Reinventing Transport

Just how bad can walking environments get? Answer: Very bad , as demonstrated in " Where are we to walk ?" a 9 minute video from Pune in Maharashtra, India.  Parisar explains who was behind the film : The film was conceptualised and shot by Susan Michet, an American student intern during her time in Pune in May 2009. The Alliance for Global Education funded Susan's stay and work in Pune, Janwani provided the office space and infrastructure, while Parisar provided the inputs regarding the content of the film. We also acknowledge Hema Gadgil's contribution of her voice-over to the film. After watching the film, do you have any ideas for our Indian friends? What can turn this around? Do you know of a city where things got this bad but which has since created a walkable city? Do you see redeeming features of Indian cities that offer some hope and which can part of the solution? For more on (un)walkable cities in Asia (especially South Asia) see also: ...

Fun, art and gleeful spontaneity in the streets feature in this delightful and inspiring 20 min talk. The playfulness here is not just in the streets but with the streets . Ted Dewan at euroGel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo . The potential highlighted here for life in streets is in total and utter contrast with the automobile dependent landscapes in my post below . Ted Dewan is the pioneer of ' road witching '. Towards the end of the video he makes some connections with David Engwicht 's 'mental speed bumps'. David also promotes safety through intrigue and uncertainty. Ted's talk also mentions the emerging possibilities of Shared Space . All of this is about reclaiming at least some of our street space as public realm again. It is about treating streets as places not highways. Do you think these ideas are relevant in the rest of the world, outside rich western cities? I think so. Hat tip to the wonderful How We Drive blog .

Four decades ago, French leaders wanted to remake Paris to suit the needs of the car. But in recent years, Paris has been reclaiming its streets for life's rich pageant, not just motor traffic. This Streetfilm (from the Livable Streets Network ) offers a wonderful visual tour of Paris's traffic-calming efforts. You will need a flash plug-in to see it. The whole archive of Streetfilms is well worth a good look.

What is "success" in urban transport policy? A common answer used to be "keeping vehicles moving and avoiding traffic jams". But by now, most people involved with urban transport realise that "keeping the traffic moving" is NOT a useful goal. Mobility, especially mobility for vehicles, is just a means to other ends. It should never be seen as an end in itself. If we make preventing congestion our goal, we are confusing ends with means. OK. So what is the real goal of urban transport planning then? Most of us tend to answer " accessibility "! Planning for accessibility involves trying to make it easy to REACH the things we want to (like contacts, services, goods, jobs, education). This seems like progress. Here we have a much more coherent purpose for transport planning, right? Unfortunately, accessibility doesn't seem to excite many people. Despite decades of lip service to accessibility planning most cities still have way too m...

{Update 26 April: Delhi's BRT seems safe for now } Bad press and teething problems seem to be putting Delhi's ambitious BRT plans in danger. Map of BRT proposals from TRIPP, IIT-Delhi Delhi's BRT pilot phase has entered a trial period since Sunday. The first 5.6 km is due to start formally on 1 May. Unfortunately press coverage of the project continues to be extremely hostile. Reading some of the articles on this in the Indian media one could be forgiven for thinking that Delhi's entire congestion problem is caused by 5.6 km of busway. All this looks worrying for Delhi's BRT. If politicians cave in and abandon the project now it would be a huge setback for public transport in India. A hasty, low-quality start in Pune didn't help either. Ahmedabad's BRT which is under construction is aiming at a much higher standard of BRT implementation than any other Indian proposal so far. It has benefited from technical assistance from ITDP . But I fear even that project...