Reinventing Transport

Could we end the era of mass car ownership without a huge fight ("they're coming to take our cars!") and without draconian policies?  That's the focus of this article and podcast episode (Reinventing Transport #11). It is based on an essay I wrote in 2011 (but unfortunately never published). I speculated about a future dominated by "shared" modes of transport and with much less personal possession of motor vehicles. I was overly optimistic in places and likely wrong on various points. But I hope I was wrong in thought-provoking ways. I think this is still relevant 8 years later to ideas like Mobility as a Service and initiatives such as the " Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities " and the New Urban Mobility (NUMO) alliance . But you be the judge. This edition is also a tribute to Chris Bradshaw.  Chris Bradshaw was the person who asked me to write the essay on ending mass car ownership. It was for a journal special edition he w...

Urban transport decision-makers face huge pressures to keep driving uncongested and to keep it cheap. But take a look at cities that have worked long and hard to get free-flowing traffic and affordable driving. I doubt you will like what you see. This point was a central theme of my chapter "Achieving Sustainable Mobility" which appears in  The State of Asian and Pacific Cities 2015  jointly published late last year by UN-ESCAP and UN-HABITAT. The twin desires for congestion-free and affordable driving are understandable. They are politically seductive and play to motorists’ desires and the interests of car industries. But these desires are sending too many cities and their mobility systems down inequitable, costly and environmentally destructive development paths. The results of preventing congestion and of keeping driving cheap

This diagram is from a new presentation (see below) in which I make the following claims: "New Transit Cities" are especially relevant for newly motorizing cities (such as India’s cities) Cities that are now New Transit Cities were, in the past, faced with challenging circumstances similar to those facing India’s cities today (namely a flood of vehicles causing traffic saturation at a time when they lacked significant mass transit that was immune from traffic) After flirting with accommodating cars, the New Transit Cities all resisted the idea that cars are a necessity and acted to make sure cars remained optional.  Please take a look and tell me what you think in the comments. Let me know about any corrections or omissions. Do you agree? If you can't see the embedded SlideShare version below, then download the presentation from the CSE India website  (7MB pdf). Look to the new transit metropolises from Paul Barter By the way, I presented this ...