Letters: Citizen participation in cycling provision in the UK

– Ian Perry, Independent consultant and consultant. Cardiff, Wales

The importance of citizen participation in decision-making was highlighted yesterday evening at a public meeting in Penarth, South Wales, attended by 147 frustrated citizens who showed their willingness to participate in their communities decision-making.  An attempt to force the Vale of Glamorgan (county) council (Vale council) to hold a referendum on proposals for the National Cycle Network (NCN) failed by just 17 votes.  133 votes against 5 were for a referendum on the matter, with 150 votes needed under current legislation.

Learning curves

This is a wonderful little video  that looks without any pretense and with limited means at a local roundabout project on Main Street USA. It is worth your attention on at least three grounds. First, because roundabouts make great good sense in cities and we need a lot more of them.  Second, they offer real technical challenges that need to be met. And finally, they are organic, i.e., learning projects.  The wisdom of the young team behind this project is to be commended, and emulated.

On Carsharing: New Thinking about Transport in Cities

World Carshare Cities Program 2013: Brainstorming notes of 11 April 2013

1. There are many many different ways to share cars in 2013 (far more in fact than most of even the experts talk about when they make presentations on carsharing).

Car Free Day in Vilnius. Finally a mayor who really cares.

Here is a rough chronology showing how information gets around in the world-wide sustainable transport network in 2011. Last Monday, 1 August, someone named Meras Zuokas (whom we do not know but whom we definitely like and who by all indications lives in Lithuania), uploaded a 104 second video with commentary in Lithuanian onto YouTube showing a dynamic mayor dealing directly with the classic sustainable transport problem of  illegally parked cars encumbering circulation in designated bike lanes in the capital city of Vilnius.  That was the first stop on a lightning journey around the world that in a few days brings us here.

Interview with Roland Ries, Cyclist, Senator and Mayor of Strasbourg

What’s happening on the new mobility scene in France in 2011? Here you have, in French but with good subtitles, an interview by one of the outstanding political innovators in the field of sustainable transport policy and practice in France.  Roland Ries is serving his second term as mayor of Strasburg, and at the same time heads up the national transport political group GART. He also, by the way, as a member of the French Senate drafted the law defining carsharing in France, thus opening up a part of the way to more and better carsharing nation-wide. Spend three minutes with this short video to get a feel for what the leading edge in France is thinking and doing about transport in cities. You will quickly see that this is a world-level message.  Play it for your mayor.

Bologna pieces together critical bits of their integrated New Mobility Package.

Enrico Bonfatti, editor of our sister publication Nuova Mobilità, has today posted the following short video which in English (with Italian subtitles if you prefer) provides a lively summary of some of the pieces of the New Mobility package of measures which are being implemented in this beautiful and well managed city. You will learn how they combine city center traffic closures, parking and entry access controls,new technologies,  public transport improvements, softer fuels, carsharing, bike support including public bikes, systematic police enforcement, and integrated ticketing which gives residents access to a range of modes, all to provide a package of integrated alternative mobility services which can compete with cars in terms of quality of service and cost. Since the program was initiated car ownership in the center has reportedly decreased by 25%.

Streetsblog: Doing its job in New York City. In memoriam 2010

Each year our friends over at Streetsblog in New York City publish a heart-rending testimonial to the mayhem that automobiles have wrought over the year on their city’s streets and the cost in terms of lives lost by innocent pedestrians and cyclists. Putting names, faces and human tragedy to what otherwise takes the form of dry numbers, faceless hence quickly forgettable statistics is an important task. We can only encourage responsible citizens … Read More

via World Streets 2011