Reinventing Transport

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

Sorry for the long silence on this blog. In 1999 and 2000, when I was living in Kuala Lumpur and working for the SUSTRAN Network, I collaborated with Tamim Raad to produce a little yellow book called "Taking Steps: A Community Action Guide to People-Centred, Equitable and Sustainable Urban Transport" . The old URL for downloading Taking Steps is now dead, so here is a new one, via google docs. You can view or download the Taking Steps book here . The aim of the book was to demystify urban transport (especially for civil society in Asia): The purpose of this guide is to introduce urban transport issues to a wider audience than just professional transport planners and experts. Many community organisations, journalists and decision-makers need to have some awareness of the basics of urban transport. This book tries to make it easier to find out those basics. Is the book badly dated? Not as badly as I had thought. I think I would handle various issues differently now. And...