration
19. 1975, Paris. Carte Orange, monthly transport pass provides unlimited access to all parts of public transport system to pass holders.
20. 1975, Singapore. Area Licensing Scheme (First road pricing scheme.)
21. 1982, Gothenburg, Sweden. First Taxi-80 centralized, computer-based roving fleet dispatching system deployed by Volvo Transportation Systems. Over the decade spread to several dozen cities across mainly Europe where it is today increasingly standard practice.
22. Late 1980s, Germany and Switzerland. After years of small scale projects carsharing begins to emerge as a signification transportation option.
23. 1989, San Francisco. Construction of Embarcadero Freeway of Interstate 480 terminated by public reactions and political pressure after earthquake. Only The Stub was left.
24. 1994, Toledo, Spain. Thursday: Breakthrough Strategies for Transport in Cities". First international call for Car/Free Day experimentation.
25. 1994, Hertfordshire, UK. First small scale Walk to School program meets some small success and by 200 leads to International Walk to School program. This year more than 3 million children walked to school in more than 30 countries during the 2-4 October celebrations.
26. 1995, Lancaster UK. Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice founded: aims to provide validated information about latest developments in sustainable transport policy and practice to enable local authorities, governments, consultancies, NGOs and supra national organizations to speed up policy development and implement new ideas from around the world.
27. 1996, Reykjavik, La Rochelle, and Bath organize first car/free day projects.
28. 1997, UK. Clear Zones program created to reduce pollution and traffic in towns through partnerships between cities, industry, academia and Government.
29. 2000, Bogota. First mega-carfree day project in third world city takes 850,000 cars off the city streets for 13 hours, leads to a major revision in the transportation system, and wins Stockholm Challenge Prize for Environment with The Commons.
30. 2003, London. Congestion Charging Scheme (changes the face of road pricing as a policy tool for transport in cities). Awarded the World Technology Prize for Environment for outstanding achievement in San Francisco celebration on 5 October 2004.

Before we leave this behind us, let's take a moment to reflect on what these couple of dozen brave innovational approaches have in common as we look ahead to ways in which each and all of us can do our bit to advance the New Mobility Agenda and all it stands for:

• Relative to most Old Moblity projects, they cost very little money.
• Most of them had small beginnings, and only once the principals behind them are proven do they take off.
• None of them have any of the "magic bullet" connotations that many of the larger old mobility projects often conjure up (and use to get support needed to get funded and built).
• All are intensely political.

Overall: all of these projects and experiments are moving in a board common direction -- and that is straight toward what we call the New Mobility Agenda: each as one small part of interactive complexes of transportation arrangements that work together to get us out of traffic and out of our cars when they simply no longer make sense, and still get us where we want to go, if anything quicker, fresher, healthier and cheaper than ever.

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One "20/20 emergency program" that worked. And why!

In 2002 7,242 people died on the roads in France. The country was stuck at the tail-end of EU countries, three times more than the Swedish rate of deaths per million inhabitants and more than twice that of Britain were population and motorization levels are about the same.

The causes were well known: speed, a factor in 50% of fatal or serious accidents-almost 60% of cars, 66% of heavy good vehicles and 76% of motorbikes thought to exceed the speed limit-and alcohol, implicated in more than one in three fatal accidents. Failure to wear a seat-belt, moreover, was responsible for 10% of deaths. Then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, it became a national priority to do something about this and fast. And this a nutshell is what happened.

During the highly contended presidential elections of 2002, the candidate Jacques Chirac, who had broken a leg in a car accident in 1978, made road security a priority of his re-election campaign. Starting immediately after his election, he avowed that this was going to be among his highest priorities of his government. Refusing to let things continue go this way, on 14 July the incoming Head of the State showed his determination to make the fight against road violence a "national project for the five year term".

He then proceeded to make this happen, and today two years later, the number has dropped to 4,900. President Chirac's initiative has resulted in an unprecedented 20% reduction in road traffic deaths. In our 20/20 perspective, it is useful to see if we can spot what were some of the things that made this work.

This achievement is in fact due to a whole web of factors and a large number of actors:

• A efficient national media campaign, relaying the president's message, with reports daily and in high and vivid profile portraying reckless drivers' behavior and other news coverage from road safety activists
• The French police force has proven to be key to making changes. The Interior Minister has doubled the police force on the roads, focusing on drug- and alcohol-impaired driving and on wearing seat belts.
• The installation of a fast growing network of photo radar on the roads, highways and in unmarked police cars has also been instrumental.
• Each year, over one million fines are dodged by French motorists with friends within the police force and the bureaucracy. The government has taken steps to stop these interventions, and now no one is being spared, regardless of who they are or who they know (a new situation in which several ministers have now had direct personal experience)..
• The law has been made more strict and fines more severe, with a jail sentence of up to seven years against those who cause a fatal crash. People driving under the influence such as drug and alcohol are being sentenced to jail.
• Probationary licenses for new drivers, and novice drivers may have their license revoked if they make too many mistakes during their 3 years probation.
• Senior drivers over 75 will soon be requested to take a mandatory medical test to keep their driving privileges.
• A greatly stepped-up road safety program in schools.

But there is more to it than this. What the French government and people have managed to create here is the first stage of an adaptive learning system. Put in other words, it is progressing beyond the traditional passivity and is now beginning to show a capacity for new forms of adaptation and assimilation.

The latest sign of this is a recently initiated program aimed at showing drivers how to adapt their driving patterns to achieve greater fuel economy. Early versions of this program failed to gain public support despite government exhortation and efforts. This time around however the public reaction is far more positive (might $50 oil have something to do with it?), and while it is to early and this is perhaps too minor a project to 'prove the principle', we would nonetheless suggest the entire program is proving the point that with the right collection of sticks and carrots - and great political will from all sides - it is possible to modify the behaviour of our transportation systems and all the myriad individual decisions and actions that go into making them what they are.

Fair enough and bravo! but what is the point in the present context. The fact is that we are seeing here in this one concrete case what political will and continuous application, including a selling of the program and its objectives to the citizens at large, can do to crack one of the severest cars/people problems of modern society. A more than 20% improvement in a bit more than 20 months.

We can do the same.

A quite unexpected honor helps prove the point:

On 14 October 2004 the FIA World Prize for Road Safety, Environment and Mobility was awarded to the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac. The citation went on to enumerate the achievements of the program, stressing that "The key is political will and leadership. Above all it shows that road traffic deaths are not inevitable. This is important for France, but it is a lesson that is relevant around the world." (Now just in case it may have slipped your mind the FIA is the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, not exactly a group usually associated with curbing the behaviour of motorists. But there you have it. Life moves on. And they are one part of the solution.)

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And another high impact "20" program that worked. And why!

Path-breaking program wins 2004 WT Environment Award

And here is one recent transport/sustainability/political program that is showing the way and has achieved 20/20 level of impacts with strong leadership, commitment and great technical virtuosity.

In February of 2003 the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, announced over considerable opposition that the city would institute a Congestion Charging program to test the principal and demonstrate that it could work in the central area of a major international capital. The mayor took this as a personal commitment… high level, visible… put his name on it and made it happen. The on-street results are well known and amply detailed on both the New Mobility Agenda and Transport for London's site at www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/cc_intro.shtml

Results in brief:

Central London had historically suffered from one of the worst levels of traffic congestion in the United Kingdom. Average traffic speeds were less than 10 miles per hour throughout much of the working day. This congestion was damaging London\'s economy as people and goods spend unnecessary time in traffic rather than in productive activities. This congestion worsened the environment of London and made conditions unpleasant for other road users, in particular for walkers and cyclists. Something drastic needed to be done.

As new roads generate more traffic and in any case it is completely impractical to build new roads in such a densely developed area as London, a novel solution to rectifying this problem was required. As part of his 2000 election campaign the Mayor put forward his proposals for the central London congestion charge.

The scheme relies on people purchasing the charge, which can be obtained from shops and petrol stations, over the phone, via the web, 100 pay stations in car parks or by mobile phone text messaging. We also provide a fleet scheme used by 11,000 fleet vehicles per day. Their registration number is entered onto a database for that day. The scheme is enforced by cameras, which record the vehicle registration mark of all vehicles entering the zone. These are checked against the database of those that have paid, and if the registration mark is not included the owner of that vehicle will receive a fine. The technological issues in providing an efficient, reliable and integrated payment, monitoring and enforcement system were immense. However, it was essential for this to work well, otherwise it could jeopardise the scheme itself, and given the world-wide scrutiny of this initiative, could lead other towns and cities deciding not to take forward similar schemes for their areas. The scheme has been a real and significant success. No other transport scheme has had such a positive impact on the traffic of a city.

Detailed monitoring of its effects has been undertaken, with the key impacts being:

• An immediate 30% reduction in congestion within the charging zone, which has been sustained since
• An 18% reduction in traffic entering the zone, with the number of cars down by a third
• An encouragement of other modes of travel - both cycling and travel by bus is up by 20%
• A 60% reduction in delays to buses due to traffic impacts and a 30% improvement in overall bus reliability
• A 12% reduction in emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and fine particles (PM10)
• A reduction in road accidents (although too early to quantify)
• No detrimental traffic impact on the boundary road or surrounding areas
• On-street surveys show that people perceive the charge to have improved the environmental quality of the area

The lessons we learnt for the successful introduction of Congestion Charging were:

• The political commitment from Ken Livingstone, the Mayor was essential.
• Consultation was genuine with a readiness to amend the scheme in the light of reasonable representations.
• Public transport, especially buses (as we did not control the trains), was greatly improved.
• Traffic management was utilised to ensure the inner ring road around the zone ran freely.
• Residential parking restrictions were introduced where it was thought motorists might park just outside the zone.
• Extensive public information using most media (including local radio and TV) to inform motorists of the practicalities for how to pay the charge and also to keep the public informed on progress. (We did not want the communication channels swamped on the first day with motorists asking basic questions).
• First class project management.

A key test of the scheme\'s success is the degree to which the public support it. Ahead of the introduction of the charge there was a massive and sustained media campaign against the charge, although the balance of public opinion remained fairly even, with around 40% for and 40% against the charge. After 6 months of its operation almost 60% were in favour of the scheme compared with around 25% against. Probably the best test is that on 4 June 2004 Ken Livingstone was re-elected Mayor of London for another 4 years with more votes than previously and a margin of 11% above his main rival who threatened to abolish the Congestion Charge.

Congestion Charging? Was that all?

Certainly not. Here is a partial list kindly sent on to us by Dave Wetzel; Vice-Chair; Transport for London of accompanying measures… many of which are right on target as eventual components of an even more comprehensive and ambitious 20/20 program.

• 4,500 new buses. (3,000 replacements and 1500 added to fleet)
• New bus routes.
• New bus stations.
• New garages.
• More bus lanes.
• Bus responsive traffic signals.
• Bus only turning movements.
• Greater enforcement using cameras and own TfL-funded police unit within Met.
• Integrated bus/police/traffic controllers Centre for handling routine traffic congestion, emergencies and special events.
• Cashless buses in the central area reducing bus stop dwell times; (Planned to be extended London-wide in 06).
• Improved bus frequencies with greater terminus recovery time to enable return journey to be on time.
• Simplified flat fare structure (with higher am peak fare introduced in Jan 2005).
• Simplified and cheaper bus passes with Smartcard and cheaper single journey Bus Saver tickets purchased off bus in tube stations, shops etc.
• Better supervision.
• More inspectors
• Automatic vehicle location etc.
• Better bus stops with shelters and solar lighting, bus boarders into the carriageway preferable in order to give tram-like boarding and alighting and allowing bus to retain position in traffic queue.
• New, low-floor, wheelchair accessible buses with at least 2 door operation for quicker passenger flows at bus stops. (No bus now allowed to leave garage if ramp is not working.)
• Open boarding/alighting on articulated buses.
• Free fares for children up to age 11 (being extend to 16 year olds in Sept 2005).
• BTEC qualification for drivers and controllers.
• Higher pay to aid recruitment and retention of drivers.
• Extensive night bus service to encourage greater reliance on bus for more journeys, (i. e. outward evening bus journey is not lost because passengers are unable to return home by bus - so they take their car).
• Improving the pedestrian environment to encourage greater bus use.
• Green travel planning.
• Allowing rail season ticket holders to use bus.
• New Quality Incentive Contracts that financially reward operators who provide better services (measured by excess waiting time at bus stops) and penalises those who's service is poor.
• Public awards to staff and bus garages that provide good services.
• Cleaning of buses in service (litter picking at the terminus).
• Better staff facilities.
• Toilets, staff and spouse free travel passes etc.
• Better passenger information: Bus stop specific timetables, New area maps showing all local bus routes posted on bus stops, at rail stations etc.

In recognition of this singular, path-showing accomplishment, and with the support of a considerable number of members of the New Mobility Agenda's program, the World Technology Award for the Environment was given to Mayor Livingstone and his team in a solemn ceremony on October 8th in the rotunda of the historic San Francisco City Hall. (The Webcast for the Award ceremony is: http://wtn.net/webcast/2004/summit/launch.html

Note: Now all they need is an open 20 month focus, a more compete list of measures (there are plenty more standing in line as you will see here), and an equally strong commitment from the mayor and support of his team . . . and London can be one of our first successful 20/20 pioneers. Let's keep our eye on them and see what happens.