Why?

Sustainable transportation should not wait. It is not a luxury nor should it be the object of one more time-less futures study or research project. The cost of the inefficiencies of today's dysfunctional transportation arrangements in environmental, life quality and economic terms has already outstripped the carrying capacity of many cities and the planet as a whole. But wait! We are making the transition to something a lot better much harder than we have to. Let's have a closer look.

Sustainable mobility at the level of a city or region - which is what this is all about - can be achieved in far less time than probably you ever thought. The means for achieving these ambitious objectives: a (a) targeted, (b) aggressive, (c) locally-driven, (d) coordinated, (e) now-oriented (f) pattern-break commitment on the part of local government and all concerned with the transport sector and its extensions and their impact on your city.

What is useful about this concept is that it is at once short-term, results-oriented, far-reaching, affordable and realistic. No less important, it targets highly ambitious near term efficiency and visible environmental improvements without requiring massive injections of hard earned taxpayer money. It also, with the right kind of preparatory work and support, can offer a very powerful political tool for mayors and city counsels who want to offer a better, safer, cleaner and more affordable city to their electorate.

Origins in brief

This new (Winter 2004/05) New Mobility 20/20 Emergency Initiative offers no less than the most important single project that we have launched since we first began following the leading edge of developments in the field beginning in the early 1970s. And ceratinly the most powerful from a sustainabilty and life quality perspective.

Its most immediate precursor is the experience of the extensive public consultation and creative interactions that took place over the Toronto New Moblity Week from 22-26 September 2004 that eventually involved hundreds of people, a couple of dozen meetings and work sessions, extensive media coverage and a good opportunity to have a hard look at what could be done to more than city toward a more sustainable mobility profile within a two or three year period. The key finding of the Toronto week that there is indeed a forming consensus for doing something about these city- and health-threatening issues and trends, but that the only way to go about it being to give the entire program a very high political and public priority.

Organization

The latest thinkpiece on this initiative is now available here, and we invite your comment and suggestions. Above all, our main thrust at this point is finding partners who are ready to put this approach to work in their city, and hopefully a certain number of institutions and funding sources that are willing to get behind the fist round of pioneering efforts.

This presentation is organized as follows:

1. The Kyoto Protocol in brief
2. 20/20 Highlights
3. Why "Dysfunctional Transportation" is major public health threat
4. A 20/20 Target Initiative for Your City? Further thoughts
5. 20/20. How does it work? A Conceptual Overview
   • Implementation Highlights:
   • Infrastructure Shifts and Management: (Basically the 'sticks')
   • Aggressive Expansion of New Mobility Choices: (More the 'carrots')
   • Execution:
   • External finance for pioneering projects in Developing World
   • And what about the "Long Run"

• Annex A: The Old Mobility Impasse
• Annex B: Participation Checklist
• Annex C: New Mobility Agenda Precursors
• Annex D - Epilogue: One 20/20 emergency program that worked and why
• End Note: 5 Oct 2004, World Technology Environment Award

• Click for latest version of 20/20 thinkpiece and challenge.

• And click here to test alpha group-work system with Convener. (You will find the step by step instructions easy to follow.)