World Streets Monthly – April 2009This document presents the content of the 38 contributions posted to World Streets over the month of April. It does not contain the comments and discussions, for which you are invited to click to the site. It's easy to do, just click the Read On link at the end of the article you wish to follow up on.

The month saw 8096 visitors coming in to Streets from 37 countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Republic Of, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, United Kingdom, United States,

Just below you have the map of visitors picking up their copy on the morning of 17 April.

World Streets, a collaborative project of the New Mobility Partnerships.

New Mobility Agenda - The Commons - 8 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France T: +331 4326 1323New Mobility Partnerships - 9440 Readcrest Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90210 T: +1 310 601-8468

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Bad News Dept: US city cuts climate change programs

Here is one more of myriad Bad News examples of public officials getting it very very wrong. In this case Montgomery County council staff has recommended cutting the county’s CarShare program in half. (Montgomery County is in state of Maryland, situated just north of Washington, D.C.)

Will they ever learn? No, not unless we all help them. Which of course is why we are here. (Comments as always warmly welcome.)Montgomery weighs cuts for climate change programsBy: Washington DC Examiner Staff Writer, 04/30/09 *

Montgomery County officials want to scale back some of the county’s ambitious efforts to reduce the county’s greenhouse gas emissions in order to help bridge a budget gap of more than $550 million.

The county set a goal last year of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, and has instituted a number of programs to help meet that goal. But with the county deep in the red, officials now propose to switch from biodiesel fuel to low-sulfur diesel, reduce the number of cars available for a county carpool pilot program and cut funds to buy equipment for telecommuting workers.

Council staff recommended cutting almost $100,000 that County Executive Ike Leggett has proposed to spend on laptops, BlackBerry devices and network hardware so that 25 county employees can telecommute as part of a program designed to cut commutes and the greenhouse gases that come with them.

Senior legislative analyst Keith Levchenko wrote in a memo to the council that he was “skeptical” of the value of spending so much money on the program, because most employees already have a computer and phone at home and might only telecommute a few times a week.

“It is not clear that this is the best investment of dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Levchenko wrote.

County council staff has also recommended cutting the county’s “CarShare” program in half. The pilot program started in January, with the county making 28 cars available for county employees to share at a cost to the county of $1,100 per car a month.

Through April 14 the program was only used seven times, for a total of 27.25 hours, according to county council staff. Reducing the number of cars available for the program from 28 to 14 would save the county $184,000 a year, staff said.

The county’s motor pool said it has stopped using biodiesel fuel in some of its vehicles to save money, and because there have been quality issues with the fuel, which is a mix of diesel and discarded vegetable oil. County officials said the low-sulfur fuel they now use instead is on average 8 cents a gallon cheaper, and the switch will save the county $250,000 next fiscal year.

* * * *

It’s not easy being green

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Environmental programs being recommended for cuts:

• Biodiesel fuel: County vehicles would return to low-sulfur diesel.

• Telecommuting: Council staff recommends cutting $100,000 for equipment that would allow 25 employees to telecommute.

• CarShare program: Staff recommends cutting this new program in half.- - -

* Click here for World Streets Fair Use policy

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Brainfood: the City of Strasbourg looks at public bikes

Should a city, already a major cycling capital, with more than one hundred thousand bikes out in its streets and a ten percent modal share for bike transport, even bother to look at the possibility of a Pubic Bicycle System? Unnecessary, redundant, counter-productive? Useful, synergistic? World Streets traveled to Strasbourg in the east of France to look around and find out how they feel about it.

To get a feel for their thinking on this I just spent four fascinating days observing and working on the New Mobility Agenda in Strasbourg, an especially attractive city of some 250,000 located in the east of France and nestled right on the border of Germany. In addition to a series of highly informative and challenging interviews and conversations with a fair spectrum of local transportation experts, policymakers and operators, I had a great opportunity to find my way around the city and its surrounding region through an intense combination of walking, cycling, bus, boat, their excellent tramway system, and even taxis on a couple occasions when I got stuck. Watching and talking to people just about nonstop as I made my way around the central area, but also reaching out into the extended metropolitan area were an additional half-million people live in a combination of small clusters and a local version of suburban sprawl.

In transportation terms, Strasbourg is far from being just one more city. It has created a highly innovative alternative transportation system of many layers which can legitimately be considered a model for others. And that was precisely why I was there, to look and to learn. I intend to write up my findings in a series of articles to appear here looking at key points in their strategy and competence, but today is the first step I would like to share with you a few things I learned while I was there about public bicycles from a somewhat unusual perspective.

Strasbourg enjoys a cycling situation that most cities can only dream about. It is the biking capital of France. Which makes it especially interesting to consider what happens when a city, that already has something like 140,000 bikes, more than 500 km of protected cycling provision that there carefully built up over the years, and an impressive 10% modal share for cycling, starts to think about what might be the place of a Public Bicycle System in their city.

The conversations I had with a fair cross-section of people, agencies and groups revealed that this is indeed something at which they are starting to look quite seriously. And while it is not at the absolute top of the list of their 2009 transportation priorities, nonetheless will be giving it attention in the months immediately ahead.

And there is, in my view at least, plenty of room for public bikes even in a city like Strasbourg.

What I was able to observe is that there is a basic cycling pattern in the city, as in many others, in which citizens use their own bikes in very specific ways. There is of course a fair amount of leisure

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cycling, but most of the usage is result of people hopping on their bike at a specific time, for specific purpose, to go to a specific place. It is by and large "organized transportation", albeit self-organized. Another characteristic of these trips is that they generally tend to take place along very specific, usually very well-known routes. Again, organized transportation.

But when we step back and consider how public bicycles are used in those several handfuls of cities in which they have become a real transportation alternatives for daily use, we observe a quite different pattern. The trips tend to be less routine, more incidental, last-minute, and even optional. Closer to the way in which many people use their cars in fact, as opposed to public transportation: a two wheeled, low-cost, high-efficiency, zero carbon version of DRT, demand responsive transport. Hard to beat once you think about it like that.

And this to my mind is where we start to see that even in a city as well equipped for cycle as Strasbourg, there are opportunities for public bikes as well. I look forward to being able to share with you their findings and results in the months ahead, because what they learn is going to be valuable for us all. In the meantime I invite your comments here, which I will be pleased to share on a selective basis with the Strasbourg team. But I guess the only way in which you can fully grasp what is going on and what they should be doing along these lines will be for you to spend a few days seeing for yourself.

Stay tuned.

The editor

PS. Here is one thing I learned about Strasbourg that is I think quite striking in the context of World Streets and our shared interests here. Perhaps you did not know this. The name has as you can see two main parts: the first half, “stras” means “street “in the local language. The second half, the "bourg", “city”. “City of streets”. Nice.

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How do you get people riding bikes for daily transportation?

- Henry Cutler. Eyes on the Street in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

There is more to it than just wheels and concrete. It is a systemic challenge, and here for example is one small part. In the Netherlands there's a tax rule that allows one to purchase a bicycle each three years with pre-tax salary.

You can buy any bicycle with a maximum tax-free price of €749 plus €249 of extras, but the great majority of bikes here are utility models. Given that both Dutch taxes and use of bikes as transportation are very high this rule is widely used. This tax benefit enables more new and better bikes to be sold but it's unclear how much it actually increases cycling usage. The Dutch cycle because it's the most practical, safe, cheap and enjoyable option ...and do so whether they're on new bikes or ancient, single-speed granny bikes. Nationwide the Dutch cycle an average of 2.48 km per day.

That cycling is so often the most practical, safe, cheap and enjoyable means of transportation in the Netherlands isn't just cultural; it's a function of cycling being a key element in the nationwide transportation infrastructure. It is widely recognized that bicycles are the most flexible, economical and space-efficient way for people to get around the densely populated cities. Private cars are the least.

Practically every point in the entire country is outfitted with bicycle roads, signals and storage facilities... and drivers who also cycle. Scary intersections and high-speed roads without separated bicycle paths are extraordinarily rare. To the contrary bicycle roads are often much more direct and convenient than those for automobiles. These traffic routes are planned out and implemented city wide.

A good example is the northern city of Groningen, which apparently has world's highest cycling modal share at 57% of trips. Until the 1970's there were no restrictions on driving cars through the city and bike paths were being removed. In 1972 the government designated the city center "living space" and integrated transport policy with town planning . Over the following four decades auto access was restricted, cycling infrastructure improved and new neighborhoods developed to encourage cycling. Some notable statistics: There are 0.4 cars and 1.7 bikes per person and the average speed of cycling within the city is 50% faster than driving.

How do you get the population riding bikes for daily transportation? Build your cities to make it safe, practical and fast so that cycling becomes something everyone will do instead of just a few hardy, bike commuter "warriors". Children must be able to cycle to school and elderly people to the grocery store. Tax benefits for bike purchases might help but not if the basic infrastructure isn't in place.

References: http://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/2008/12/04/fresh-cycling-statistics-from-the-netherlands/ http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-groningen-grew-to-be-worlds-number.html http://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/2008/10/16/bicycle-death-statistics-in-amsterdam-and-the-

netherlands/Henry Cutler, henry@workcycles.com WorkCycles B.V., http://www.workcycles.comAmsterdam, the Netherlands

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

European Parliament action plan on urban mobility

Polis welcomes adoption by European Parliament of report on action plan on urban mobility

From Polis - http://www.polis-online.org

Polis, the European network of cities and regions supporting innovation in local transport, welcomes the vote of the European Parliament report on an action plan on urban mobility.

According to Councillor Francesc Narvaez from Barcelona, the current president of Polis, this report is "an important milestone towards the implementation of a coherent and comprehensive European policy on urban mobility".

Councillor Narvaez added that under the impulsion of MEP Gilles Savary (PES), and thanks to the cooperation of all parties in the Transport Committee, the European Parliament has delivered a text of high quality. The report adopted last Thursday 23rd of April indicates the next steps for the consolidation of this policy on urban mobility.

The first step should be the adoption by the European Commission of the Action Plan on urban mobility itself. Polis members hope that this will be an opportunity for the European Commission to confirm its commitment to the CIVITAS programme, as stated in the report of the European Parliament, and that new projects will be funded during the second half of FP7.

Councillor Narvaez also expresses his hope that as suggested by the European Parliament, the current policy trend "will pave the way towards the creation of a new European financial instrument for urban mobility in the future financial perspectives".

The improvement of urban mobility is critical for the achievement of several objectives of the European Union, for instance on climate change and on the competitiveness of our economies, and can contribute significantly the European objectives of economic recovery.

Polis members call for the achievement of the new urban mobility culture and for this purpose also welcome the emphasis of the Parliament's report on public transport and soft modes.

Polis member Stéphane Coppey, Président of Tisséo (Toulouse) insists that he hopes that the upcoming action plan which is expected to follow the vote of the European Parliament "will support public transport, soft modes such as walking and cycling, and help to improve intermodality".

European Parliament page on report - http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A6-2009-0199&language=EN

Report text: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A6-2009-0199+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN

More on Polis: http://www.polis-online.org

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Print: Reducing Carbon Emissions from Surface Passenger Transport?

What Policies are Effective at Reducing Carbon Emissions from Surface Passenger Transport?

This report by the UK Energy Research Centre examines the merits of a range of different policies that offer the prospect of CO2 emissions reduction from road transport. The report has the following objectives:

• Review the evidence for CO2 emission reduction potential and cost-effectiveness across policies that target car technology/choice and those that target wider travel choices• Identify the key issues and problems associated with each policy type• Identify whether and where policies are complementary or synergistic• Identify evidence gaps and highlight future research needs• Draw conclusions relevant to current UK policy The report does not undertake new modelling or empirical research; rather it provides a thorough review of the current state of knowledge on the subject, guided by experts and in consultation with a range of stakeholders.

The project team undertook a systematic search for every report and paper related to the assessment question. Experts and stakeholders were invited to comment and contribute through an expert group. A team of expert consultants was commissioned to categorise, review and distil the evidence. This tightly specified search revealed over 500 reports and papers on the subject, each of which was categorised and assessed for relevance.

The evidence on each policy is reviewed against the following criteria:• Potential emissions saving; in absolute and percent terms where the evidence permits.• Key issues and problems; including reasons for effectiveness, evidence gaps, obstacles to policy implementation, interactions with other policies and potential rebound effects.• Costs; where possible we provide evidence of costs in £/tonne carbon terms. Where this is not available in the literature we provide a discussion of what evidence does exist.This report represents one output from this process of review, evaluation and synthesis.

The other main output is a set of detailed evidence tables which are published on the UKERC website alongside this report.

Executive Summary - http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/09/0904TransportES.pdf

Full report: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/T/TPA_transport_final.pdf

Kind thanks to World Streets Sentinel in the UK Richard Peace for the heads-up.

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Envisioning the Future: 21 Ways to Inflate Traffic Forecasts

This is the first article in a series to which we here at World Streets give great importance: the many different ways we have of envisioning the future, hopefully a very different future. These many ways span a variety of techniques: guessing, reckoning, projecting, forecasting, scenarios, estimating, predicting, modeling, and variously describing that different future using various media: physical models, drawings, simulations, films, interactive gaming, and even imagining, wishing, hoping, storytelling, and at times even lying. The idea in all cases being somehow to “show”, to render credible, even desirable (or the opposite) that different future. However if past performance is any guide we have not always been particularly good at this. To get the ball rolling in this series let’s have a look at a new book by Robert Bain Toll Road Traffic & Revenue Forecasts which is scheduled for publication next month, and in which he looks at one part of this, for which the track record is, you will see, a bit spotty.

Big Numbers Win Prizes21 Ways to Inflate Toll Road Traffic & Revenue Forecasts

A number of high profile investor-financed toll roads around the world are currently failing to meet expectations. Robert Bain suggests that this has less to do with the present economic climate and more to do with a market readiness to be seduced by hopelessly optimistic traffic and revenue projections; lenders relying too heavily on elaborate transaction structuring for protection. The time is right for a paradigm shift, he maintains, with a renewed emphasis placed on understanding the demand fundamentals and less willingness to accept forecasts at face value – especially those that resemble statements of advocacy rather than unbiased predictions.

The evaluation criteria used to award many of today’s toll road concessions focus on maximising income – or minimising expenditure – for promoters. These criteria establish the rules of the game. Bidders are incentivised to develop strategies which best respond to the criteria – framing their bids in a positive light and maximising their chance of winning the competition. Under such circumstances, traffic and revenue forecasts are bound to attract considerable attention.

Bidding strategy success and the ability to raise significant quantities of debt often rely on strong projections of demand; even beyond credibility in situations where the short-term benefits of winning overshadow any possible longer-term costs. This is true in cases where profits are front-loaded or where, for practical or reputational reasons, procuring agencies may be open to subsequent contractual renegotiation. In short, the procurement process in general – and bid evaluation criteria specifically – reward high traffic and revenue forecasts, not accurate ones. This places asymmetric pressure on traffic advisers in terms of the outputs from their forecasting models. In this context, the following article summarises 21 ways in which toll road traffic and revenue projections can be inflated – tricks for investors to watch out for.

1. Flatter the Asset

The representation of a toll road in a traffic model may be flattered in various ways. An incomplete treatment of the delays that drivers experience at toll collection stations or upon leaving the toll road (and re-joining a congested toll-free network) makes the toll road more attractive to potential users. So does exaggerating the capacity per lane. Traffic modellers commonly employ assumptions about how the capacity of a toll facility will increase in future years despite its geometry and configuration remaining unchanged! This is supposed to reflect that fact that driver behaviour adapts over time such that the ‘effective’ capacity of a road will increase. Naturally, this improves the attractiveness of the asset. Evidence should be provided by traffic advisers to support such assumptions if they are to be incorporated in base case traffic models.

An alternative approach is to impair the competitive landscape. The competitive position of a toll road will appear to be strong in circumstances where the alternative facilities offer particularly poor levels of service to users. This can be achieved by degrading a competing route’s capacity through the use of punitive speed/flow relationships or speed limits, or by over-emphasising delays (such as those experienced at signalised intersections). It can also be achieved by over-simplifying the competitive context – ignoring

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important rat-runs in an urban network or by neglecting the potential for competition from other roads or transportation modes in the future.

2. Cherry-Pick your Planning Variables

The future-year socio-demographic and planning variables that are used by traffic models are commonly presented as ranges. Consistent selection of values from the upper ends of these ranges will place upward pressure on the traffic numbers. This is one of the reasons why all of a model’s input assumptions should be tabulated on a single sheet and justified – with supporting evidence being provided by the traffic adviser.

A variation on this theme is the use of planning variables designed to achieve particular political objectives. A recent report reviewed talked of “planning targets”. These seemingly independent and

unbiased variables – such as projections of population – may be the basis upon which the state allocates funds to regional government. There are incentives for the producers of these planning forecasts to inflate their own projections which, in turn, can be used to pump-up the traffic numbers. Understanding the source(s) of these ‘independent’ socio-demographic and planning variables can help to mitigate this risk. Presenting alternative planning forecasts from different public and private sector sources also provides some comfort to investors.

3. Judiciously ‘Identify’ the Historical Trend

With a time series of data – such as traffic or toll revenue – it is often possible to isolate different trends by carefully selecting the period to be analysed. Figure 1 shows the time series of revenue miles from the Pennsylvania Turnpike. From opening year (1941) to 2006 the compound annual growth rate was 5%. From 1952 to 2006 the rate was only 3%. However, in terms of supporting high traffic forecasts, from 1943 to 2006 the rate was a very useful 7%. These different growth rates are all derived from the same historical data set – just different parts of it.

4. Selectively Apply or Report Growth Factors

Traffic and revenue study reports commonly provide area-wide statistics in support of their forecasts. A report might state that, across the study area from 2010 to 2030, average population growth of 1.2% per annum is predicted. This appears reasonable – possibly even conservative. But what about the distribution of this growth? If the model is specified such that most of the population growth takes place in zones adjacent to or that feed the toll road, it would be no surprise to find high traffic growth rates resulting on the asset itself – usually considerably higher than 1.2% per annum!

5. The Future Will Look Exactly Like the Past

Some toll road forecasts are made against a backdrop of strong historical traffic growth trends. Why should such trends continue unabated for the next 25-30 years or beyond? And what about historical relationships – such as the elasticity between GDP growth and traffic growth? Why should this relationship remain constant throughout the forecasting horizon? These are for the traffic forecaster to justify – particularly if senior debt

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accretes or debt amortisation schedules are back-ended. In the absence of solid justification, base case forecasts should be adjusted accordingly to reflect the increasing uncertainty associated with long-range projections and sensitivity tests should be used to evaluate the impact of key relationships which could change in the future.

6. The Future Will Look Nothing Like the Past

A recent traffic and revenue study reviewed by the author demonstrated clearly that historical traffic growth across the study area had neither been strong nor consistent. Along some key corridors traffic volumes had been declining. Yet the future, according to the traffic forecasts, was one of strong, sustained growth. No explanation was provided for this dramatic disconnect between the past and the future. At best this hints of model-blindness. The traffic adviser has been engrossed in the mechanics of model building to the extent that they become blind to the credibility of the model outputs. Other symptoms of possible model blindness recently noted include low growth scenarios that resulted in traffic and revenue projections above the base case and severe downside sensitivity tests that had little impact on project revenues. Just because the model reports certain results does not mean that they have to be assumed to be credible.

7. Using Seasonality to Your Advantage.

Traffic surveys should be conducted on neutral days and during neutral months of the year. These are ones which are typical in terms of trip-making patterns and traffic conditions. This is not always possible, but failure to take proper account of factors such as seasonal variations can lead to erroneous modelling results.

Figure 2 shows the impact of seasonality on roads in Cornwall – a popular tourist destination in the south west of England – and compares traffic patterns there with the UK average.

Whereas the national trend demonstrates some seasonality, it is mild in comparison with that recorded in Cornwall. Traffic in Cornwall in August is 35% higher than the annual average. Figure 2 shows just how atypical certain months of the year can be. Days of the week can demonstrate similar variability. Compare market-day traffic with that from an average weekday. Without appropriate adjustment, surveys conducted on atypically busy days or during atypically busy months will overstate the amount of trip-making in an area and will lead to higher projections of traffic.

8. Remove Inconvenient Truths

This is best illustrated by example. Take a journey time survey involving five separate runs along a toll-free alternative to a proposed toll road. The run times are shown in Table 1.

The run time average is 12 minutes (top line). However, Run 4 was quicker than the others by some margin. If this is treated as an outlier – and is discarded – the average run time becomes 13.5 minutes

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(bottom line). This is useful as it degrades the attractiveness of the alternative facility and boosts the competitive standing of the toll road.

The difference between 12 and 13.5 minutes may appear insignificant, however some demand estimation techniques are very sensitive to small changes in the characteristics of competing alternatives. These small changes can have a disproportionate impact on the percentage of traffic projected to use the toll road. Traffic advisers should report how stable their estimates of market capture are to small changes in the competitive landscape – but seldom do.

9. Design Surveys to Return the Required Results

Transport researchers acknowledge that it is possible to achieve specific results from some survey types through judicious design and administration. Similarly, it is possible to bias the results through poor design and administration. This is particularly true in the case of Stated Preference surveys where respondents’ choices between alternative travel options are influenced by factors such as how those options are portrayed, the range of attribute levels presented and the absence of any opt-out choice (forcing an outcome on respondents).

This is not to suggest that Stated Preference techniques are inherently flawed. Good practitioners are alert to these issues and should be able to minimise such influences. However investors should look for some comfort in this regard – ensuring the use of experienced firms in this field – alert to the fact that it remains possible to affect survey output through the judicious contexting, selection and definition of the questions being asked to interviewees.

10. The Magic of Expansion/Annualisation Factors

Traffic models focus on critical times such as weekday AM peak periods – in part, for convenience. Expansion factors are then used to gross-up the results to annual estimates (toll revenue per year, for example). The smaller the modelled time period, the more emphasis is placed on expansion factors – and small changes to the factors can have a significant impact on the final revenue calculations.

Say that a traffic model suggests that, during a weekday AM peak hour, 1,600 vehicles use a toll road paying an average of $1.50. Two alternative sets of expansion factors are presented in Table 2 (Scenario A and B).

The expansion factors under Scenario A result in an annual revenue estimate of $4.8m. Using the alternative – yet still plausible – factors under Scenario B, the revenue is $6.6m (40% higher). This significant difference has nothing to do with the traffic model. It results from the use of different expansion factors. Traffic advisers should explain their choice of values used and should conduct and report the results from sensitivity tests if revenue projections appear to be particularly factor-dependent. Unlike the simple example presented here, the expansion process behind some forecasts can be complex. It is important that investors understand this process particularly well.

11. Assume that Consumers Act Rationally

It is easy to underestimate the reluctance of some (sometimes many) drivers to paying tolls. Even in circumstances where the time savings appear attractive, it is possible to observe drivers sitting in heavily congested traffic conditions just to avoid paying a relatively modest charge. This may appear to defy logic – and be contrary to what a traffic models suggests – but it can be observed nevertheless. For this reason, investors should pay particular attention to any revealed preference data (from comparable facilities) presented in support of toll road projections – or the absence thereof.

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12. Assume that Consumers Make the Same Choice Every Time

An urban toll bridge in San Juan, Puerto Rico illustrates this issue well. It caters mainly for commuter traffic heading for the capital’s downtown business district. The tariff is $1.50 (cars) and the traffic model over-estimated demand by 46% in the first year of operations. Subsequent analysis of travel patterns on the bridge revealed that commuters were not using the bridge in each direction, nor were they using it every day. Commuters were using the bridge selectively. They were more inclined to pay to hurry home than they were to pay to hurry to work – and this effect became more pronounced towards the end of the week.

The cost proposition in the traffic model was a one-off payment of $1.50 (for x minutes of time saving). However if commuters used the bridge twice a day, five days a week, the cost proposition was $15/week. Although not captured by the model, this was the cost that drivers faced and responded to. Hence their selective use of the asset. Models which fail to capture such behaviour will produce inflated projections of traffic and revenue.

13. Hypothetical Bias: A Helping Hand?

Stated Preference (SP) surveys are widely used in transport studies because they are one of the few techniques that can measure the market and non-market values associated with consumer products such as toll roads. The technique remains somewhat controversial. Investors cannot be certain of the accuracy of the SP value estimates since SP surveys are hypothetical in both the payment for and the provision of the service in question. Most research suggests that people overestimate the amount they would pay for a service when they do not have to back-up that choice with a real commitment (hard cash). This is called hypothetical bias and is well documented in both laboratory and field settings. Researchers suggest that mean hypothetical values could be 2.5 to 3 times greater than actual cash payments would be.

There are some limited contradictory findings which suggests that SP underestimates the amount that people would be willing to pay in real life. Notwithstanding, investors should be aware that there are professional concerns about SP and hypothetical bias – particularly when interviewees remain uncertain about their responses. The majority view is that, when present, hypothetical bias is likely to overstate (inflate) the consumer response. This is another reason why revealed preference data – hard evidence – should be provided alongside SP survey results whenever possible.

14. Grow Your Value of Travel Time Savings

The value of travel time savings (VTTS) is a central concept in toll road demand studies. It is a large topic in itself. Here we concentrate on just three aspects. The first is the concept of growth in the VTTS as it is common for traffic consultants to use growth assumptions about the VTTS in toll road forecasting models. The underlying theory suggests that disposable income will grow – in real terms – in the future and hence the value attributed to time savings should also grow in the future. Forecasts of GDP are often used as a proxy for the growth in disposable income, although the growth factor applied to VTTS may be higher (e.g. 1.2x disposable income growth).

Increasing the value of time savings boosts toll road usage in future years. There may be arguments in support of such an approach – and these should be articulated – however the impact of this growth is commonly material, and should be isolated and understood by funders who may feel that, in some situations, it has the scent of equity upside.

There is a second issue regarding time savings that is pertinent to mention here. It concerns small time savings. The conventional approach is to say that the driver who values a time saving of one hour at $20 automatically values a saving of three minutes at $1. This is known as the constant value approach and it has attracted a vocal body of critical opinion. Researchers suggest that small amounts of saved time are inherently less useful than large amounts – particularly if you cannot do anything with the time saved – and that small time savings may go unnoticed (hence unvalued) by travellers. Assumptions about small time savings have a particular relevance in the context of short tolled sections of road, bridges or tunnels. The recent revenue underperformance of some urban toll tunnels in Australia, for example, may, in part, be attributed to overestimating the price consumers are willing to pay to save relatively small amounts of travel time.

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There is also the issue of VTTS in congested traffic conditions. Some traffic advisers maintain that the VTTS varies according to congestion levels and values over 1.5x the base value have been noted. Traffic advisers draw parallels with the value of waiting time in public transport models (which is typically higher than the value of travel time – reflecting the perception of time passing slowly while waiting). The impact is for more trips in the model to assign via the tolled facility and the effect – helpfully – compounds in the future as congestion intensifies across the network.

15. Overstating the Toll Road Premium

Some traffic models incorporate the use of a toll road premium or bonus to capture the inherent attractiveness of toll roads. This suggests that if a toll road and its toll-free competitor are matched, taking account of the toll paid and the time saved, instead of traffic assigning on a 50:50 basis, proportionately more traffic will use the toll road. The premium is supposed to encapsulate those characteristics of the road not fully estimated in the model (softer attributes that are more difficult to quantify like ride quality or perceived safety). The impact of this premium is replicated in models that, alternatively, penalise links that compete with the toll road.

The danger here lies in overestimating the premium – overstating the inherent attractiveness of the asset. This inflates revenues. Any toll road premium employed by traffic consultants should be made explicit and should be justified – to the extent of re-running the model in its absence to determine the contribution to revenues made by assumptions about the premium alone.

16. Overstating the Yield

Yield refers to average revenue/vehicle. As most toll roads are dominated by private car use, the yield generally lies close to the car tariff. Because of the proportionately higher tariffs, the greater the contribution of trucks and buses to the traffic mix, the higher will be the yield. Overestimating the number of trucks using a toll road will disproportionately inflate aggregate revenues. This is a particular concern as truck usage of toll roads is notoriously challenging to predict and has often been overestimated.

Yield calculations can also be overstated if unrealistic assumptions are made about the take-up of discount programmes. Similarly, unrealistic estimates of toll avoidance and/or exemptions will overstate yield. Investors need to understand not only what revenues are forecasted, but the composition of these revenues and any (and all) assumptions underpinning them.

17. Reliance on Speculative Development

Future land use plans are a key traffic modelling input – however there may be questions about how committed some development proposals actually are. The reliance that can be placed on land use plans is a challenging issue in economies experiencing rapid growth – especially under less-regulated planning regimes – however it is also an issue in many developed countries.

Purely speculative developments should be omitted from base case traffic forecasts. Similarly, developments expected to result from the building of new tolled facilities should be treated cautiously in terms of their contribution to traffic. Speculative and generated developments in toll road demand models simply serve to inflate the traffic and revenue projections.

18. The Joy of Induced Demand

Building new highway infrastructure generates traffic however the relationship is far from clear or consistent. Often toll road traffic forecasters make an assumption about generated (induced) traffic and add this to their forecasts. An upwards adjustment of 10% is not uncommon – however it is seldom supported with evidence.

Investors should identify if such an adjustment has been made to the traffic figures they are reviewing and then consider the evidence. In some circumstances the contribution from induced traffic has been removed from base case forecasts reflecting the fact that considerable uncertainty surrounds this revenue contribution. As before, induced traffic helpfully serves to inflate project revenues.

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19. Introduce Your Own Toll Discount

There is some evidence to suggest that, in terms of toll road usage, drivers respond differently to different toll road payment media – particularly non-cash options. By using electronic toll collection (ETC) technologies, drivers do not have to pay the toll at the time/point of use. The charge is made to their credit card account and they are billed, in arrears, on a monthly basis. It is suggested that this encourages toll road usage above and beyond what would be expected from a cash-only operation. To capture this effect, traffic modellers talk about a ‘perceived ETC discount’ – the discount reflecting users’ misperceptions of the price paid due to electronic tolling and the payment deferral. This is entirely separate from (and in addition to) any real discount enjoyed by ETC scheme patrons.

In a recent study, the perceived ETC discount was set at 15% and tariffs were accordingly reduced to 0.85x their face value. Reducing the price encourages toll road use and inflates the traffic figures. Investors should look for evidence in support of perceived ETC discounts in traffic studies if they are to accept the use of artificially reduced tolls in base case projections.

20. Assume Quick Ramp-Up

Ramp-up is the period upon the opening of a tolled facility when drivers experiment with new routes. It is a period often characterised by strong growth (from a low base) and it ends when trip-making patterns stabilise and evolve into more mature trends. It is notoriously difficult to predict in terms of its depth and duration. Traffic consultants often assume a ramp-up profile based on instinct or weak evidence with questionable transferability.

The use of instant or short ramp-up assumptions runs the danger of inflating early-year revenue forecasts. Ramp-up assumptions should be challenged to understand their underpinning rationale. It may be sensible to run sensitivity tests using alternative assumptions to ensure that the financing remains robust during the early years of project operations and throughout the remaining term of the concession.

21. Ignore Physical (or Operational) Capacity Constraints

It may seem incredible that some forecasts have actually exceeded the physical capacity of their road (in terms of volume/lane/hour) but it has been noted – particularly when these forecasts result, not directly from traffic models, but from traffic model figures extrapolated into the future. Typically no mention is made of widening or the costs (and disruption) involved in capacity expansion. Turning from volume/hour to volume/day, another phenomenon observed has been the fact that some forecasts of daily traffic (AADT) would required roads to operate at peak-hour congestion levels for over 12 (sometimes over 18) hours/day. These highly uncharacteristic flow profiles should certainly raise investor questions.

The recent development of managed lanes with dynamic pricing – particularly in the US – introduces concerns about how forecasts may exceed a highway’s operational capacity. On some managed lanes, the tariff is adjusted based on the volume of traffic using the facility. As usage goes up, the toll goes up – with a view to constraining demand such that a certain level of service can be offered to drivers. Traffic forecasts recently reviewed from one project, however, were so high that they would have degraded the level of service to below that required contractually of the concessionaire. High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) and HOV/toll (HOT) lanes – and other initiatives that fall under the ‘managed lane’ concept – are relatively new and present particular methodological challenges to traffic modellers. They are commonly crudely or incompletely represented within the model – although this fact is seldom highlighted. Investors reviewing these more innovative tolling applications need to ensure that, in terms of modelling, traffic advisers explain clearly what has been achieved, how and – importantly – the limits of these achievements.

Commentary

The list of 21 ways in which toll road traffic and revenue forecasts can be inflated is not exhaustive. It is purely indicative. There are others – some of which are highly technical and would require forensic work to uncover (such as the careful positioning of centroid connectors). Other techniques are more general and rely upon clouding detail – such as obscuring daily traffic volumes (which people understand) by reporting vehicle kilometres/year (which no one can). Or obscuring the relationship between traffic and revenue by simply

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reporting project revenues. This way, the recipient of the forecast has no idea how much traffic is supposed to be paying how much toll. The results cannot be sense-checked or compared with the findings from other studies.

Good traffic consultants know how to fine-tune their models. That is what model calibration is all about. In an environment where prizes are commonly awarded to the bidding team with the highest numbers, fine-tuning may be open to abuse. The purpose of the list is not to alarm investors. It simply demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to inflate the numbers for clients who want inflated numbers, and highlights some key issues to watch out for.

To knowingly inflate traffic and revenue projections is an act of deception – but it is not alone in that regard. Investors reviewing toll road studies should remain alert to two other potential acts of deceit. The first concerns sensitivity tests. Suspicions should arise when sensitivity tests have limited adverse impact on project traffic or revenues. Under certain circumstances this is possible, but it is not the norm. Good explanations should be provided in support of such results.

The second act of deceit concerns the use of pseudo-science to infer a precision of foresight that is simply not supported by empirical evidence. Favoured ploys include the presentation of narrow confidence intervals around base case forecasts and the abuse of exceedance probabilities. Traffic advisers sometimes talk in terms of P95 values – inferring that there is only a 5% probability of that particular number (traffic volume or revenue) not being achieved. However these exceedance probabilities are unlike those associated with scientifically-measurable natural phenomena such as the measurement of wind to determine energy yield predictions for wind farm financings. At best, they result from consultants attempting to re-cast their traffic model in a simple probabilistic framework. At worst, they are simply guesstimates.

Proper analysis of any traffic or toll revenue projections presented as probabilities requires a sound understanding of the probabilistic model construction, the probabilistic variables and their distributions and the correlations among the probabilistic variables. No comfort should ever be taken from P95 figures alone. If there really was as little uncertainty in the forecasts as some sensitivity tests, confidence intervals and P95s have suggested, traffic advisers could remove the legal disclaimers from their reports and could cancel their professional indemnity insurance. These trends have not been observed to date.

Robert Bain runs his own consultancy providing technical support services to investors, insurers and infrastructure funds. This article is an abridged extract from his forthcoming book ‘Toll Road Traffic & Revenue Forecasts: An Interpreter’s Guide’. Further details are available from Rob at info@robbain.com.

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Honk! Selling New Mobility (Carsharing for two)

Here is a short video produced by the new Mobizen carshare start-up in Paris last year which, simple and short as it is, will click with some people and make a point. Have a look first and then let's talk about it.

Click here for passion.

But what is this video doing here?

There may be a fairly large number of people around the world who have deep knowledge about various parts of the new mobility agenda, and there certainly are many good projects and services which are showing the way, but somehow the bottom line results are simply not there. We continue to live in a high-cost, low-choice, high-carbon world. We are not getting the vital messages across. We are simply not selling our ideas.

We live in an era in which few people are willing to read long papers, never mind books or reports, so no matter how much of these we produce they will never in themselves be enough to get the job done. We have to learn to make better uses of media, so here in World Streets we will from time to time be picking out what we regard as interesting examples.

Do you have any good candidates for us? Be sure to share them, perhaps in the Comments section that follows just below.

* * * More on New Mobility Media here. * * *

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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Honk! Making Streets Safer for Seniors

Transportation Alternatives' Safe Routes for Seniors campaign started in 2003 to encourage senior citizens to walk more by improving their pedestrian environment. Funded by the New York State Department of Health's Healthy Heart program, this was the first program of its kind to address the needs of elderly pedestrians.

Click here for Elizabeth Press's StreetFilms video.

In 2008, the City of New York launched its own Safe Streets for Seniors initiative based on TAs Safe Routes for Seniors. Focusing on 25 areas with high senior pedestrian fatalities, this program is paving new ground. Yet, some including seniors not in these zones are asking, is it enough? Stats released by Transportation Alternatives show that:

* People aged 65 years and older make up 12% of the population, yet they comprised 39% of New York City's pedestrian fatalities between 2002 and 2006.

* The fatality rate of senior pedestrians is 40 times greater than that of child pedestrians in Manhattan.This video is an overview of what Transportation Alternatives, New York State Department of Health, NYC DOT, community groups, and elected officials are doing to promote safe streets for seniors.

Some references: TA Urges DOT to Expand Safe Streets for Seniors Safe Streets for Seniors NYC program Transportation Alternatives: Elderly Pedestrians Are Walking Targets "Walk the Walk": Safety zones for senior populations

Read on:

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Toolkit: International TDM practices under review

From the Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP): Training document on Transportation Demand Management.

Cities across the globe need innovative and effective solutions to solve their transportation problems in the short, medium and long term. Increased economic growth, coupled with a resulting increase in motorisation in recent years, has created greater congestion than has ever been seen in the world. Solutions to these problems are possible through improvement of conditions of public transport and conditions for pedestrians and bicycle users, and also in the implementation of measures which promote a rational use of the automobile.

Transportation Demand Management (TDM) aims to maximize the efficiency of the urban transport system using a wide range of measures, including Congestion Pricing, Public Transport Improvement, Promoting Non-motorised Transport, Fuel Taxation and Parking Management. This document presents an overview on international practices, approaches and supports the design of a TDM strategy.

To download click here. (Unregistered visitors can register (and then proceed to download.)

This report covers the following key issues:

1. Challenging traffic growth in developing countries 2. Developing a comprehensive TDM strategy 3. Improving mobility options 4. Economic measures 5. Smart growth and land use policies

Authored by Andrea Broaddus, Todd Litman and Gopinath Menon, this GTZ training document advocates that a three-pronged approach, utilizing 1) Improve Mobility Options, 2) Economic Measures, and 3) Smart Growth and Land Use Management is the most effective way to manage demand and create a resilient and efficient transport system. The document contains 118 fully illustrated pages, 27 tables, 51 boxes and 92 figures.

About SUTP: The Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) is a global partnership which aims to help developing world cities achieve their sustainable transport goals, through the dissemination of information about international experience and targeted work with particular cities. SUTP developed the publication “Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-makers in developing cities” consisting of more than 26 modules. The sourcebook addresses the key areas of a sustainable transport policy framework for a developing city. It is also complemented by a series of training documents and other material. More on www.sutp.org

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Honk: The Story of Sprawl

New Video Series Tells the Story of Sprawl

- Brad Aaron in Streetsblog on April 21, 2009

As livable streets advocates work to make headway in breaking the cycle of American auto dependence, the folks at Planetizen have put together a video narrative that explains how we got here. "The Story of Sprawl," a double DVD set produced by Managing Editor Tim Halbur, is a compilation of historical films dating from 1939 to 1965, documenting the confluence of factors that fostered the quintessential land use motif of the 20th century: far-flung, low-density, driving-intensive residential and commercial development. The discs include commentary from planning notables including Andrés Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, John Norquist, Neal Peirce, James Howard Kunstler and Robert Cervero.

Click here for more on this series from Planetizen, a public-interest information exchange provided by Urban Insight for the urban planning, design, and development community. Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 05:20 0 Comments Links to this post

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Brainfood: Transforming Times Square

Gordon Price, a Canadian urban planner and politician (and Eyes on the Street in Vancouver Canada), has taken his camera and toolkit to Times Square to observe what is going on in New York to convert what is now overwhelmingly car space into a vibrant urban space for people.

Click here to view Price Tags 107 – NYC1: Times Square.

He writes from Vancouver this morning:

Astonishing things are happening in New York City, most especially at ‘the centre of the world’ - Times Square. Inspired political leadership is ‘copenhagenizing’ some of most car-congested streets in one of the most pedestrian-crowded places on the continent. In this issue of Price Tags, see what they’ve already done, and what to expect in the coming months.

More on Gordon Price and his work:

Gordon Price is the Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University. (www.sfu.ca/city). In 2002, he finished his sixth term as a City Councilor in Vancouver, BC. He has written several extensive essays on Vancouver and transportation issues (The Deceptive City, Local Politician's Guide to Urban Transportation (www.vtpi.org/localpol.htm). He also publishes an electronic magazine on urban issues, with a focus on Vancouver, called “Price Tags" (www.pricetags.ca). In 2009, he was appointed by the Mayor of Vancouver as a member of the “Greenest City Action Team.” He sits on the Boards of the Sightline Institute and the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, and the executive committees of local chapters of the Urban Land Institute and Lambda Alpha. Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 07:03 0 Comments Links to this post

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Monday, April 20, 2009

World Streets Sentinels - Eyes on the Street (A wide-open world-wide peer observatory)

Sentinel n. – "A person or animal that watches over, guards a place or group from unwanted surprises." 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 worldwide network of correspondents/World Eyes on the Street Sentinels project 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

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 much of the leading edge innovation is taking place in Europe and Japan, 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 full 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. (And if you have candidates for us, please do let us know. It's important.)

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.

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Groups: We like the idea of bringing in groups of people and actors as "World 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

Location: For reasons of discretion (not a strong point on the net) we are inviting our Eyes volunteers to chose some public place to be located on their city map. It’s all part of our global/local orientation. Even here at the beginning we already have a nice variety, for example our friend Adhiraj Joglekar in Mumbai can be found at the Opera House, while in Bilbao Mikel Murga will meet you on the front door of the Guggenheim Museum and in Boston Michael Alba is waiting for you just inside left field in Fenway Park. I am available right next to the children’s pond in the Luxemburg Gardens a short walk from my office. The idea is to open up the city and make it a human space and not just one more virtual abstraction. So it will be good if we can meet in your favorite place in your city.

What else? For the rest all we need from our colleagues on this is (a) their approval, (b) name and email as they wish it to appear, (c) a URL taking the visitor to a program of particular interest to them, and (d) a small photo which we can then paste into their entry. And of course the location in which you wish to "receive" your visitors. (If for some reason you prefer to remain anonymous to the world in any or all of these respects, no problem, we can also work that one out I am sure. The important thing is those hundreds, eventually thousands of lively eyes on the street. Mrs. Jacobs would have been proud. I can promise you that)

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

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Op-Ed: Jeff Kenworthy on Cars, cities and paradigm change

Cars and cities: Time for a paradigm change

The current economic meltdown in the USA was triggered by the toxic loans now held by banks all over the country. These toxic loans are focused in the highly car-dependent parts of US cities and were partly triggered by the extraordinary prices for oil experienced in mid-2008, which made such locations simply unsustainable from every perspective, especially the financial one. It highlighted the extreme fragility of the US urban development pattern characterized by urban sprawl and excessive dependence on cars.

More deeply it began to show that the current long wave business cycle or 5th Kondratiev wave has reached an end. The end of the four such previous long wave business cycles dating back to the 18th century was characterized by an economic recession and depression. At the moment we see some of the death throes of this current cycle in the deep crises within the global auto-manufacturing industries and a general crisis of confidence in the whole financial world that underpins the current long wave business cycle. The temptation is to support the old “paradigm” in the form of bailouts, to extend the life of such a cycle. But did the age of steam and railroads survive the age of electricity and the internal combustion engine? It did not and no one today would conclude that it would have been sensible to try to forestall the new era.

A more effective response and better use of such precious funds is to embrace the new long wave business cycle or new dawn that is waiting to break over a world desperately in need of social, economic and environmental restoration. What is this new long wave business cycle waiting in the wings? It is the age of sustainability. Cities are inevitably a focal point for the dawn of this age and there are new imperatives that need to be embraced, which offer the basis for a whole new economy. Not only do they promise a new economic boom, as happens with each new business cycle, but they hold within themselves the seeds of a whole new healthier way of living, which can also restore the local, regional and global commons.

There are ten critical dimensions in urban development and transportation that can be embraced to bring forward this new era of sustainability.

(1) The city has a compact, mixed-use urban form that uses land efficiently and protects the natural environment, biodiversity and food producing areas.

(2) The natural environment permeates the city’s spaces and embraces the city,while the city and its hinterland provide a major proportion of its food needs.

(3) Freeway and road infrastructure are de-emphasized in favour of transit, walking and cycling infrastructure, with a special emphasis on rail. Car and motorcycle use are minimized.

(4) There is extensive use of environmental technologies for water, energy and waste management – the city’s life support systems become closed loop systems.

(5) The central city and sub-centres within the city are human centres that emphasise non-auto

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access and circulation and absorb a high proportion of employment and residential growth.

(6) The city has a high quality public realm throughout that expresses apublic culture, community, equity and good governance. The publicrealm includes the entire transit system and all the environments associated with it.

(7) The physical structure and urban design of the city, especially its public environments are highly legible, permeable, robust, varied, rich, visually appropriate and personalised for human needs.

(8) The economic performance of the city and employment creation are maximised through innovation, creativity and the uniqueness of the local environment, culture and history, as well as the high environmental and social quality of the city’s public environments.

(9) Planning for the future of the city is a visionary ‘debate and decide’ process, not a ‘predict and provide’, computer-driven process that just produces more and more traffic growth.

(10) All decision-making is sustainability-based integrating social, economic, environmental and cultural considerations, as well as compact, transit-oriented urban form principles. Such decision-making processes are democratic, inclusive, empowering and engendering of hope.

Capitalising on the business opportunities inherent in the above urban agenda will put nations in a much more competitive economic position that rides the crest of the new economic wave that must inevitably come.

Jeff Kenworthy, J.Kenworthy@curtin.edu.auCUSP Institute (Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute)Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Contribution by the author to the world wide collaborative project “Messages for America: World-wide experience, ideas, counsel, proposals and good wishes for the incoming Obama transportation team”. See www.messages.newmobility.org for latest version of this report of World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda.

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Friday, April 17, 2009

Transport Realities in South Africa: Slow, but maybe a start

By Gail Jennings, editor: MOBILITY

Transport planning and practice in South Africa has done little to enable people to become full citizens of our country, and access the economic and social opportunities available to us since 1994. Poor households spend between 20 and 30% of their household incomes on trying to get from A to B.

Mobility is central to our human rights, and access to economic opportunities, health care and education, friends and family, goods and services. Our mobility is still impaired by spatial segregation, under-investment in infrastructure and public transport, and the assumption that we are all current or future car-drivers. Many resources remain inaccessible to the people who need them most. In addition, rapid urbanisation and a growth in the size of the middle-class has seen more private cars on the roads, with declining air quality and increased congestion.

Yet in 2008, the transport budget was five times higher than that of 2003… What happened?

The Soccer

The long-overdue process of fixing South Africa’s public – and non-motorised – transport needed some sort of impetus, and the 2010 FIFA World Cup has provided just that. Increased mobility choices and improved motorised and non-motorised transport (NMT) infrastructure will be lasting legacy of the football tournament.

Spatial planning

South African cities – and Cape Town in particular – are recognising that transport is a ‘land-use issue’, not a ‘roads issue’ – and are talking about establishing integrated grid-based movement systems, densification, and consolidating and intensifing development on the accessibility grid.

‘We need movement systems that provide convenient and affordable access to a city’s resources and amenities for everyone,’ says Catherine Stone, Catherine Stone, Director: Spatial Planning & Urban Design, City of Cape Town.

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‘A movement system must be structured to create a public transport orientated, equitable pattern of access so that all people can reach a broadly similar range of opportunities and facilities in the city.’

Non-motorised transport (NMT)

Many of the poor, and unemployed, cannot afford public transport, let alone private cars – and bicycles offer flexible, door-to-door low-cost mobility.

However, a lack of bicycle-friendly infrastructure, startlingly aggressive driver attitudes, cultural taboos, and an appalling road-safety record (as many people are killed on the roads each year as are victims of violent crime – about 18 000) deter many commuter cyclists.

Nevertheless, faced with the undisputable evidence that bicycles are a highly efficient, desirable and affordable mode of transport – and the prospect of football fans from countries that regard bicycle transport as the norm – policy makers are changing gear.

In 2008 the national government issued an NMT policy, and some provincial and local governments have done the same.

‘We want to promote modal choice’, says Ngwako Makaepea, National Department of Transport, Director: Transport Policy. ‘Bicycles are a realistic mode of transport, and they are vital for our anti-poverty strategies.’

Already, national government-sponsored initiative Shova Kalula (‘pedal easy’) provides bicycles to rural and peri-urban learners, farm workers and health workers, and cities such as Cape Town, Tshwane and George are implementing city-wide connected bicycle lanes. NMT activists in Cape Town are having some success as ‘watchdogs’ over the City’s transport planning department, conducting informal NMT audits on roads and infrastructure plans and advising on improvements.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

South Africa has looked to other developing countries for lower-cost, high-quality public transport, and has seen that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is replicable here.

BRT vehicles run along dedicated lanes, and offer commuters a safe, convenient and reliable service with a regular, all day and evening time table.

Construction of BRT stations are well underway in both Cape Town and Johannesburg, and although the systems are about far more than 2010, their first phases need to be operational by then.

‘Rea Vaya [Joburg’s BRT] is not so much a transport intervention as a quality of life intervention, says Cllr Rehana Moosajee, City of Joburg Mayoral Committee member for Transport.

There will be place for current bus operators in the system, although mini-bus taxis will be excluded from the trunk routes.

The BRT, however, hailed as the solution to many of our transport ills, is seen as the bringer of financial ruin by many in the mini-bus taxi industry. As providers of flexible, affordable, customer-driven transport for decades – when government failed to do so – many in the taxi industry regard public transport as ‘their’ territory. They’ve threatened – and implemented – strikes, violence, and

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‘war’ if the BRT goes ahead.

Currently, the minibus-taxi industry moves about two-thirds of public transport passengers in South Africa, says Herrie Schalekamp, Centre for Transport Studies, UCT. ‘Consequently, interventions in the public transport market require substantial interaction with this industry if they are to succeed.’

Cape Town and Joburg have been in continuous negotiations with the taxi industry, and various memoranda of agreements have been signed…

The mini-bus taxi industry

‘However, considering this sector’s continuous opposition to change, a poor relationship between public authorities and minibus-taxi organisations, and evidence from international cases of similar interventions, the successful implementation of BRT and concurrent corporatisation of the minibus-taxi industry is not a foregone conclusion,’ notes Schalekamp ruefully.

Rail gets ready

Early 2009 saw the launch of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA), which combines the assets and employees of the South African Rail Commuter Corporation and Metrorail, with long-distance rail and intercity bus companies (which previously fell under Transnet). PRASA will invest R25 billion over the next three years to improve its service offering and restore of rail as vital component, focusing on passengers and reducing the over-reliance on road-based transport. Also on the horizon is greater integration between buses, taxis and rail, with a single ticket system across modes and municipalities/provinces.

Already Metrorail has offered hugely successful luxury express services, from Khayelitsha and Gordon’s Bay to Cape Town, and Tshwane and Soweto to Johannesburg. While good, safe and reliable service, and clean facilities might be the norm to our readers abroad, this is a relatively new ‘concept’ to South African public transport users. The service cuts travel time by about 30%!

‘Never in the history of Soweto have commuters been treated with such dignity and respect, says Sophie Mathabane, a private clinic nurse to takes the Express in Johannesburg. For many women, safety is the deciding factor in making this modal choice.

And then there’s Gautrain…

Gautrain Rapid Rail Link – with a maximum speed of 160 km per hour – will take a mere 15

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minutes to travel between OR Tambo [Johannesburg] International Airport and Sandton Station…

“Gautrain is set to change the commuting habits of residents as well as their lifestyle choices such as where to live, work and play,’ says Jack van der Merwe, CEO of the Gautrain Management Agency. ‘It’s a catalyst for a new form of urban development where existing suburbs are becoming people-friendly high-density, economic cores and inner cities are being rejuvenated.’

The Link will include ten stations on an 80km route, between 5-8km apart. Trains will run every 12 minutes during peak hour. Passengers can transfer easily to other modes, such as BRT, taxis and trains.

The excitement we South Africans feel about Gautrain, the various BRT routes, and bicycle lanes, is bittersweet. We long to no longer feature as one a country with the world’s worst road crash statistics. We want safe, reliable, affordable, accessible, sustainable, shared transport choices – and why shouldn’t we?

As Schalekamp puts it, transformation of public transport in this country may yet be driven not by the public sector, or policy, or minibus-taxi operators, but by public demand for improved services.

On major city landmarks and numerous websites, the countdown to the 2010 FIFA World Cup kick-off ticks by the second… But for many South Africans, that countdown represents the arrival of one of basic human rights: access.

Gail Jennings is editor of MOBILITY in Capetown, South Africa.

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Honk! Don Carleone wants into Carsharing

Paris, France. Friday, April 17, 2009

The phone rattled, and this time it was a voice that I knew all too well. "It's me," the voice rasped, "Don Carleone" (as if I could forget that voice!).

"How's things going, Rico?" (Rico??)

And without waiting for an answer, he said, "Never mind. There's a limo outside waiting to bring you here -- so just leave off whatever it is you are doing and get over here. I gotta talk to you about some of those carsharing guys you told me about last time."

I had almost forgotten that the Don had shown so much interest in carsharing, but I knew that he was into diversification these days. Ever since Bernie dropped out he has been looking around for big numbers.

I'll never forget the first time I mentioned the word "carsharing" to him and saw that he was frowning. It was more than a year ago.

He asked me what it meant, and I tried to explain. (I told him this: Carsharing is what you get when people stop using their own cars and instead use a shared vehicle whenever they need one. Think of it as a very handy short-term rent-a-car that is right around the corner and costs a lot less than owning your own car. It works best if you live in a city that has decent public transport. There are more than a thousand cities around the world today where you can join a carshare club. (See http://www.carshare.newmobility.org/ for details.)

Then I remember I jabbered a lot about carsharing being such a great idea because it represents a terrific first step toward "decoupling" the desire to use a car and the actual ownership of the car -- an important change toward a more sustainable transportation system. And on and on.

Now, the Don is not exactly what you would call "into sustainability," but he did stop me to ask if any of these guys, the thousand (or whatever it was) carshare operations in cities around the world, made any money at what they did. I said that some did and some didn't, but that the operations are starting to become more profitable as they gain more experience.

The Don seemed to like what he was hearing, which was not surprising because he always had liked international opportunities. After a long pause, he said, "Tell me something, Rico. How many cars do you figure there are in the world? And how much do you think those stiffs pay to keep them on the road?"

Of course, I don't like giving the Don answers on anything like that without being able to check it out first by computer, but I took the risk and gave him some ballpark figures. I told him there were something like 800 million motor vehicles on the world's roads, that the annual growth rate of new cars ran anywhere from five to ten percent a year, and that it cost something like $7,000 of a bit more per year to cover all the costs for owning one, at least in the wealthier parts of the world.

The Don is fast. Without losing a minute, he said, "Hey Rico! Have you ever multiplied those numbers together? 'Cause if you do, you are looking at a $5 trillion-plus price tag. That's a lot of

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zeros And the whole pile is growing at 5/10 percent a year? With that kind of potential I am not even going to miss Bernie."

"But I need to know another thing, too. What part of the world market do you think those carshare guys could eventually corner if they got their act together?"

I had never thought about that before. Let's see. Studies suggest that carsharing becomes a serious economic option for city dwellers who drive less than 5/6,000 miles in one year. Other statistics suggest that, with wide regional variations, this also happens to be the average figure for annual car travel in many places. Putting these two together would suggest that perhaps in good time as much as one-half of the entire world of car owner/drivers might be candidates for carsharing.

I could tell I had the Don's attention and I could see him juggling those numbers and smiling broadly at the same time. A happy man.

He wheezed, "Rico, you've given me a pretty good idea here. I'm even starting to like you. The way I see it, if you think of carsharing as a whole new business, it could account for up to half of all the money that people spend in the world car market — not only for the cars themselves but also for the insurance, parking (and we like parking), fuel, and all the rest. Let's round off. Call it $3 trillion a year. That's a number, ain't it? And I, the Don, want a piece of that market. A big piece!"

That was the last time I had seen the Don, until the phone rang last night. And as I was getting into his waiting stretch limo with the armor plating and one-way bullet-proof glass (the motor was running -- as I said, the Don is not really into sustainability), I tossed my laptop into the car, just in case he wanted more background on this carsharing stuff. With the Don, it pays to get it right the first time.

When I arrived at the great house and entered between the snarling Dobermans and the usual large gentlemen with the sunglasses, I found the Don waiting for me with a glass of wine. That was nice, but I still was wondering what he had in mind.

"Rico," he said, "My boys tell me that you are doing a thing called World Streets or something like that. Is that right?"

What could I say but, "Right, Don."

"And I hear that you are asking all those carsharing guys to get together at some point this summer, maybe one of your lousy Car Free Days, and organize open houses all over the world to invite the public in, and in general cooperate with the big guys in their cities to make sure that the Day works out for you. I got that right?"

I replied, "Right again, Don."

Then he said, "So here's my question, little guy: How many of these guys have already signed on to do this? My boys tell me that things are going a little slowly over there."

"Well Don," I whined, "this sort of thing takes time. We have just recently asked them to get involved, and they have a lot of other things to do to keep their businesses running. But the first groups have already come in, and I am sure that we will have a number of others join in by the time we have actually set the date."

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I have rarely seen the Don so mad. "A number of others?" he roared. "Rico, I want all of them. This is a trillion dollar business and we need to get moving on it. Tell them that the Don wants them in. Or else."

He was really angry, and I think that if you are running a carshare operation anywhere in the world, you would do well to listen to the Don. He is famous for his long arms and short temper. And you can't say that I didn't warn you.

* Note on the above photo of the Don. You probably know that he does not like to have his picture taken for public exposure, but he let me snap this one on the grounds that I would keep working with him on this. You know how it is.

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Reminder: Road Diets (Plenty of fat left)

There are hundreds of things, known by thousands of names, that you can do with a little careful preparation and technical competence to move your city and its streets in a few months toward greater sustainability, without having to wait for good news and great gobs of taxpayer money from the capital. And they are not all brand new innovations just out of someone’s high priced laboratory (or still stuck inside).

One of these is an approach known in many places as “road diets”, also referred to variously and with variations as lane diets, street narrowing, road space reallocation, and eventually merging into broader approaches including complete streets, traffic calming, livable streets, etc.

A road diet is commonly defined as: a studied reduction of a roadway’s width or lanes, intended to change traffic patterns while improving safety and livability. If you get it right -- and that is both a

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technical and a communications task -- it brings local economic and even real estate value advantages along with the rest.

Ten years ago, March 1999, Dan Burden and Peter Lagerwey of the Walkable Communities project collaborated on a short (17 page) illustrated report under the title Road Diets: Losing width and gaining respect in which the authors ask: "Can our nation's roads gain efficiency, mode share and safety by getting leaner? Many are doing just that".

That was a full decade ago. In the meantime . . .

Back in 1999 Burden and Lagerwey explained to us that:

"Roadway conversions discussed here may be just the ticket to start remaking unhealthy, unsafe city neighborhoods or commercial districts and turn them into more robust, vital, economically sound places. Road conversion may be undertaken to create safer, more efficient ways to provide access and mobility for pedestrians, bicycle riders and transit users, as well as motorists. They improve livability and quality of life for residents and shoppers. Just as with human diets, road diets without doctors’ (transportation planners and engineers) analyses and prescriptions, might be foolhardy."

If it sounds like a nice idea but one destined to go nowhere fast, have a look at the following from the US:

First step the latest Wikipedia entry on road diets right here to get a running jump

“There are perhaps over 20,000 road diets in the United States, with another 500-1,000 being conducted each year. The city in North America with the greatest number of road diets (29) is San Francisco. The city with the greatest number of road diets, per capita, is Hartford, Connecticut (12). One or two new road diets are added to each of these cities annually. Retail merchants in Seattle are now some of the strongest proponents for these projects, since reduced travel speeds allow for easier and safer parking, improve store access and boost overall walking and livability conditions in neighborhoods ... all of which leads to improved commerce.”

A nice presentation by Jennifer A. Rosales, under the title Road Diet Handbook (February 2008) provides a good summary of the state of the art in the United States.

You might also want to check out(and possibly contribute) the Livable Streets Network StreetsWiki entry on road diets.

Next steps here: Three options. You are invited to comment just below. Alternatively, we can rewrite the entry together. Or best yet, crank up a road diet project in your city or neighborhood. Let us know.

The Editor

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Toolbox: Potential fit between World Streets and Twitter?

We have long believed that a good question can be a lot more useful as a spur for excellence than most of what are often passed off as answers. So in this spirit, and as part of our unending search for new tools for sustainability, let me simply draw your attention to the small reader poll you will see just to your left and invite you to share your views there. Another option is to weigh in just below as a Comment.

Here is some background on Twitter. And here, in case you missed it, on World Streets.

And then if the response and subsequent research proves this worth pursuing further, well we will pursue it. Either ourselves or through the contributions of friends, partners and collaborators who are invited to weigh on what I suspect is a non-trivial question.

Now, your turn to make your voice heard.

The Editor

* Image from www.briansolis.com/2009_02_01_archive.html - See Fair use

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Transit-Oriented Development - Tokyo-style

Tokyo-style Transit-Oriented Development, a Lesson in Variety and Interconnectivity

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) in Tokyo resembles the streetcar suburbs of the US from the turn of the 20th century; private transit operators build high density suburbs along their transit lines to boost ridership. In Tokyo, however, each station area supplies access to most daily services by walking.

Furthermore, most TODs offer large numbers of service sector jobs and some professional jobs. This high level of mixed-usage gives each development a rudimentary independence concerning individual lifestyles; but the grouping of TODs interconnected by an efficient rail and bus system makes them successful. TOD stations are also served by feeder buses and the rail lines connect directly with subways, allowing seamless access to the city center.

Along with the built environment of the TODs themselves, the center which they encompass is fully navigable by foot, bus, or subway. As the TOD resident is

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freed from car use at both ends of their trips, cars, while owned by many, are only used for non-commute and non-daily activity trips. In many cases, the vast rail system allows TOD residents to carry out most leisure activities by mass transit.

Transportation Demand Management (TDM) further reinforces a transit oriented lifestyle. Relatively high gas prices, expensive and limited parking, and narrow roads (a capricious measure) further reduce the impulse to drive and make the cheaper mass transit option even more attractive. Along with its density, these measures make mass transit the only viable option for commuting

Although replicating Tokyo’s densities would be beyond imaginable, following its example of providing high service levels that make inter-TOD travel convenient id the primary lesson to take away from its experience. The Tokyo region developed its style of TOD from a near clean slate; but Japan’s allowing of private industry and transit operators to develop denser, mixed-use areas around transit stations is crucial as a means to realize these types of development at this level. This private development has also led to the efficient use of stations, where transit operators provide non-transport related services, such as shopping.

In closing, TOD in Tokyo is more than a type of development, it is a lifestyle. While car use is not precluded by Tokyo’s urban form, cars serve their function in a responsible manner. Furthermore, owning a car is a choice; thus all persons of all levels of ability are able to meet their needs, for which TOD in Tokyo allows millions to meet in a manner that is sustainable and equitable.

Gabriel Banks, PhD Candidate - gbanks@ut.t.u-tokyo.ac.jpProfessor Nobuaki Ohmori, Lecturer - nobuaki@ut.t.u-tokyo.ac.jpUniversity of Tokyo Department of Urban Engineering, Tokyo Japan

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

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Op-Ed: Privatizing Street Parking

There are a lot of good reasons for cities to charge for public parking. It is more efficient and equitable. Urban parking facilities are a valuable resource, costing $10,000 to $50,000 to construct, with a typically annual value of $1,000 to $2,000 in land, construction and operating costs. Many vehicles are worth less than the parking spaces they occupy; underpricing parking forces people who own fewer than average vehicles to subsidize their neighbors who own more than average vehicles.

Currently in North America, most parking is provided free, financed through development costs and municipal governments, and therefore borne through mortgages, rents and taxes. Charging motorists directly of using urban parking facilities typically reduces automobile trips by about 20%; in other words, about 20% of parking facility costs, traffic congestion, accidents, energy consumption and pollution emissions results from the common practice of paying for parking indirectly rather than directly.

That said, it is probably best for municipal governments to maintain tight control over their parking pricing systems. Chicago recently leased its parking meters to a private company for 99 years, simply as a way for the city to collect a short-term windfall (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/transportation/chi-parking-meters-20-mar20,0,871852.story).

Privatization could be fine if designed to maximize user convenience and economic efficiency, but not if the goal is simply to maximize revenue. At a minimum, privatization should require state-of-the-art payment systems, gradual and predictable price changes, performance standards, and a much shorter lease period so future councils can change their policies.

For more information see:

"Parking Pricing" ( http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm26.htm )

Richard Arnott and John Rowse (2007), ‘Downtown parking in auto city’, Boston College Working Paper 665 (http://econpapers.repec.org); at http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/bocbocoec/665.htm.

Marcus Enoch and Stephen Ison (2006), “Levying Charges On Private Parking: Lessons From Existing Practice,” World Transport Policy & Practice, Vol. 12, No. 1 ( http://ecoplan.org/wtpp/general/vol-12-1.pdf), pp. 5-14.

Daniel B. Hess (2001), The Effects of Free Parking on Commuter Mode Choice: Evidence from Travel Diary Data, Lewis Center for Public Policy Studies, UCLA ( www.sppsr.ucla.edu/lewis/WorkingPapers.html).

Douglas Kolozsvari and Donald Shoup (2003), “Turning Small Change Into Big Changes,” ACCESS 23, University of California Transportation Center (www.uctc.net), Fall 2003, pp. 2-7.

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Todd Litman (2006), Parking Management Best Practices, Planners Press (www.planning.org).

Todd Litman (2006), Parking Management: Strategies, Evaluation and Planning, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org/park_man.pdf ).

Todd Litman (2006), Parking Taxes: Evaluating Options and Impacts, VTPI ( www.vtpi.org/parking_tax.pdf).

Todd Litman (2006), Parking Management: Innovative Solutions To Vehicle Parking Problems, Planetzen ( www.planetizen.com/node/19149).

Gary Roth (2004), An Investigation Into Rational Pricing For Curbside Parking: What Will Be The Effects Of Higher Curbside Parking Prices In Manhattan? Masters Thesis, Columbia University; at http://anti-bob.com/parking/Rational_Pricing_for_Curbside_Parking-GRoth.pdf ).

Tom Rye and Stephen Ison (2005), “Overcoming Barriers to the Implementation of Car Parking Charges at UK Workplaces,” Transport Policy, Vol. 12, No. 1 ( www.elsevier.com/locate/transpol), Jan. 2005, pp. 57-64.

Donald Shoup (2002), Curb Parking: An Ideal Source of Public Revenue, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (www.lincolninst.edu), Presented at “Analysis of Land Markets and the Impact of Land Market Regulation,” (Code CP02A01).

Donald Shoup (2005), The High Cost of Free Parking, Planners Press (www.planning.org). This is a comprehensive and entertaining book of the causes, costs and problems created by free parking, and how to correct these distortions.

Donald Shoup (2006), The Price of Parking On Great Streets, Planetizen ( www.planetizen.com/node/19150).

USEPA (2006), Parking Spaces / Community Places: Finding the Balance Through Smart Growth Solutions, Development, Community, and Environment Division (DCED); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ( www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/parking.htm).

VTPI (2003), Parking Cost, Pricing And Revenue Calculator, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org/parking.xls).

Todd LitmanVictoria Transport Policy Institute Victoria BC, Canada

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Monday, April 13, 2009

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Letters: Signal priority for city buses

Dear Editor:

Here is a wonderful and useful document from TfL (Transport for London on "Bus pre-signals": a technique used to enable buses to move ahead of queues on the approach to signalised junctions and areas where there is insufficient carriageway width to provide physical measures. (TfL is the integrated body responsible for London’s transport system, under the authority of the city's mayor.)

Whether its prioritising buses on roads that narrow down in to a bottle neck or when one wants buses to pull out from a bus stop in the left lane straight in to the right lane as they need taking a right turn at next junction - An absolute must read.

I pray for the day when something as simple as this hits Indian cities like Mumbai and Pune - hope its sooner than later.

Adhiraj Joglekar Eyes on the Street correspondent in Mumbai, India

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Carsharing on World Streets

World Streets actively supports carsharing as one of the key baseline new mobility modes that have to be brought in as part of the multi-level package needed to manage the transition to sustainable transport in all cities and communities around the world. Note the fact that we say all and not just certain kinds of cities. Stay tuned and you will see how this work.

The New Mobility Agenda created the World Carshare Consortium in 1997 as a free, cooperative, independent communications and collaboration forum in support of carsharing projects and programs, worldwide. World Carshare offers a convenient place on the web to gather and share information and independent views on projects and approaches, past, present and planned future, freely and easily available to all comers.

Through this date World Carshare has has brought together more than 450 members, hosted more than 3000 exchanges of questions and information, organized or participated in several dozen national or international workshops or conferences, generated a number of independent reports, provided policy counsel to both cities and carshare projects, helped draft legislation, and more generally served as a spur to carshare development internationally. (These contributions have been deeply appreciated by leaders in the field, as you can see from the testimonials that are summarized here.)

Here is what the map of visitors for 12 April 2009 looks like. Basically it provides a good resume of where carsharing is being practiced and studies today. We are going to see this map expand steadily in the years immediately ahead.

In a recent world survey (November 2008) we identified more than one thousand cities and communities in the world in which you can pick up a share car this morning. This number has come close to doubling over the last two years, and there is no sign of this rate of growth leveling off.

Why have we over all these years supported a concept that may to some appear to be so off-beat and marginal as carsharing? Simple! We think it's a great, sustainable, practical mobility idea whose time has come and whose potential impact is quite simply huge. Carsharing: the missing link in your city's sustainable transport system.

In Spring 2009 Streets will report on carshare development at the leading edge, and will be hosting a series of interviews with leading figures and projects in every country in which it is presently practiced. Stay tuned.

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Saturday, April 11, 2009

Honk! Polish cyclists can't drink and drive

- From our vigilant Eyes on the Street reporter Marek Utkin in Warsaw.Under a law passed in 2000 in Poland, anyone riding a bike under the influence of alcohol faces a fine or up to two years in prison, depending on the level of their intoxication.

This law was engineered (for not to say doctored) before Poland's access to the EU: one of the requirements, imposed by the EU on its candidate members was to increase the detectability of the crimes. The cyclists became scapegoats...

This law, which places the cyclist after two beers on the same footing with a drunk driver of 20 ton truck or bus full of people, received a wholehearted welcome by police officers, especially in the countryside. It turns out it is a way easier (and safer) to arrest a local farmer John, returning home by bike after closing of bar, than to stop a speeding car, which might be full of the thugs in track suits or -- even worse -- its driver could be a distinguished Member of Parliament (which is quite often phenomenon and means troubles for every policeman).

This law proceeded to the Constitutional Court, as absurd and draconian and which can drag whole families into poverty -- and currently two thousand Poles (mainly fathers of the families) are in prison for riding a bicycle whilst under the influence of alcohol. In spite of this, Poland's Constitutional Court has upheld a ruling that drunken cyclists should be tried as criminals, treated like drunken motorists and face prison if caught.

The average sentence for riding a bike after booze is 11.5 months imprisonment.

There was a proposal that intoxicated cyclists should be treated like drunken pedestrians, who face a fine rather than jail, as both use their own muscles to achieve motion. The Constitutional Court (lead by the chairwoman, a typical car-bound person), ruled that cyclists use public roads and are considerably more dangerous because of the speeds they can travel.

Drunken pedestrians use the public roads too and I would be careful not to exaggerate the speed of a drunken cyclist. Taking into account that the energy (hence the possible damage) equals mass time velocity [M x V], the mass of the cyclist plus bike rarely exceeds 100 kilograms while the speed decreases with the level of alcohol in blood.

The whole affair unveils the attitude of Polish authorities to the cycling in general. Both the cyclist, as the motorist in Poland could have 0,2 promille of alcohol in blood. In Germany the cyclist could have 1,6 promille of alcohol (and the car driver -- 0,5 promille).

In Poland in road accidents with alcohol in background, ca. 86% of them caused drunken car drivers and only in 14% of them have been involved drunken cyclists. In majority of the accidents with

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drunken drivers casualties or heavy injuries occurred. In accidents with the drunken cyclists the number of injuries and casualties was much more lower, and the victims have been often the cyclists alone.

In Polish prisons ca. 1931 people have been jailed after being caught in flagrante delicto for cycling after boozing (more wait in the custody). Cost of keeping all these sinful cyclists in prisons equals about EUR 10 to 12 million per year. For that much money Poland could build about 250 kilometers of cycle paths along the most busy national roads.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7994857.stm- As to the photo we have been unable to ascertain if the cyclist pictured is drunk. Or for that matter Polish. Our investigations continue (See Comments below for results). The editor.

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Get to know your neighbors on World Streets

Over the last 24 hours more than 200 people have checked in to World Streets from the following countries to have a look:

Look at this against the present status of our world Eyes on the Streets map (started only on 5 April and just getting going.)

I kind of wonder what this is telling us.

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Friday, April 10, 2009

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Honk! Livable Streets Promised Land

This just in from our friends over at Livable Streets and Streetsblog in New York City.

We share this with you because we have long been convinced that one of the keys to the kinds of pattern breaks which are needed to make our cities more sustainable and people-friendly are precisely these skills of convincing visualization to show in very concrete terms what the changes are going to bring about. When this is well done, it helps to take the fear of uncertainty out – most of us after all are not necessarily welcoming of change. Particularly when the future being proposed to us is not all that familiar.

If you click here you will be taken to the front door of this entry, which will one click later take you to their “photosim” interactive graphic. You will also be invited to join their (free) Livable Streets Initiative (very handy and highly recommended) as well as invited to join their contest with a two-step before-and-after picture simulation of a project you would like to see in your own city. And if you do, make sure to share it with us here on World Streets. This kind of change management is of interest to us all.

Note: Strongly recommend you have a look at the comments which are coming in on their site. Some of them are very challenging and very sensible.

The Editor

From Livable Streets:

Here's a nice visual of what cities will look like when the livable streets movement has completely emerged from the wilderness (sorry for the extended metaphor, couldn't help it today). GOOD Magazine ran this photosim done by our very own Carly Clark in their transportation issue, with text by Streetsblog Editor-in-Chief Aaron Naparstek. They've got a whole interactive graphic that walks you through the elements of a livable street, and -- hats off to my coworkers -- it looks great.

GOOD is also putting on a photosim contest where readers can submit their own designs for a livable street. If you send something in, don't worry too hard about impressing the jury. Aaron will be the only judge.Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 11:47 1 Comments Links to this post

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Thursday, April 09, 2009

Bad News Department: “Manual for Streets” ignored in Wales.

“Manual for Streets, published March 2007 by the UK Department for Transport, gives new advice for the design of residential streets in England and Wales. It represents a strong Government and Welsh Assembly commitment to the creation of sustainable and inclusive public spaces.”

“The Department’s policy-making process received an award recently, with Traffic Management Division winning a Royal Town Planning Institute prize for its Manual for Streets. The award recognizes that it is radically changing designers' and local authorities' approach to residential street design for the better. It emphasizes that streets should be places in which people want to live and spend time in, and are not just transport corridors. In particular, it aims to reduce the impact of vehicles on residential streets by asking practitioners to plan street design intelligently and proactively, and gives a high priority to the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transport.” – From the Dft project website (below).

The report is available at http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/manforstreets/

Yes but when you get to the street in Wales here is what you see (Ian Perry reporting from Cardiff). . .

All Local Authorities in Wales have failed to respond to the offer of training or more information on the Manual for Streets according to one of its authors. The document is based on solid research and has won much praise and many awards and yet Local Authorities continue to design streets as they always have...

Only one person out of the 20 people in attendance at a presentation on the Manual for Streets organized by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, held in the council offices of Cardiff Council, worked for a Local Authority (and not Cardiff), with the remainder working in the private sector as engineers or consultants – who reported that private developers were interested in applying the findings of the research into Manual for Streets, but wary of Local Authorities refusing to adopt streets.

It would seem that the public sector in Wales is not interested in embracing different practices.

Thanks to the watchful Eyes on the Street and World Streets Correspondent, Ian Perry, Cardiff, Wales, UK

Editor’s note: We strongly invite commentary and if available further information on lessons to be learned from this experience.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 10:22 1 Comments Links to this post

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Frequency of publication (Reader views)

On the day that World Streets opened its doors, 2 March 2009, we asked our new readers to take the time to share with us their views on what they preferred in terms of frequency of “publication”. In addition to private exchanges and conversation on this, we also opening up a small poll and left it open for the first two weeks, during which time 43 readers took the trouble to share their views with us. What the poll told us lined up quite closely with the emails and other exchanges.

More than half, as you can see here, advised that they would prefer a weekly edition for consultation, while close to a third reported that monthly would be just fine for them. Five of the respondees indicated that they thought ad hoc and no fixed schedule will be the way to go, while only 2 voted for World Streets as a daily.

Now we asked that question with several things in view. First, our desire to avoid info overload, certainly the direct cause of losing your audience on the net or pretty much anywhere. We had in fact the idea of a daily/weekly in target from the beginning. i.e., something that is sufficiently interesting each day that some if not all of our readers might book mark and have a quick look with their morning coffee. But at the same time, organized in such a way that the faithful though busy reader could drop in at any point and have direct access to the full last week of postings.

As to those asking for something monthly, our plan is to do something along those lines, but we have yet to figure out how. Finally, as daily users of the web we appreciate that stuff is happening in our sector in various corners of the world all the time, some of it interesting and to the point here, so we also wish to make Streets a resource readable available at all times. Which is what you have here.

Our job is to make this interesting, relevant and efficient for you. We are off to a pretty good start, but stay with us, more and better is ahead.

The Editor

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Wednesday, April 08, 2009Op-Ed: Mikel Murga on Look beyond Transportation

As a Basque-American working in both Boston … and Bilbao, I would suggest to those in charge of Transportation, something very simple: Look beyond Transportation. This should lead to:

1) Focus on City Making, which should be specially palatable to President Obama. City Making addresses many of the basic issues driving the new administration: Education, equal opportunities, mitigation of income disparities, etc. All in line with the old dictum of “Stadt Luft Macht Frei”. But at the same time and from a transportation perspective, it allows to focus on above targets, and not just on functional benchmarks, because a city by itself fosters density of residence and density of jobs of services.

This translates in turn into the right environment to foster good public transport, good walking and cycling environment and good and attractive public spaces as meeting points for their citizens. This suggestion also entails the examination of suburbs in search of opportunities to create an urban culture through infill of its core area. This is an area where Europe offers many examples of such a level playing field for their citizens, clear economies of scale and more attractive public spaces

2) Adopt new indicators for the contribution of the transportation system, both positive and negative. These indicators should go beyond our current level of service measurements plus operating costs, congestion and external costs. The goal is to incorporate transport contribution towards savings of the household transportation budgets and new business efficiencies through agglomeration of economic activities, as two quick examples

3) Re-Balance the Transportation System, by leading a program as ambitious as President Eisenhower Interstate Program. This Interstate II would be based on High-Speed Rail, in order to decrease dramatically the current modal share of auto and aviation, thus mitigating the growing levels of congestion on both modes, decreasing external costs, and fostering new regional development based on the new rail infrastructure. This in turn will reinforce the economic role of our cities as they compete globally with other world cities which already benefit from efficient transportation systems. Notice for example the short number of years during which Spain has reached second place in terms of total miles currently planned, added to those under operation and those under construction.

4) Redesign every new transport project as a city making opportunity. Those choosing to visit the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao are surprised by the quality of the city environment. The explanation lies on the fact that the new stations of the recent Subway and new Light Rail were taken as an excuse to create high quality public spaces and new high density residential and employment developments. This virtual cycle, which might include land value capture schemes, should be part of the evaluation of every new transport project in a multi modal context.

Mikel Murga, mmurga@mit.eduResearch Associate and Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPresident, Leber Planificación e IngenieríaCambridge, MA and Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain

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Honk! Can Segway do the trick?

We wish engineers, inventors and anyone else who chooses to get involved, all the good luck in the world when it comes to trying to bring on line new and more emissions/energy effective vehicles and power sources.

Indeed, we are convinced that the shift from old to new mobility will in large part be mediated by technology. However we have to be a bit careful with this because at the same time it is important to bear in mind the time window which we believe is the proper focus of policy and practice, and of course of technology – i.e., the two to four years directly ahead. This is significant and in many discussions of various ways of achieving more sustainable transportation arrangements, we often hear much about the advantages of new vehicle, motive, and fuel technologies, as if they were going to be able to do the job that needs to be done. This of course is impossible, unfortunately, when we bear in mind the realities of the penetration path of these technologies, which are measured in many years and indeed decades by a time they begin to have a significant global impact on greenhouse gas reductions, energy savings, etc..

It is tempting of course for us to look at proposals for this particular class of technologies, all the more so since they often are well supported by institutions and interests behind them. You do not have to look very far to find many such proposals, often wrapped up in very appealing packages and arguments. But we really need to think hard and keep them in perspective.

Here is one example that has been brought to our attention today by our "eyes on the street" colleague in Ottawa, Chris Bradshaw, in which he makes the point: ”It seems Segway's announcement today, http://www.segway.com/puma/, is right up your alley.”

Well, if we check out that reference here is what the Segway people have to say about their product: “Think of it as a digital solution to an analog problem. Segway’s P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility) prototype represents the shift that’s needed for the future of transportation. It values less over more; taking up less space, using less energy, produced more efficiently with fewer parts, creating fewer emissions during production and operation, all while offering more enjoyment, productivity, and connectivity”

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Hmm. I invite you to have a look at the Segway product and proposal as outlined here, and to share with us your reflections and reactions to it, perhaps both in general but more specifically within the time and strategic framework that World Streets is working with. Personally I do not see it.True enough, if Segway and other innovators with similar softer technology packages are able to bring to market vehicles which people will buy and use instead of less efficient and more wasteful technologies, this would be useful at that specific micro level. But from the global and time perspective that we are destined to work with, it just doesn't add up. Sorry.

To end a more positive note, I would with your permission like to cite the statement made under the heading “Full speed ahead with new technology” in the welcoming note posted here.

“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.”

Thus it is our view that technology is no less than enormously important in the party moved to sustainability, but the way in which is going to make its difference will be when it is brought in to provide the information and communications infrastructure needed to render our new mobility systems effective and competitive. We will never get there without them

Your comments are as always very welcome on this.Eric BrittonEditor, World Streets

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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Public Bikes: "Cycling on the rise"

This timely report just in from our Dutch friends SpiCycles. In their words:

When the Spicycles project was launched in 2006, cycling was not the "hot" mode of transport that it has become today. As project partners, we wanted to gather experience related to specific areas of cycling policy. We were keen to explore how key elements such as communication and awareness raising, and the building of local partnerships, might increase the modal share of cycling. We had big expectations at the beginning of the project regarding cycling planning, but could not have predicted the explosion in the popularity of public bicycle systems that has taken place during Spicycles.

All Spicycles' results can now be seen in the reports and newsletters on the website http://spicycles.velo.info, which also features an innovative interactive map for cycling planning, a benchmarking tool and a pool of consultants.

For further information contact:

Pascal J.W. van den Noort - operations@velomondial.netExecutive Director Velo Mondialhttp://velomondial.blogspot.comhttp://spicycles.velo.info Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 06:19 0 Comments Links to this post

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Monday, April 06, 2009

Honk! IKEA flirts with WWF for a nice green world

IKEA – you can't builda green reputation with a flatpack DIY manual

Fred Pearce , guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 April 2009 11.05 BST

Huge out-of-town stores that are inaccessible by public transport, illegally logged timber products and half-hearted attempts to join WWF's Earth Hour. Who is IKEA trying to fool with its greenwash?

You'll know about IKEA. It's the place you drive to on a Saturday to fill your house with bits of wood from foreign lands.

This week, they played a little April Fool's joke, with some viral marketing about launching a new "Leko flatpack car".

When unveiled it turned out to be a computerised car-sharing scheme in France. Not a new one, but a special customised service from an established car-sharing service designed to get more customers to IKEA stores.

Now, I am in favour of car-sharing. Anything to keep down the number of cars clogging up IKEA car parks must be good. But this story is a bit like the one I did on Disney theme parks a couple of weeks ago. It is green tinsel on a business model that is all about persuading people to make long carbon-intense journeys to buy their products.

The telling statistic was at the back end of the company press release: "5.8% of IKEA France's customers already used a shared form of transport to get to their preferred store." So 94.2% don't. Allowing for the odd walker and cyclist, that must mean around 90% drive.

That's the problem, IKEA. You build your stores in places out of town that are ill-served by public transport. You slap a big delivery charge on any who don't want to take their own furniture home (£60 in my case, I notice). And then you try and get greenie points for making it slightly less hard to reach them in an environmentally acceptable manner.

It won't wash.

The car-sharing scheme is part of a rather haphazard greenwash strategy that has been going on at IKEA for a while. Last week its website announced that "IKEA has signed up to WWF's Earth Hour 2009."

Earth Hour is an annual event promoted by the environment group WWF in which we are all encouraged to turn off our lights for an hour as an expression of support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and halting climate change. This year that hour was from 8.30pm on 28 March.

IKEA didn't turn all its store lights out. It might have been bad for business. Instead it "turned all lighting in-store to minimum levels consistent while maintaining a safe working environment for co-workers and customers." Shouldn't they do that all the time? Or, since only half of their UK

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stores stay open that late on a Saturday, they could have shut the rest, allowing all the lights to go out. Just a thought.

In any event, I am not quite sure why WWF allowed lights-on IKEA to use its logo to promote how it had "signed up to" (but not obeyed, obviously) the Earth Hour. Nor why it gave IKEA gratuitous publicity on its own site for half-heartedly complying with the Earth Hour.

Well, actually I am fairly sure. IKEA and WWF have a long-term "business relationship". IKEA gives cash and a few environmental initiatives, while WWF gives green kudos and some environmental advice.

The panda logo is all over the IKEA website. IKEA is all over WWF's website.

There have been some hard questions asked about this relationship among other green groups. The Environmental Investigation Agency, for instance, recently pointed out that IKEA has not even managed to stamp out the use of illegally logged timber in its furniture, especially all those flat-packs supplied from China.

Worse, the company has been actively opposing US laws set to come into force in July aimed at banning imports of illegally logged timber. Unless the company gets it overturned, every piece of furniture sold in an IKEA store in the US will be required to have a paper trail showing where the wood came from.

Even though other companies claim to be able to meet the rules, IKEA told federal regulators that "trying to trace this information to certify compliance all the way through the supply chain to the harvesting of each and every tree is unrealistic."

For unrealistic, read expensive. Perhaps WWF should give back that sponsorship money and ask IKEA to spend it checking its supply chains. Or is that "unrealistic" too?

Who are the real greenwashers this week? Well, I think WWF should share the accolade with IKEA, for services rendered.

• Do you know of any green claims that deserve closer examination? Email your examples of to greenwash@guardian.co.uk or add your comments below

About this article: This article was first published on guardian.co.uk at 11.05 BST on Thursday 2 April 2009. Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Source and fair use: This article originally appeared in the Guardian of 2 April 2009, by their reporter Fred Pierce. You can view their original article here. And click here to view World Street's policy on Fair Use. Comments welcome.

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Friday, April 03, 2009

World Streets Correspondents (Program & map in process)

Click here for further background on organization of this program. See left menu for current listings of Streets correspondents. For latest correspondents map click here.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 18:54 1 Comments Links to this post

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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

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 Streets Note: Graphic adapted by John Brooks via Livable Streets.Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 18:24 0 Comments Links to this post

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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, o.m.j.carsten@its.leeds.ac.uk Professor of Transport SafetyInstitute for Transport Studies, University of LeedsLeeds LS2 9JT UKtel +44 (0)113 343 5348

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

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Thursday, April 02, 2009

Honk! Removing unnecessary walkers and bikers

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

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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

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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

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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.

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 16:00 6 Comments Links to this post Labels: bikesharing, city bike, PBS, shared bike

Today on the Street

1. First visit here? Check out our Welcoming Note to get started 2. Street codes: Tell us what you think about our campaign call - and to give us your views scroll down a bit on the left menu. You'll see it. 3. World Eyes on the Street in your city. Might they be your eyes?

Read on: Posted by Eric Britton at 12:08

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Honk! TransAlt Tasked with Renaming American Autos

Release DateApril 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 interest. And you tell him that we sent you.]

Source: Image courtesy of New York Observer article.

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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 every day 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

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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 maisen@frontseat.org . 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

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