If the twentieth century was known for building highways, the twenty-first century may be known for tearing them down. A new report jointly produced by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and EMBARQ, The Life and Death of Urban Highways, re-appraises the specific conditions under which it makes sense to build urban highway and when it makes sense to tear them down. Continue reading
Look around the world today. Consider your country, your city . . . Do you see signs of genius or even better “excess genius”, a deep-seated, awe-inspiring 21st century Renaissance already underway? We will dig into this later in the context of our Equity work, but for now let me draw your attention to this thoughtful piece by Jonah Lehrer. And for myself just to take a bit of time to ponder this from the vantage of the place I am in today, Helsinki and Finland more generally. (The following appeared in the Frontal Cortex column of Wired Science on March 22, 2012 .) Continue reading
These slipped in over the transom in the last days, and while some of you will be well on top of all three let me take the risk and share them with those who may not have spotted them for your weekend reading, listening and musing pleasure . Continue reading
When it comes to investing in the transport sector, we make continue to make some strange choices. In city after city around the world we are spending hard-earned taxpayer money for a distinct transportation minority of all citizens and voters. What’s going on here?
Pity really. In the real world of human mobility there is, as it turns out, no one “big problem”. (And hence no big solutions.) There is, for better or worse, just an ever-changing constellation of a very large number of different problems, different people, different desires, different daily life realities, different needs, different constraints, different priorities, different possibilities, different times, different wallets, and different decisions. And different actions. And different consequences. The complex ever-changing rich kaleidoscope of everyday life..
All these people need to be served as well in a just democratic society. Fair enough. So in the classic 20th century formula we thought we were being very “generous”, giving them a bit here and a bit there too. But most of our hard-earned tax money is still spent on providing high quality mobility arrangements for “normal people”, the car people. That’s right, isn’t it?
Sorry but no, it’s not at all right. It is in fact 100% wrong. It is wrong because it is grossly unfair and uncivil. And beyond that, it is also based on a false precept. What might that be?
Here is the surprise that the actual statistics show us, the kicker:
The “transportation majority” is not what most people think, transportation planners and policy makers among them.
The transportation majority are all those of us who increasingly are poorly served by the mainline, no-choice, car-based truncated service arrangements that eat up most of our taxpayer money and take away our choices. And each year, as our populations age this majority grows in numbers.
Here is a generic short-list of the people who make up this till-now all too silent majority:
1. Everyone in your city, country or electorate who does not own or have handy access to a car
2. Everyone who cannot drive
3. All those who cannot afford to own and operate a car of their own (And remember they cost a lot of after-tax money)
4. Everyone who should not drive (for reasons of a variety of impediments such as limitations associated with age, psychological state , reactions times, , , ,)
5. Everyone who lives in a large city and for reasons of density, public health and quality of city life needs to have access to a decent non-car mobility system
6. All of those — a fast growing group — who would in fact given the choice prefer to get around by walking, cycling or some form of active or shared transport who cannot safely or readily do so today — because all the money is being spent on the car-based system which is fundamentally, and financially, incompatible with these “softer” and more healthy ways of getting around
7. Everyone who suffers from some form of impairment that makes driving or even access to traditional public transit difficult or impossible
8. Everyone who cannot responsibly take the wheel at any given time (fatigue, distraction, nervousness, some form of intoxication. . . )
9. All those who are today isolated and unable to participate in the life of our communities fully because they simply do not have a decent way to get around.
10. And so — don’t lose sight of this! – in a few years, you!
If our goal is to develop equity-based mobility systems, then this simple stark reality gives us a fine starting place. Our goal must now be to create a complex web of transportation arrangements and good choices that will serve all well.
And our good luck is that after the last fifteen years or so of innovation and new approaches in leading cities around the world, we really do know how how to do it.
A closing note on equity and democracy.
How do we create systems that are not only equitable but also environmental, efficient and cost-effective ?
To this, we offer two responses. Simple, get out there and vote for candidates who show that they understand and will act in favor of equity and the transportation majorities!
And second, be part of the solution.
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This collaborative project takes the form of an “open conversation” looking into 
the pros and cons, the possibilities and perhaps eventual impossibilities, of creating an equity-based transportation system at the level of a city and its surrounding region. This first pioneering project, in what we hope will become a series of leading world city projects building on this first example, is being carried out under the leadership of the Helsinki Department of City Planning and Transportation, and is running over the period mid-February through mid-April. (You will find further working papers and supporting media sources in the second half of this introduction.) Continue reading
This is not quite so easy a concept to get across, it turns out. In English, and after two days of discussions with a wide variety of groups and people here in Helsinki even more challenging in Finnish. Here are some late night thoughts on this word that I share with you here in the hope that it may inspire comments and clarification. So here you have my notes, more or less in the order that they came to mind. Continue reading
I have always identified myself not as a consultant – that is, someone with specific expertise to whom you ask directed questions and who gives you what you think/hope are the right answers – but as an “advisor”, i.e. someone whose role it is to sit next to you for a certain time and draw your attention to things that s/he considers you may wish to give a closer look. (N.B. Consultants generally make a lot more money and usually create a lot less work for the commissioning agent. Life is sweet. ) Continue reading
The Workshops are a central pillar of the March 2021 collaborative enquiry: Examining the prospects for Equity-Based Transportation Practice in Helsinki. This open dialogue is hosted by the Helsinki Department of City Planning and Transportation in collaboration with a wide range of local stakeholder groups. Continue reading When it comes to investing in the transport sector, we make some strange choices. In city after city around the world we are planning for and spending hard-earned taxpayer money for a distinct minority of all citizens and voters. What’s going on? Continue reading
The Helsinki open dialogue of the potential for (more) equity-based transport is taking place in six main stages, engaging as full partners a broad range of Civil Society groups as well as representatives of both public and private sector from both center city and outlying areas, with the core work and events taking place in the city over the month of March. As of this date the main project benchmarks look like this Continue reading
Today is the opening day of the 2012 Helsinki Equity-Based Transportation peer review program, the first in what we hope will become a growing thread of cooperating city projects querying the impact of first reviewing and eventually restructuring our city and regional transportation systems around the fundamental core principle of equity. You will find details on the EBT site at http://equitytransport.wordpress.com/ starting at noon today. Continue reading
NETWORK DISPATCHES 