27.02.05. "Vision Zero" plan in Sweden

Editor's note: This short background piece on the Swedish Vision Zero program helps us with many interesting lessons and parallels with all that we are hoping to accomplish/support here. Clearly we should be seeking creative links.
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Sweden: A Road Safety Model with Global Potential

Road safety does not need to be expensive. In some regions, simply placing a wire rope down the middle of a highway can reap large-scale, immediate results, and save lives.

In fact, Dr. Claes Tingvall, the Director of Traffic Safety for the Swedish National Road Administration, believes developing countries can spend an extra 1% in cost and reduce fatalities by 90%. “Safety is very seldom expensive. The expensive thing is to modify what you did wrong in the beginning,” Tingvall believes.

Tingvall has spent more than 15 years and written close to 100 scientific articles on injury epidemiology, car occupant safety, and safety policies for multiple countries. He believes road safety is the responsibility of what he calls the “professional society,” which includes governments and the private sector.

To prove his point, Tingvall compares road safety to workplace management. While the employee or citizen, must follow guidelines, it is the responsibility of the employer, or government, to provide a safe environment. This premise is behind Tingvall’s Vision Zero plan in Europe, a concept that puts the mandate on the “professional society” to deliver safe roads to the citizens.

The Vision Zero plan has four components:

1. Human life is not something you can trade off for benefits of road transport systems. Human life is the paramount concern.

2. The professional society, politicians and the private sector, has responsibility for the inherent safety of the road transport system, and the citizen should follow the road regulations.

3. The safety of the road transport system should be based on the failing human, not the perfect human. Designs should allow for human vulnerability.

4. The driving force for change is the citizen demand and expectation to stay alive. Road safety should not be an economic issue, but stem from demands of individual citizens.

Tingvall said much of the European Union adopted this concept, at least in principle, and as many as five countries have taken it to parliamentary levels.

Challenge to Change Mindsets

The biggest challenge Tingvall sees is how to convince the professional society that road safety “can” and “should” be re-shaped, and that traffic deaths and injuries are not the consequence of mobility and modern society.

Once that is accomplished, the system can be controlled. Speed, he says is nothing more than kinetic energy. Improving roads with simple mechanisms at the beginning of design may be contrary to the instinct of engineers, but must be incorporated into designs during nascent stages, or subsequent costs will be enormous.

In addition, Tingvall supports managing the incoming vehicle fleet in countries and government dialogue with the auto industry for standards on car safety.

Design and planning for both roads and vehicles must be coupled with regulations and enforcement for maximum benefit.

Lead by Example

Tingvall believes that those working in thee health sector to set an example for the rest of the world. This sector, he said, responsible for an estimated 10-15% of many economies, can set the standard for safe road practices and advocating a safe road environment. If employers in the health sector would demand safe road environments, and require employees who transport goods to use safe vehicles, and strictly abide by laws, they could set an important example for the rest of the world.

Tingvall has spent time spreading his message throughout the world articles and speeches that explain the managerial mindset governments need to understand to effect change in road safety. Many countries come to Sweden for training in road safety practices, such as those in the former Russian and Baltic states, and countries such as Poland.

Sweden has realized road safety results since it adopted Vision Zero, and Tingvall believes that this approach, sometimes seen as radical, can be adopted in both developed and developing countries. For change to happen, all citizens of the world should demand road safety.

* * *

Dr. Claes Tingvall is the Director of Traffic Safety for the Swedish National Road Administration. He received his doctorate in medical science in 1987 from the Karolinska Institute. He has also been a professor and director, from 1998-2001, at Monash University Accident Research Centre in Victoria, Australia. Dr. Tingvall has authored approximately 100 scientific articles in journals and books, mainly in injury epidemiology and car occupant protection/car safety rating, and safety policy. He has been involved in road safety through his employments at the Folksam Traffic Safety Research, the Swedish Traffic Safety Office, the Monash University Accident Research Centre, and the Swedish National Road Administration.

25.02.05. EU ETS quota significantly excludes transport

Editor's note: There is a big hole, and it is not only in the ozone layer.
Sanjay brings yet one more to our attention.

Climate Change: Emissions Trading Up In Smoke

- By Sanjay Suri , Reprinted from IPS-Inter Press Service, Johannesburg

Note: The EU ETS quota significantly excludes transport, the fastest growing pollutant

LONDON, Feb 25 (IPS) - The EU emissions trading scheme is off to a start - - in name, not in the factories producing the emissions.

EU (European Union) governments have in effect sabotaged the market they have created by setting quotas for emissions by their industry that are so generous that it is nowhere near feeling the squeeze that would make trading possible.

The European emissions market was claimed as the trendsetter here even before the Kyoto protocol came into effect on Feb. 16 after Russia ratified the agreement last November. The EU emissions scheme began officially Jan. 1 this year.

The emissions trading scheme (ETS) is one of three market mechanisms designed to give effect to the Kyoto protocol, whose declared aim is for a set of industrialised countries to cut emissions by 5.2 percent relative to 1990 levels. That means a reduction principally of carbon dioxide and methane among the greenhouse gases that are believed to cause global warming, leading to climate change.

Under the ETS in the EU, each country gets a certain quota of greenhouse gases it is allowed to emit, and within the country industries get their own quota. The EU scheme covers at present about 12,000 industrial units thought to generate about 46 percent of EU greenhouse gases. The quota significantly excludes transport, the fastest growing pollutant, and household energy use.

The principle behind the trading is that industry is forced to cap emissions either by introducing technology to cut emissions or by 'trading' its quota. If a power plant, for example, is producing 10 percent more emissions than the government has determined it can, then it can buy carbon tonnes of emissions from a cleaner company that is emitting less than it has been allowed to.

If everyone can emit so much that few will need to buy leftover carbon tonnes from cleaner companies, the market will never get going. This is just what is happening in the EU.

Much of the present trading appears to be tentative and speculative. On Thursday (Feb. 24) about 800,000 allowances were traded in the EU around nine euro (11.9 dollars) a carbon tonne. This works like any other market; these units can be sold for a profit should the market price rise. But the generous allowances mean that the market is not being driven by industry needs, or by emission pressures.

''If there are no tight caps, it becomes just a game of trading, like Monopoly,'' Mahi Siteridou from Greenpeace in Brussels told IPS. ''The market will not do what it is designed to do.''

The trading scheme was intended to give companies the choice between implementing clean technology or buying credits earned by cleaner others. ''But the lax quotas mean that it is difficult for companies to face that question,'' Siteridou said.

Early speculative trading has placed the price of a carbon tonne of emission around ten dollars. Many environmentalists believe it would need to be at least double that before industry can wake up to emission costs and bring 'life' to the market.

Quotas have had a clear domino effect across the EU. Almost every country has set high quotas in order to reduce costs to national industry and so keep it more competitive in the international market. Britain set a quota that was initially guided by consideration of emissions. It then submitted a higher quota seeing the generosity of other governments to their industry.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, was given a set of 11 criteria to determine the national allocation plans. The principle criterion was to determine whether these plans are in line with Kyoto targets. The present allocation process has clearly failed.

The allocation plan is due to be reviewed later this year. ''The whole scheme will have to be strengthened, and obligations under the scheme examined,'' Siteridou said.

The present ETS is a pilot scheme up to 2007. EU governments will be obliged to meet Kyoto targets over 2008-2012, the first phase over which the group of industrialised countries have agreed to implement Kyoto targets.

But the ETS up to 2007 could ''encourage a psychological shift,'' Siteridou said. ''Industry is recognizing that there has to be a limit on emissions, and it is an important signal both internally and externally that governments and industry must be committed to carbon dioxide reduction.''

The other two market mechanisms under the Kyoto protocol include Joint Implementation (JI) under which the signatories to the Kyoto protocol listed in Annex-1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) can earn credits from projects in other Annex-1 countries. These would mean in effect East Europe where implementation costs are likely to be lower.

The third is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under which Annex-1 countries can earn credits from projects implemented in developing countries. (END/2005)

22/02/05. Edinburgh throws out congestion charge

Program: New Mobility Agenda

Note: It is easy to assume that this means (a) that road pricing is out for Edinburgh and, to some at least, (b) that the whole idea is a non-starter. Our view? To the contrary, hand on: we will see congestion charging in city after city and yes!, one day in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh throws out the congestion charge

By Jenny Booth, Times Online, February 22, 2005

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1495431,00.html

Edinburgh residents today threw out plans for a £2 congestion chargefor Scotland’s capital city by a margin of three to one.

While 45,965 residents backed the charge, a total of 133,678 said no to the plans, after a surprisingly high turnout in a local referendum.

More than 62 per cent of the city's 290,000 residents were asked to take part in the two-week postal ballot.

The city council had hoped to introduce a £2 charge to traffic passing through two designated zones, a suburban zone and a city centre zone. It said the tax would raise an estimated £760 million over the next 20 years for transport improvements.

But the plans proved unpopular with commuters, and councils in Fife, Midlothian and West Lothian petitioned for a judicial review of the congestion charge plans at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Their legal action claimed that while Edinburgh residents who lived outside the charge zone would be unfairly exempt from the tolls, motorists in their areas - living just as close to the capital - would have to pay.

Councillor Donald Anderson, leader of the city council, praised the number of people who had taken part.

"I accept the verdict of the people of Edinburgh," he said. "The people of Edinburgh have decided not to support congestion charge and this will not now be introduced in the city. We advocated this scheme because we thought that congestion charging was in the best interests of the city, but we will respect the choice made by Edinburgh residents."

The scheme proposed an outer cordon, circling most of the city and operating from 7am to 10am, and an inner cordon covering the city centre in operation from 7am to 6.30pm. The charges would apply from Monday to Friday, with a £60 fine for those who failed to pay.

Nicol Stephen, the Scottish transport minister, warned that Edinburgh’s traffic problems would not go away as a result of today’s verdict. Congestion was "a major problem", he said, and the Scottish Executive was tackling it by investing in public transport.

"Edinburgh will benefit with new trains, the airport rail link, and improved bus services," said the minister.

"The need to support this new investment with measures to reduce car use, especially at peak periods, will not disappear as a major transport issue."

Councillor Andrew Burns, executive member for transport, said: "We supported a congestion charge scheme for the city because we believe everyone wants a city with less traffic, reduced congestion, cleaner air and more buses and trams.

"The result today is quite disappointing but I do want to recognise the success of this referendum process. The people of Edinburgh have very clearly given us a view of what they want and I have nothing but respect for the voters.

"We have a huge challenge ahead of us. We will have to double our efforts to cope with the growing congestion."

21/02/05. Empty Chair in Kyoto

Media Release. Paris, 21 February 2005

Empty Chair in Kyoto

Open Society Peer Program to Help World Cities Become "Kyoto Compliant”

Source: The New Mobility Agenda at http://newmobility.org, Paris, France

Kyoto Treaty Needs Help in Cities

After years of hard work on many sides, the Kyoto Protocols finally entered into effect on 16th February. And with it the obligation of 140 nations to do something about their greenhouse gas emissions. For the advanced industrial economies, the targets are going to be extremely hard to meet. But at least there is now a process in place which is starting to point the way. In some parts of the economy that is.

However when it comes to transport in cities, there can be no grounds for optimism. 140 countries may have signed the Treaty, but not one city even initialed it. Transportation was the empty chair in Kyoto.

How is that possible? It is well known that transport accounts for as much as 50%, and often more, of all air pollution being cranked out in our cities. However, and despite the many useful improvements made in recent years a number of leading innovating cities and projects, all the trends are harshly moving in the wrong direction. Each year and in every single city on the planet we are seeing more traffic, more lost time, more pollution, more accidents, more unnecessary deficits, and more urban amenity and quality of life washed away by aimless short-sighted policies.

How can we move ahead on the challenges of Kyoto unless we figure out how to fill that missing chair?

Kyoto Cities Challenge

On the day the Kyoto Protocols entered into international law, the New Mobility Agenda, a Paris-based NGO, together with a world wide network of distinguished colleagues and organizations, announced a voluntary program and strategy to address this alarming oversight: the Kyoto Cities Challenge.

The groundwork for this cooperative effort had been carefully laid over the last months with a series of internet discussions and in-person and videoconference exchanges which in time reached out to more than a thousand international experts and leading groups in the fields that need to be part of the solution. The new program has been carefully shaped through these expert exchanges and is now ready to go.

The Challenge goals are exceptionally ambitious -- as indeed they must be under the circumstances. It not only invites each participating city to set exceptionally tough performance targets for itself to move toward “Kyoto Compliance”, but also to do this in terms of a very tight timetable of less than two years.

One variant receiving especially close attention is the 20/20 Challenge. The goal is to create a high profile city-wide action program to achieve some form of 20% reduction in a target period of 20 months. The question comes up of course “20% of what”. And this is something that needs to be sorted out by the planning teams in each city. Thus one city might target a 20% reduction of CO2 emissions, another of some indicator of motorized traffic, a third perhaps some public health metric such as pulmonary infections. But in each case these need to be set carefully during the intense three month blueprint stage.

The international expert group is confident that this challenge can be met, but is well aware that this is going to require exceptionally strong local leadership, considerable technical virtuosity and a broad base of public support if it is to work The cooperating experts are confident that once a first group of pioneer cities show the way, this approach will capture the attention of many others and spread like wildfire. What is needed now is that first set of high visibility, high impact city programs. The rest will follow.

And in this way we will have at last filled that empty chair in Kyoto.

*** END 610 WORDS END ***

For more information on the Kyoto Cities Challenge: http://newmobility.org.
Contact: Eric Britton
The Commons: Open Society Sustainability Initiative at http://ecoplan.org
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
E: postmaster@newmobility.org T: +331 4326 1323
Skype: ericbritton IP video: SightSpeed: ericbritton

18.02.02. Seattle Mayor urging U.S. cities to enact Kyoto Protocol

Editor's note: We see this as a potentially very important effort and have already been in contact with the organizers in Seattle to see how we here can support and interact with them to extend the international reach and impact of their program in parallel with the Kyoto Cities Challenge.
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Seattle dreams of 'green' team
Mayor urging other U.S. cities to enact Kyoto Protocol

By Kathy Mulady, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter, February 17, 2005

Summary: The U.S. government may have turned its back on the Kyoto Protocol, but Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said yesterday he plans to spearhead a city-by-city effort to implement the climate-protection measures that went into effect in more than 100 other countries yesterday.

Energy converts in Seattle doing their part

Nickels said he is gathering support from mayors in other cities and plans to build a "green" coalition of his counterparts at the U.S. Conference of Mayors when the group meets in Chicago in June.

"Seattle, along with other U.S. cities, will provide the leadership necessary to meet this threat," Nickels said.

He plans to introduce a resolution at the mayors conference setting up the coalition for other cities to join. To be eligible, cities would have to agree to certain steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The details of the resolution are still being worked out.

The Kyoto Protocol was hammered out in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and commits countries to reduce or limit the output of six gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning coal and oil products.

By 2012 the European Union, for example, is to reduce emissions by 8 percent below 1990 levels and Japan by 6 percent.

The United States had envisioned a 7 percent reduction, signed the protocol in 1997, but in 2001, President Bush renounced the agreement, saying compliance would cost millions of U.S. jobs.

In the meantime, many cities across the country, including Seattle, have adopted the Kyoto Protocol standards, or set even higher goals.

When the city of Seattle adopted the Kyoto Protocol four years ago, while Paul Schell was mayor, it joined nearly 100 other U.S. cities in setting reduction targets.

The 2001 resolution called for dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the city, and calling on national leaders to support targets at least as aggressive as those described in the Kyoto Protocol.

Nickels said he will work with the state Legislature to pass the clean-car bill, requiring stronger emission standards for cars sold in Washington. The legislation is based on a similar law adopted in California.

Nickels has also directed city departments to reduce paper use 30 percent by the end of 2006 and said that global warming will be a consideration in doling out neighborhood matching fund grants.

Yesterday, Nickels also announced a commission on climate protection that will be led by Denis Hayes, founder of the first Earth Day and president of the environmentally focused Bullitt Foundation. Orin Smith, president of Starbucks Coffee Co., also will lead the committee.

In making his announcement yesterday, Nickels was flanked by Hayes and Steve Howard, chief executive of the Climate Group, a non-profit based in London dedicated to slowing greenhouse gas emissions.

Hayes described the effects of global warming that are already being seen in Europe. He described small indicators such as bees that no longer hibernate and a 2003 heat wave that killed thousands in Europe.

"Early movers like Seattle have a farsighted advantage in taking a leadership position," Howard said. "It is good for business, good for the community and good for the world."

Some see evidence of global warming in the Pacific Northwest where the snowpack provides water, hydroelectricity and irrigation. According to reports, the Cascade snowpack is down 50 percent since 1950.

The city of Seattle government has reduced its emissions 60 percent since 1990, said Steve Nicholas, director of the city's Office of Sustainability and Environment. The city required more fuel efficiency in its cars and attempted to reduce the number of trips taken.

However, communitywide it is a different story, according to a report by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

By 2010 emissions are expected to increase 21 percent above the 1990 number, and by 38 percent by 2020.

About 50 percent of those emissions come from vehicles.

Councilwoman Jean Godden, head of the city's energy and environmental policy committee, was in Olympia yesterday to testify in support of the proposed clean car legislation. The bill calls on manufacturers to dramatically reduce car emissions by 2012.

"Interestingly enough, by doing that it could save people about $18 a month in gasoline costs," Godden said.

She said she is excited about Nickels' plans.

"As we know, the council adopted the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, and now the mayor has taken it a step farther and is challenging other cities to do the same," she said. "I am very excited, we are going the right direction and setting the standard. "

Councilman Richard Conlin, who was also in Olympia yesterday, called Nickels' announcement "great."

"All of those things are wonderful; we are glad to have him on board," Conlin said.

K.C. Golden, policy director for Climate Solutions, said Seattle is well positioned to set the standard for other cities.

"This was ground zero for the information revolution, we have more than our share of the world's innovators here," he said. "Our contribution to the solution can be bigger than our contribution to the problem."

Mayors in some other cities have already pledged to work with Seattle.

In a statement, Portland Mayor Tom Potter said his city was the first in the country to adopt a policy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are proud that the people of Seattle share our vision for turning the crisis of global warming into an opportunity to transform our economy and leave a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren," he said.

Mayor Jerry Brown of Oakland, Calif., added his support. Oakland has set a goal of 15 percent reduction by 2010.

This report includes information from The Associated Press.

17.02.05. Activist touts local initiative to cut pollution

Activist touts local initiative to cut pollution

By Bob Young, Seattle Times staff reporter, February 17, 2005

Will other cities follow Seattle's lead in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, which have been blamed for global warming? Earth Day founder Denis Hayes thinks so.

That's why Hayes was at City Hall yesterday to tout an initiative by Mayor Greg Nickels that commits the Emerald City to meeting the goals of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto treaty, which went into effect yesterday, commits 35 industrialized nations to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

The pact set a 2012 goal for the United States to reduce emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels, but the Bush administration has refused to endorse the treaty, saying it could hurt the U.S. economy.

Greenhouse gases come mainly from burning fossil fuels and the release of carbon dioxide.
Nickels said yesterday he would create a "green ribbon" commission that would come up with a blueprint for Seattle to meet or beat Kyoto's targets.

That commission will be chaired by Orin Smith, who will retire next month as Starbucks CEO, and Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation.

Greenhouse-gas emissions in the Puget Sound region increased 8 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, and are projected to increase 21 percent over 1990 levels by 2010.

While Seattle contributes a negligible amount to global warming, Hayes said Seattle could influence other cities to reduce their emissions. "Absolutely, I expect others to follow," he said.

More importantly, Hayes said cities should lead the way given the federal government's resistance to the Kyoto treaty.

Nickels agreed, adding that Seattle could show "the cost is minimal or there isn't a cost at all" to meeting Kyoto targets.

Nickels said he would lead a "green" coalition at the next meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Ten other cities already have agreed to join the coalition, including Minneapolis, Portland and Salt Lake City.

Seattle's green-ribbon commission will start its work in the next month or two and will try to come up with a citywide plan by the end of the year, according to Steve Nicholas, director of the city's Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Nicholas said he expected the mayor to appoint 15 to 20 members from business, academic, labor and government circles.

Hayes said he expected the commission to come up with bold ideas.

"This is not going to be 'turn out your lights when you leave rooms.' We'll be looking for ways we can dramatically decarbonize the economy and at the same time make it robust," he said.


Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

15/02/05. Partnership call to help create an emergency program to show World Cities how to become "Kyoto Compliant"

Program: New Mobility Agenda

Note: Click here to go directly to the 20/20 program site at http://www.newmobilitypartners.org, where you will find full details. As you will note, we invite your comments, suggestoins, and indications of your support, either via email at postmaster@newmobility.org. Or better yet as a Comment to this entry here (click Comment in the small line above, and if you will kindly cut and past your entry after you have prepared and checked for accuracy). In both cases we are hoping to share your comments and suggestions publicly, and would be grateful if you would add your full name, title and institutional affiliation if any, etc., and enough by way of address and email so that we can keep you posted about the follow-up efforts.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005, Paris, France, Europe

Dear World Transport Colleagues,

Tomorrow, after the better part of a decade of very hard work on many sides, the Kyoto Treaty finally enters into effect and with it the obligation of some 130 nations on this beleaguered planet to do something about their emissions. For the advanced industrial economies, the 1990 targets are going to be very hard to meet; but at least there is now a process in place which is starting, trying at least to point the way. In some parts of the economy.

However when it comes to transport in cities, there can be no grounds for optimism. To the contrary, despite the many important improvements that have been made by the leading edge cities in recent years, the trend overall, including in those very cities, is harshly moving in the wrong direction: in each we have seen year after year more traffic, more pollution, more accidents, more lost time, more unnecessary deficits, and more urban amenity and quality of life washed away by our aimless short-sighted policies.

* * *

Against this background, this is an open invitation to partnership, collaboration and exchange in the area of sustainable mobility. And specifically to put before you a first outline of an innovative public policy action program in the field of city transportation improvement still in its very early stages of development, which has we sincerely believe real potential in the until now hopelessly unequal struggle to move our cites toward something much closer to sustainable mobility -- or, let us say, "Kyoto Compliance".

What is useful about this concept is that it is at once short term results oriented, far-reaching, affordable and realistic. No less important, it targets highly ambitious near term efficiency and visible environmental improvements without requiring massive injections of hard earned taxpayer money. It also, with the right kind of preparatory work and support, can offer a very powerful political tool for mayors and city counsels who want to offer a better, safer, cleaner and more affordable city to their electorate.

Since you are experts in all this I do not need to waste your time in trying to convince or educate you on all these details. You know them as well or better than I. But what I can draw to your attention is a reminder that we now, in fact, have over all these years of piecemeal improvements and innovations arrived at a point where we can in fact face this challenge and do something about it. If indeed we chose to. Which is what this letter and challenge is all about.

So, under these conditions what better can those of us who care do than to put our heads together and see how we might begin to shape an action agenda and by our combined skills, contacts and resources carry out the following three step problem-solving process?

1. Clarify in no uncertain terms the crisis before us
2. Develop an action plan that will give visible short term results
3. And place all this firmly in a long term strategic framework that is going to move us, move our cities to the underlying goals of sustainable development and social justice.

All that of course is still entirely abstract. Let's see if we can be more focused and useful on this.

We today, with this letter and the website behind it at www.newmobilitypartners.org, invite you and the more than one thousand international figures with whom we have been in contact on these matters over the years, to consider how you might get involved in or support the Kyoto New Mobility Challenge Program. Specifically, we invite you to go through your files and contacts to see if there is some city or existing program that you know well that might be brought into the challenge as set out here. You will find fairly copious background information on how this works in the Challenge site, starting with the Highlights sectionthat directly follows this letter of invitation.

Next Steps

The idea behind this Call is to see what we can now get together to create a voluntary international program to encourage and support cities world wide to take major and massive focused programs to reduce traffic and air pollution in their area in a very short period of time. The proposal involves a two step process.

The immediate first step, once we have organized ourselves and our base materials and arguments, will be to find a certain number of cities and teams ready to show the way by preparing intensive local reviews to determine what can be done across the transportation sector and in the surrounding areas to achieve in the city major targeted reductions (we have chosen the target of 20% for examination in each case) within a very short (20 month?) period (after all this is an emergency). We feel that with strong local support at all levels and the necessary know-how, each city team will be able to come up with a strong local program that is going to succeed in showing the way. Step 2 is the actual program, which will take place within the twenty month (or whatever you decide) target period.

The Four Keys to making it work:

• Set out clear, explicit, understandable, ambitious but safely meetable performance targets.
• Make sure you have total commitment of local leaders from the top -- at least to take this through the first Blueprint Go/No-Go phase.
• And a very broad base of public support and participation.
• Highly committed local implementation partners with the technical virtuosity needed to get the fine detail planned carefully, executed and then consistently fine-tuned -- and the open community spirit and orientation needed to get the job done.
  

We are confident that once a leading group of pioneer cities show the way, this approach will catch the attention of many others and will spread like wild fire. Why? Well, because it will have very high public visibility and because too over these last several decades we have built up our shared knowledge and competence at the leading edge to make it work. All that is needed now is a this first set of high visibility, high impact programs: the rest will follow.

What next?

Why are we contacting you on this today? Well, because we know from years of international experience that programs such as this require highly qualified, energetic, well placed local partners who know the issues and the trade-offs well and have the technical capacities and networks to tailor and make this approach work in their city. And at the end of the day this approach is as much political as it is technical, and its pioneering nature makes it rather more than just one more transportation project. And it is for this reason that we have set out to look for partners capable of facing these challenges in a first handful of cities ready to move ahead to prove these ideas for themselves and as pioneers showing the way to sustainable mobility when it is needed (i.e., now!).

If you are one of our informed international colleagues or someone who knows these issues and the problems behind them, you can quite possibly do a great deal. And while you will of course have your own ideas on all this, here is a very short list to get you going:

1. Please pass on this letter and related materials to your colleagues, contacts and discussion groups working in these areas. And let the media know as well about what we are trying to do. High international visiblity is part of the toolkit we need to put in place to make this work.

2. You can get back to us all -- and indeed to all of the several forums in which these discussions are being placed (click here for a listing of these - with your views, reactions and suggestions on all this. It is our view that intensive group discussions are going to be a big help in firming up this program, and in setting the stage for the specific pioneering city projects that now need to follow.

3. You may well already have some ideas about next steps, cities, projects -- and we very much hope that you will share these with the groups, since any specific initiatives that you might take will serve to encourage others to get actively involved on their side.

4. You might want to see if we can be of help in organizing some kind of conference or discussion to support some specific project that you may have in mind.

In all these cases, we urge you to get in touch. There are a variety of ways of doing this, some better than email or a phone call, and for more on this we invite you to click here to 20/20 Contact Options.

Or come to Paris and let's talk about it. Click here for details on organizing your trip and stay here. Even without leaving the city, we can show you some of the interesting things that are going on here.. including not least the results of our mayor's commitment to cut private car use in the city by a steady 3% per year. Come and have a look at how this is working. It may give you some ideas.

With all good wishes and kindest thanks for your collaboration,

Eric Britton

The New Mobility Agenda is at http://newmobility.org

The Commons: Open Society Sustainability Initiative
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
E: postmaster@newmobility.org T: +331 4326 1323

02.02.05. World Bank: Post Kyoto Uncertainty Threatens Emerging Carbon Emmissions Martket

Editor’s Note: What I find quite disturbing in this piece (and the broadly shared attitude behind it) is the untenable combination of (a) a sense of urgency on the one hand, but (b) on the other a sigh and resigned statement that this is going to take a lot longer than 2012 to get right. Which to my mind, points up the importance of what we are trying to achieve here.
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Post Kyoto Uncertainty Threatens Emerging Carbon Emmissions Martket

Press Release - World Bank, Feb. 14 2005

WASHINGTON – In the wake of the entering into force of the Kyoto Protocol , which limits carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in rich countries, the World Bank urged industrialized nations to address the uncertainties of the post-Kyoto period , after 2012.

According to Ken Newcombe , Manager of the Carbon Finance Business Unit at the World Bank “ The most important issue right now is ensuring supply from the developing countries of emission reductions, because the demand has suddenly increased enormously. Canada and Japan have come into this market with significant offers for funding for projects under the Kyoto Protocol’s market-based mechanisms. Time is running out in order to supply those, so to my mind, the next 2 years is absolutely critical to ensure on the one hand, that the developing countries right over to take advantage of carbon finance to support clean technology and do sustainable development, and the other, the major buyers in this market, like the Europeans, Canada and Japan get sufficient supply to keep their cost of compliance at a level which is politically acceptable”

Both the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme make use of flexible mechanisms by which rich countries can buy emission reductions through climate-friendly projects in developing countries and count those reductions as part of the Protocol’s established target of reducing emissions by 5 percent by 2012 in industrialized countries, compared with 1990 levels.

However the design of a climate-friendly project such as a wind power project or geo thermal project that would take the place of a coal fired power plant or oil fired power plant takes time to design, to get the environmental clearances, to get the agreements for the electricity and to finance it, and then it takes time to build it and make it operational. So typically, it is a 5-year process. In reality for a project starting today, there will be only a few years left in the current scheme of things to get emission reductions counted for compliance purposes.

So if projects were developed now, they wouldn’t start operating until 2008 to 2010, leaving very little time to get actual emission reductions achieved against the baseline of the original carbon intensive power plant.

So time is running out. Adds Newcombe, “The opportunity has been made available for the developing countries to take advantage of this tremendous influx of capital and technology, but the door is closing at the same time, because it all has to be done by end of 2012.”.

The World The Bank manages $US 800 million through different carbon funds. It has made significant efforts in the development of the carbon market, first by launching the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) to demonstrate how to cost-effectively achieve greenhouse gas reductions while contributing to sustainable development. More recently, the Bank launched a series of carbon funds to expand learning-by-doing to poor countries, and to address market failures. The Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) and the BioCarbon Fund (BioCF) enable smaller and rural poor communities in poor countries to benefit from carbon finance for sustainable development purposes.

11.02.05. Climate Change: Period of Uncertainty Has Ended

Programs: The Commons and the New Mobility Agenda

Note: Here at The Commons we are trying very hard indeed to create a broad based international collaborative effort which will address specifically and in very practical terms the shortcomings of transport in cities, from specifically a Kyoto Perspective. The program, the New Mobility 20/20 Emergency Initiative, is outlined in some detail under the New Mobility Agenda at http://newmobilitypartners.org. Our position on the Kyoto Protocols is not so much that we are satisfied with it, far from it, but rather that in pure pragmatic terms it is a reality, one with soon powerful international presence (the Treaty goes into effect next Wednesday on the 16^th) and one that for better or worse we can, we must work with. The following article provides what strikes me as a fair summary overview of the situation as of this date.

****************************************************

Climate Change: 'A Period of Uncertainty Has Ended'

- Interview by Ramesh Jaura
Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27412

BONN, Feb 11 (IPS) - The coming into force of Kyoto Protocol Feb. 16 may not be enough to combat global warming but it closes ''a period of uncertainty'', says Joke Waller-Hunter, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Convention's Secretariat has since 1996 been located in Bonn in the aftermath of the first Conference of the Parties (COP1) to the Convention in Berlin. The Convention gave birth to the Kyoto Protocol agreed in Kyoto in Japan in December 1997 at COP3.

A series of official events will be held around the globe Feb. 16 to celebrate the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. A special feature of the commemoration will be a 'Kyoto Relay of Messages', with Japan's Environment Minister Yuriko Koike serving as Master of Ceremonies. Some ten dignitaries will exchange messages on a video hook-up.

"The Protocol offers powerful new tools and incentives that governments, businesses and consumers can use to build a climate-friendly economy and promote sustainable development," Waller-Hunter said in an exclusive interview before her departure to attend the commemorative event in Kyoto.

An abridged version of the interview follows:

Q: The Kyoto Protocol enters into force on Feb. 16 nearly seven years after it was adopted. Isn't it already too late in the day for the Protocol to be effective?

A: It's never too late. In fact a period of uncertainty has closed. Climate change is ready to take its place again at the top of the global agenda.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most up-to-date scientific research suggests that humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will raise global average temperatures by 1.4-5.8 degrees C by the end of the century. They will also affect weather patterns, water resources, the cycling of the seasons, ecosystems and extreme climate events.

Scientists have already detected many early signals of global warming, including the shrinking of mountain glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice, reduced ice cover on lakes and rivers, longer summer growing seasons, changes in the arrival and departure dates of migratory birds, the spread of many insects and plants towards the poles, and much more.

The clock is ticking, and in 2005 we must grasp the nettle of designing climate strategy beyond 2012.

If you ask me whether Kyoto Protocol is enough, I'll say by itself it will not suffice. But the Kyoto Protocol brings movement. You do the first step before you start on a journey. The legally binding Kyoto Protocol is a first step toward combating global warming. It offers powerful new tools and incentives that governments, businesses and consumers can use to build a climate-friendly economy and promote sustainable development. Given the political will, it can go a long way in dealing with global warming.. In fact, February 16 marks the beginning of a new era in international efforts to reduce the risk of climate change.

Q: What new policies and new approaches does the coming into force of Kyoto Protocol mean?

A: For the first time in the history of international environment policy, the rules have been set for the use of unique instruments that allow emission reductions in the most cost-effective manner. A new commodity has been created: carbon. A new modality for support to sustainable development in developing countries, with associated private investments and technology transfer is operational: the Clean Development Mechanism.

As a result of the Kyoto Protocol, 35 industrialised countries and the European Community are legally bound to reduce their combined emissions of six major greenhouse gases during the five-year period 2008-2012 to below 1990 levels.

The 'emissions trading' regime enables industrialised countries to buy and sell emissions credits among themselves; this market-based approach will improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of emissions cuts.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) gets a major boost. The CDM encourages investments in developing country projects that promote sustainable development while limiting emissions.

Also the Protocol's Adaptation Fund, established in 2001, can become operational to assist developing countries to cope with the negative effects of climate change.

In the private sector, many pro-active companies have chosen to be part of the solution. Climate friendly technologies are finding their way into the market. The pace of research on new technologies, like hydrogen and large-scale application of carbon sequestration, seems to be picking up. Many challenges remain. Look at the transport sector, where emissions continue to increase. But it is encouraging to note that the emission intensity of the world's economy has fallen, as emissions are growing more slowly than GDP.

Q: Australia and the United States have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. With 21 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG, the gases that lead to global warming, principally carbon dioxide and methane) emissions and enormous technical and technological capacity, it is hard to imagine a successful climate future without active U.S. participation. Are there concrete signals that under pressure from businesses and environmental NGOs, these countries would take necessary steps to meet Kyoto targets availing of all the instruments the Kyoto Protocol offers?

A: Even though Australia has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the country's government has committed itself to fulfilling Kyoto Protocol targets. The U.S. has not ratified the Protocol. But some action is underway, particularly at the state level. Nearly 40 U.S. states have developed their own climate plans, an emission-trading system is emerging in the Northeast states, and nearly 20 states have adopted aggressive standards for renewable energy. Additionally, there have been more than 100 congressional proposals related to climate policy -- from representatives of nearly every state -- in the past two years. Businesses too are beginning to take emissions reductions more seriously.

Q: Developing countries, including Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, are also parties to the Protocol but do not have emission reduction targets. In fact they insist that the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change requires the developed countries to take the lead in combating climate change and its adverse effects. Do the Kyoto Protocol instruments suffice to assist and encourage developing countries reduce emissions and effectively address climate change?

A: Parties to the Convention have taken decisions to promote the development and transfer of environmentally sound technologies at each session of the COP. At COP 4 (the fourth conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Buenos Aires in November 1998, as part of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, parties decided to give new impetus to this issue by adopting a decision for establishing a "consultative process" on technology transfer.

Four years later, COP 8 put adaptation in the spotlight, by adopting the Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. Ever since, evidence on the need to adapt has increased. The Convention process has an important role to play at the international level, but so do other international organisations. Effective approaches to international cooperation on adaptation need to be developed. At the national level, governments will be taking steps to identify vulnerability and risk, and developing policies to reduce these.

Q: "Ensure environmental stability" is the seventh among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that will come up for review at the UN General Assembly next September. Do you expect some special initiatives by the international community to expedite measures aimed at achieving Kyoto targets?

A: Tackling global warming is essential for MDGs. Goal 7 leaves no doubt that climate change is causing rising sea levels that threaten coastal areas and even entire countries like island nations in the Pacific. Energy is one of the areas that shows most clearly the gaps between the global rich and the global poor, and the social and economic inequities that result. One billion of the world's poorest people do not have access to regular energy supplies, forcing them to clear trees for firewood or burn heavy-polluting fuels like kerosene that harm human health.

Against this backdrop, Prime Minister Tony Blair is committed to use Britain's G8 and EU presidencies to try to make a breakthrough on Africa and climate change. There is a need to develop a package of practical measures, largely focused on technology, to cut emissions. We need to find ways to implement the vast range of low-carbon technologies that have already been developed. We need energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and cleaner fossil fuels.

See also:

* United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

* New Mobility 20/20 Emergency Initiative

* The Climate Group on Climate Change

11/02/05. Climate Change: 'A Period of Uncertainty Has Ended'

Programs: The Commons and the New Mobility Agenda

Note: Here at The Commons we are trying very hard indeed to create a broad based international collaborative effort which will address specifically and in very practical terms the shortcomings of transport in cities, from specifically a Kyoto Perspective. The program, the New Mobility 20/20 Emergency Initiative, is outlined in some detail under the New Mobility Agenda at http://newmobilitypartners.org. Our position on the Kyoto Protocols is not so much that we are satisfied with it, far from it, but rather that in pure pragmatic terms it is a reality, one with soon powerful international presence (the Treaty goes into effect next Wednesday on the 16^th) and one that for better or worse we can, we must work with. The following article provides what strikes me as a fair summary overview of the situation as of this date.

****************************************************

Climate Change: 'A Period of Uncertainty Has Ended'

- Interview by Ramesh Jaura
Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27412

BONN, Feb 11 (IPS) - The coming into force of Kyoto Protocol Feb. 16 may not be enough to combat global warming but it closes ''a period of uncertainty'', says Joke Waller-Hunter, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Convention's Secretariat has since 1996 been located in Bonn in the aftermath of the first Conference of the Parties (COP1) to the Convention in Berlin. The Convention gave birth to the Kyoto Protocol agreed in Kyoto in Japan in December 1997 at COP3.

A series of official events will be held around the globe Feb. 16 to celebrate the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. A special feature of the commemoration will be a 'Kyoto Relay of Messages', with Japan's Environment Minister Yuriko Koike serving as Master of Ceremonies. Some ten dignitaries will exchange messages on a video hook-up.

"The Protocol offers powerful new tools and incentives that governments, businesses and consumers can use to build a climate-friendly economy and promote sustainable development," Waller-Hunter said in an exclusive interview before her departure to attend the commemorative event in Kyoto.

An abridged version of the interview follows:

Q: The Kyoto Protocol enters into force on Feb. 16 nearly seven years after it was adopted. Isn't it already too late in the day for the Protocol to be effective?

A: It's never too late. In fact a period of uncertainty has closed. Climate change is ready to take its place again at the top of the global agenda.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most up-to-date scientific research suggests that humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will raise global average temperatures by 1.4-5.8 degrees C by the end of the century. They will also affect weather patterns, water resources, the cycling of the seasons, ecosystems and extreme climate events.

Scientists have already detected many early signals of global warming, including the shrinking of mountain glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice, reduced ice cover on lakes and rivers, longer summer growing seasons, changes in the arrival and departure dates of migratory birds, the spread of many insects and plants towards the poles, and much more.

The clock is ticking, and in 2005 we must grasp the nettle of designing climate strategy beyond 2012.

If you ask me whether Kyoto Protocol is enough, I'll say by itself it will not suffice. But the Kyoto Protocol brings movement. You do the first step before you start on a journey. The legally binding Kyoto Protocol is a first step toward combating global warming. It offers powerful new tools and incentives that governments, businesses and consumers can use to build a climate-friendly economy and promote sustainable development. Given the political will, it can go a long way in dealing with global warming.. In fact, February 16 marks the beginning of a new era in international efforts to reduce the risk of climate change.

Q: What new policies and new approaches does the coming into force of Kyoto Protocol mean?

A: For the first time in the history of international environment policy, the rules have been set for the use of unique instruments that allow emission reductions in the most cost-effective manner. A new commodity has been created: carbon. A new modality for support to sustainable development in developing countries, with associated private investments and technology transfer is operational: the Clean Development Mechanism.

As a result of the Kyoto Protocol, 35 industrialised countries and the European Community are legally bound to reduce their combined emissions of six major greenhouse gases during the five-year period 2008-2012 to below 1990 levels.

The 'emissions trading' regime enables industrialised countries to buy and sell emissions credits among themselves; this market-based approach will improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of emissions cuts.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) gets a major boost. The CDM encourages investments in developing country projects that promote sustainable development while limiting emissions.

Also the Protocol's Adaptation Fund, established in 2001, can become operational to assist developing countries to cope with the negative effects of climate change.

In the private sector, many pro-active companies have chosen to be part of the solution. Climate friendly technologies are finding their way into the market. The pace of research on new technologies, like hydrogen and large-scale application of carbon sequestration, seems to be picking up. Many challenges remain. Look at the transport sector, where emissions continue to increase. But it is encouraging to note that the emission intensity of the world's economy has fallen, as emissions are growing more slowly than GDP.

Q: Australia and the United States have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. With 21 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG, the gases that lead to global warming, principally carbon dioxide and methane) emissions and enormous technical and technological capacity, it is hard to imagine a successful climate future without active U.S. participation. Are there concrete signals that under pressure from businesses and environmental NGOs, these countries would take necessary steps to meet Kyoto targets availing of all the instruments the Kyoto Protocol offers?

A: Even though Australia has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the country's government has committed itself to fulfilling Kyoto Protocol targets. The U.S. has not ratified the Protocol. But some action is underway, particularly at the state level. Nearly 40 U.S. states have developed their own climate plans, an emission-trading system is emerging in the Northeast states, and nearly 20 states have adopted aggressive standards for renewable energy. Additionally, there have been more than 100 congressional proposals related to climate policy -- from representatives of nearly every state -- in the past two years. Businesses too are beginning to take emissions reductions more seriously.

Q: Developing countries, including Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, are also parties to the Protocol but do not have emission reduction targets. In fact they insist that the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change requires the developed countries to take the lead in combating climate change and its adverse effects. Do the Kyoto Protocol instruments suffice to assist and encourage developing countries reduce emissions and effectively address climate change?

A: Parties to the Convention have taken decisions to promote the development and transfer of environmentally sound technologies at each session of the COP. At COP 4 (the fourth conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Buenos Aires in November 1998, as part of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, parties decided to give new impetus to this issue by adopting a decision for establishing a "consultative process" on technology transfer.

Four years later, COP 8 put adaptation in the spotlight, by adopting the Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. Ever since, evidence on the need to adapt has increased. The Convention process has an important role to play at the international level, but so do other international organisations. Effective approaches to international cooperation on adaptation need to be developed. At the national level, governments will be taking steps to identify vulnerability and risk, and developing policies to reduce these.

Q: "Ensure environmental stability" is the seventh among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that will come up for review at the UN General Assembly next September. Do you expect some special initiatives by the international community to expedite measures aimed at achieving Kyoto targets?

A: Tackling global warming is essential for MDGs. Goal 7 leaves no doubt that climate change is causing rising sea levels that threaten coastal areas and even entire countries like island nations in the Pacific. Energy is one of the areas that shows most clearly the gaps between the global rich and the global poor, and the social and economic inequities that result. One billion of the world's poorest people do not have access to regular energy supplies, forcing them to clear trees for firewood or burn heavy-polluting fuels like kerosene that harm human health.

Against this backdrop, Prime Minister Tony Blair is committed to use Britain's G8 and EU presidencies to try to make a breakthrough on Africa and climate change. There is a need to develop a package of practical measures, largely focused on technology, to cut emissions. We need to find ways to implement the vast range of low-carbon technologies that have already been developed. We need energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and cleaner fossil fuels.

See also:

* United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

* New Mobility 20/20 Emergency Initiative

* The Climate Group on Climate Change

10/02/05. America’s streets are growing meaner for pedestrians

Program: The New Mobility Agenda

Note: In our push to more sustainable and fairer transportation arrangements, we need to look for examples and lessons, good and bad. Walking in most US cities is, sadly, among the latter. But we have a chance to learn from these mistakes, if we chose to. This latest annual survey from our colleagues at the excellent Surface Transportation Policy Project in Washington D.C. helps point up these lessons and shares with us their recommendations for doing better.

************************************************

Mean Streets 2004: How Far Have WE Come?

America’s streets are growing meaner for pedestrians

-- Tenth year of metropolitan pedestrian safety study pinpoints Orlando with the worst record, Salt Lake City as most improved --

The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP)’s Mean Streets 2004 study reveals that walking remains the most dangerous mode of transportation, and some areas of the country are becoming markedly more dangerous.

The study, released by STPP in conjunction with AARP, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, American Planning Association, American Public Health Association (APHA), American Society of Landscape Architects, prominent local and state policymakers who are leaders on pedestrian safety and numerous state and local transportation advocates, assesses the data and recommends specific actions that governments can take to increase pedestrian safety.

Mean Streets’ findings include:

• In 2003, 4,827 Americans (11.3 percent of all traffic fatalities) died while crossing the street, walking to school or work, going to a bus stop, or strolling to the grocery, among other daily activities. Over the ten-year period 1994-2003, 51,989 pedestrians have died on U.S. streets.

• Senior citizens, African-American and Latino pedestrians suffer a fatality rate well in excess of the population at large.
  

• Despite a decline in the total number of pedestrian fatalities over the decade and even though walking as a share of total trips declined even faster, more than half of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas grew more dangerous.

The Orlando (FL) metropolitan area, which has seen an increase in pedestrian death rate of more than 117 percent in the last ten years, ranks as the area with the meanest streets today, as well as the streets that have worsened the most over the last decade. Other metropolitan areas with worsening pedestrian death rates over the last ten years included Richmond (VA) with a more than 70 percent increase in deaths and Memphis (TN) with a rate of 42.6 percent.

“The Mean Streets 2004 report provides a useful yardstick for elected officials and transportation leaders to measure progress, or lack thereof, in making pedestrians and their communities safer,” said Anne Canby, president of STPP. “Nearly 52,000 pedestrian deaths over the last ten years is a staggering figure that demands that we do much more to make walking a safer travel option.”

Turning from trends to a snapshot of pedestrian safety today, Mean Streets 2004 found that the most dangerous streets in America are clustered in Florida: Orlando, Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale are the top four, while Jacksonville ranks eighth. Other cities in the top ten are Memphis (TN), Atlanta (GA), Greensboro (NC), Phoenix (AZ), and Houston (TX).

The news is not all bleak. The Salt Lake City (UT) area cut its pedestrian death rate by nearly half over the last decade, Portland (OR) reduced pedestrian deaths by one-third, and Austin (TX), New Orleans (LA), and Los Angeles (CA) saw their death rates drop by nearly 20 percent.

“America’s mean streets are meanest to our youngest and oldest citizens, and to African-American and Latino pedestrians,” said Judith E. Espinosa, chair of the STPP Board of Directors. “We need to find out why this is happening and take the necessary steps to correct it.”

The health risk of walking less

While walking presents some dangers, not walking may hold more hazards. As children have been walking less, the percentage of children who are obese or overweight has soared. The same is true for adults: the portion of people who walk to work dropped by 25 percent between 1990 and 2002, at the same time that the percentage of the population who are obese jumped 70 percent. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action on the obesity epidemic calls for providing safe and accessible sidewalks, walking, and bicycle paths. Physical inactivity is also associated with a heightened risk for many diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and pancreatic and breast cancer.

The medical costs of physical inactivity are estimated at about $76 billion per year. Meanwhile, the federal transportation program, which weighs in at about $46 billion per year, spends less than one percent of that – about $240 million annually – on creating safer places to walk and bicycle.

Automobile-oriented transportation networks are sometimes so seamless that commuters can go directly from the garages of their homes to the basements in their worksites without so much as a short walk. The same attention needs to be directed to making other trips more seamless, including the pedestrian, bicycle and transit facilities that both encourage walking and make walking safer. This means wider sidewalks (if there are sidewalks at all), improved lighting, safe crossings and attractive transit wait areas can combine to improve the experience of walking. Community designs that emphasize other travel options – walking, biking and transit – are needed to support additional activity and better health.

Recommendations:

Mean Streets 2004 recommends upgrading sidewalks, signals, streets and other pedestrian infrastructure already in place to improve the pedestrian environment, putting more emphasis on pedestrian safety in the decision-making process for future transportation plans, slowing down traffic through traffic-calming and enforcement, and promoting walking as a transportation alternative. The report also recommends that states allocate a higher share of federal transportation dollars to pedestrian safety. It finds that in four of the top ten metropolitan areas showing the greatest decline in pedestrian safety, state spending of federal dollars available to pedestrian safety actually declined, and that many states actually elected not to spend federal funds specifically available to pedestrian and bicycle safety projects.

Mean Streets notes some simple improvements such as crosswalks and speed limit enforcement that can make a difference. Only one-tenth of pedestrian deaths in 2002-2003 occurred inside a crosswalk, and a recent federal study shows a 95 percent survivability rate for pedestrians struck by a vehicle traveling 20 miles per hour while those struck at 40 mph survived just 15 percent of the time.

Recommendations for state and federal action

Americans strongly support greater investment and commitment to pedestrian safety. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of Americans favor putting more federal dollars toward improving walkability, even within a constrained budget.[2] The effort to create a better walking environment would be much more effective if local, state and federal transportation agencies embraced walking as a transportation priority by taking the following actions:

Design-Related

· Fix What We Have to correct the many deficiencies that now exist in the nation’s transportation infrastructure, by developing pedestrian action plans, adopting “fix-it-first” policies, establishing Safe Routes to School programs, ensuring a “fair share” commitment of transportation funds to pedestrian safety needs and giving more funding to local agencies who own most of the federal-aid and other system roads.

· Complete Streets so that transportation projects at every level of government – Federal, State and local – provide appropriate facilities and accommodations to serve pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users.

Operations

· Tame Motor Vehicle Traffic by ensuring safer motor vehicle operation, removing unsafe drivers from the roads and deploying new technologies to enhance enforcement such as photo speed enforcement and so-called red-light cameras.

· Promote Walking by emphasizing the public health, economic development, and transportation benefits of walking, including more focused attention and greater resource commitments to encourage people of all ages to walk more.

About the Surface Transportation Policy Project

Based in Washington, D.C., the Surface Transportation Policy Project is a diverse, nationwide coalition working to ensure safer communities and smarter transportation choices that enhance the economy, improve public health, promote social equity, and protect the environment. For more information please visit www.transact.org.

# # #

Media contact: Isabel Kaldenbach - Isabel@buckleykaldenbach.com - (703) 979-3076

09.02.05. Parking, paying for it - A key to the city

Editor's note: This note by Ed Dodson from our ever challenging Land Café forum points up once again how fortunate we are to have a number of overlapping discussions and exchanges here under The Commons. This reminder of the fine, persistent decades-long campaign by Institute of Transportation Studies Los Angeles researcher and Urban Planning Department Chair Donald Shoup to eliminate hidden subsidies for parking – an instrument for unsustainable transportation if ever there were one – points up a valuable tool set that is right in the middle of the New Mobility Agenda. You will find substantial excepts from an earlier draft of Shoup's shortly to appear book “The High Cost of Free Parking” here: http://sonomatlc.org/Parking/PBDs/BusinessPBD/SmallChange-1.htm.

****************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Dodson [mailto:ejdodson@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 7:40 PM
To: LandCafeGroup
Subject: [LandCafe] market-clearing pricing for on-street parking

Along with the core effort to show elected officials and other community leaders the wisdom of raising revenue by “land value taxation” rather than the taxation of property improvements, there are several important peripheral issues that need to receive greater attention. These involve the utilization of public places for private benefit.

The construction of our cities has long accommodated the presence of private automobiles. Larger cities have created parking authorities to manage parking garages, surface parking lots and curbside parking along city streets. Most cities impose fairly taxes on top of base parking fees charged by private garage and lot owners. And yet, remarkably, demand continues to outstrip supply. Many commuters, even when there is a significant financial benefit to using public transportation, continue to choose the daily use of their private automobile. A consistent result is congestion on the streets, particularly at peak times of arrival and departure.

These dynamics have not gone unnoticed by researchers. An important study on the subject by University of California Professor of Urban Planning, Donald Shoup, is available on-line at http://www.sciencedirect.com. Professor Shoup’s paper, “The ideal source of local public revenue,” provides very common sense advice to city officials seeking to raise revenue and at the same time reduce congestion on city streets. His abstract succinctly states the case:

“Free or underpriced parking creates a classic commons problem. Studies have found that between 8% and 74% of cars in congested traffic were cruising in search of curb parking, and that the average time to find a curb space ranged between 3 and 14 min. Cities can eliminate the economic incentive to cruise by charging market-clearing prices for curb parking spaces. Market-priced curb parking can yield between 5% and 8% of the total land rent in a city, and in some neighborhoods can yield more revenue than the property tax.”

Congestion is only one problem that can be greatly mitigated by market-clearing prices for curb parking spaces. Huge savings in reduced consumption of gasoline as well as its addition to air pollution can be achieved. In most cities today, the driver chooses between “sav[ing] money by parking on-street, or sav[ing] time by parking off-street.” Short-term on-street parking is most often priced far less than in lots or garages. In New York City, for example, one hour of parking on the street costs $1.50 but over $14 off-street. “If a city charges prices that are just high enough to keep a few spaces open on every block,” writes Prof. Shoup, “drivers can always find an available place to park near their destination.” The failure in understanding, he notes, is a failure “to manage a scarce resource.”

Admirers of the economic writings of Henry George will be pleased by the credit Professor Shoup’s gives to George for pioneering the advocacy for public collection of rent associated with resource scarcity, curb parking being one form thereof:

“Curb parking spaces are bare land in fixed supply, so the revenue derived from them is rent. Demand determines the rental value of curb spaces, the revenue comes from public land, and the city can use it to pay for public services. Charging for curb parking fits well with Henry George’s proposal, and is actually far simpler than taxation as a way to collect land rent.”

The case for market-clearing pricing for automobile parking on public streets is clearly made by Professor Shoup. We can think of other public spaces that should be allocated similarly. The one that occurs to me most readily is that of sidewalk locations taken by food vendors each day. They drive into the central business districts each morning, set up their food carts to serve breakfast and lunch, then close up shop, hook up their cart to an automobile and drive away. Cities issue vendors’ licenses to the owners but the vendor association works out the distribution of locations. The city government gets a flat license fee, and the location rents are privatized. When a vendor decides to retire and “sell out,” the informal claim the vendor has to the location carries a price. Cities need to take a close look at this system and create a process for awarding locations based on competitive bidding by the vendors, so that the location rent comes back to the community. This is only one additional example. Can you think of others?

09/02/05. Parking, paying for it - A key to the New Mobility Agenda

Program: New Mobility Agenda and Land Café

Note: This note by Ed Dodson from our ever challenging Land Café forum points up once again how lucky we are to have a number of overlapping discussions and exchanges here under The Commons. This reminder of the fine, persistent decades-long campaign by Institute of Transportation Studies Los Angeles researcher and Urban Planning Department Chair Donald Shoup to eliminate hidden subsidies for free parking – an instrument for unsustainable transportation if ever there were one – points up a valuable tool set that is right in the middle of the New Mobility Agenda. You will find substantial excepts from an earlier draft of Shoup's shortly to appear book “The High Cost of Free Parking” here: http://sonomatlc.org/Parking/PBDs/BusinessPBD/SmallChange-1.htm.

****************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Dodson [mailto:ejdodson@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 7:40 PM
To: LandCafeGroup
Subject: [LandCafe] market-clearing pricing for on-street parking

Along with the core effort to show elected officials and other community leaders the wisdom of raising revenue by “land value taxation” rather than the taxation of property improvements, there are several important peripheral issues that need to receive greater attention. These involve the utilization of public places for private benefit.

The construction of our cities has long accommodated the presence of private automobiles. Larger cities have created parking authorities to manage parking garages, surface parking lots and curbside parking along city streets. Most cities impose fairly taxes on top of base parking fees charged by private garage and lot owners. And yet, remarkably, demand continues to outstrip supply. Many commuters, even when there is a significant financial benefit to using public transportation, continue to choose the daily use of their private automobile. A consistent result is congestion on the streets, particularly at peak times of arrival and departure.

These dynamics have not gone unnoticed by researchers. An important study on the subject by University of California Professor of Urban Planning, Donald Shoup, is available on-line at http://www.sciencedirect.com. Professor Shoup’s paper, “The ideal source of local public revenue,” provides very common sense advice to city officials seeking to raise revenue and at the same time reduce congestion on city streets. His abstract succinctly states the case:

“Free or underpriced parking creates a classic commons problem. Studies have found that between 8% and 74% of cars in congested traffic were cruising in search of curb parking, and that the average time to find a curb space ranged between 3 and 14 min. Cities can eliminate the economic incentive to cruise by charging market-clearing prices for curb parking spaces. Market-priced curb parking can yield between 5% and 8% of the total land rent in a city, and in some neighborhoods can yield more revenue than the property tax.”

Congestion is only one problem that can be greatly mitigated by market-clearing prices for curb parking spaces. Huge savings in reduced consumption of gasoline as well as its addition to air pollution can be achieved. In most cities today, the driver chooses between “sav[ing] money by parking on-street, or sav[ing] time by parking off-street.” Short-term on-street parking is most often priced far less than in lots or garages. In New York City, for example, one hour of parking on the street costs $1.50 but over $14 off-street. “If a city charges prices that are just high enough to keep a few spaces open on every block,” writes Prof. Shoup, “drivers can always find an available place to park near their destination.” The failure in understanding, he notes, is a failure “to manage a scarce resource.”

Admirers of the economic writings of Henry George will be pleased by the credit Professor Shoup’s gives to George for pioneering the advocacy for public collection of rent associated with resource scarcity, curb parking being one form thereof:

“Curb parking spaces are bare land in fixed supply, so the revenue derived from them is rent. Demand determines the rental value of curb spaces, the revenue comes from public land, and the city can use it to pay for public services. Charging for curb parking fits well with Henry George’s proposal, and is actually far simpler than taxation as a way to collect land rent.”

The case for market-clearing pricing for automobile parking on public streets is clearly made by Professor Shoup. We can think of other public spaces that should be allocated similarly. The one that occurs to me most readily is that of sidewalk locations taken by food vendors each day. They drive into the central business districts each morning, set up their food carts to serve breakfast and lunch, then close up shop, hook up their cart to an automobile and drive away. Cities issue vendors’ licenses to the owners but the vendor association works out the distribution of locations. The city government gets a flat license fee, and the location rents are privatized. When a vendor decides to retire and “sell out,” the informal claim the vendor has to the location carries a price. Cities need to take a close look at this system and create a process for awarding locations based on competitive bidding by the vendors, so that the location rent comes back to the community. This is only one additional example. Can you think of others?

08/02/05. Review of "The Possibility of Progress", by James Robertson

Program: The Commons

Note: This review is by our respected friend and colleague James Robertson whose extensive work and conditions in the area of sustainable development and social justice can be accessed via the website "Working for a Sane Alternative" at http://www.jamesrobertson.com/

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The Possibility of Progress:

by Mark Braund.

Shepheard-Walwyn, London, 2005,
308 pages, paperback, £14.95.
Further details at www.markbraund.com.

This is an impressive, important and readable book, supported by wide-ranging research. I summarise it chapter by chapter in the following paragraphs.

Its definition of progress, based on "clear and recognisable moral values", is "movement towards a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable global social order".

"Science and Humankind" disproves the myth that our biological evolution rules out progress of that kind; the evolution of consciousness in humans can enable us to master biological constraints. The message of "Evolution and Culture" is that, unlike our ancestors, we now have the knowledge and capacity to make decisions about our future. We cannot avoid moral responsibility for what we decide.

"Economics and Morals" concludes that progress cannot happen without fundamental changes in the way we organise the economy. So long as we accept it in its current form, "we condone worsening economic polarisation, we condemn hundreds of millions to misery, and we guarantee that the human race can survive only a few more generations, as the means to life are exhausted and the environment destroyed". How we deal with this has "huge moral implications".

The present "State of the World" should "provoke incredulity and anger, and hopefully a determination to do something about the hideous social injustice that blights our supposedly civilised world". This chapter's lucid account of the role of big business, rich-country governments and the IMF in the shameful Third World debt story drives home "what seems obvious to the impartial observer: that the entire thrust of global economic policy is geared to guaranteeing the privileged position of a small minority through the undermining of the economies of the poor nations. Whether this process was premeditated is impossible to know, but if the rich and powerful of the world had set out deliberately to secure an ever-increasing slice of global wealth for themselves, they could not have planned and executed a more effective scheme".

Since questions of ethics and economics cannot be considered in isolation from each other, the question of "A Universal Ethic" arises. This chapter finds that the "crucial values are the ones we all share... They are the values targeted by our current economic system... They are the only values by which all humans can enjoy liberty and freedom from want". Powerful interests profit from people's failure to understand that a better world is possible. They propagate myths and untruths to limit the moral aspirations of society.

"Perception and Reality" points out two inconsistent trends in the last few decades. In an increasing number of countries gender equality and racial equality have been established and homosexuality is no longer penalised. But in most countries the economic gap between rich and poor has widened. Why are we readier to support the rights of people disadvantaged on racial or 'minority' grounds than the rights of those disadvantaged by an economic system designed to produce winners and losers?

One deliberately cultivated myth is that progress depends on a competitive economy. Another is the myth of scarcity. Another, more ancient myth is that divisions between rich and poor are an inevitable part of God's plan for humankind, and reflect the natural order of things. To combat these myths, we need to understand how the individual human psyche is shaped by society, and work out how a conscious, rational and moral human psyche can shape society.

Chapters on "Psyche and Society" and "Moral Development" stress that education aiming to turn out good citizens in terms of the dominant worldview, can only serve to reinforce prevailing inequities. Moral development is not about producing model citizens conditioned to survive in the contemporary world. It is about becoming aware of the world's immense problems, accepting the possibility and desirability of change, and finding strategies to bring it about. In particular, we must bring our leaders to accept that the dreadful reality of the contemporary world is irreconcilable with our moral aspirations, and that a better social and economic order is possible.

Chapters on "A True Economics" and "Freedom and Justice" focus on today's false understanding of economic laws. A critical mass of people must engage in a popular movement committed to progressive change through an understanding of how the economy works and could work better.

The key to progress will be on lines proposed by Henry George - a complete shift from taxing us on the value we create on to the value of the resources we use. Georgists and ecological economists are beginning to find common ground. By informing the economic and environmental understanding of millions of people, their arguments can generate the necessary political commitment for change.

The last chapter, on "The Politics of Progress", points out that our leaders are prisoners of the economic system too. All today's rich-country leaders assume they have to acquiesce in an economic system which clearly conflicts with progressive values. Tony Blair feels he has to accept that "the determining context of economic policy is the new global market; that imposes huge limitations of a practical nature - quite apart from reasons of principle on macroeconomic policies".

So the prospect for progress depends on large numbers of people seriously committing themselves to understanding the economy in practical, ethical terms, and - with that new understanding - acting through democratic processes to change the way it now works.

My main reservation about this excellent book concerns Henry George's proposal to raise public revenue, not from existing taxes but from the "economic rent" of land.

I strongly support that proposal myself. But, first, it needs to be widened. Sources of public revenue should include, not just the value of land and other natural resources, but also the value of non-natural assets created as common wealth - such as the public money supply.

Second, people find it difficult to understand the concept of "economic rent" - naturally confusing it with the normal meaning of rent. But they won't find it difficult to understand that making people pay for the value of the common wealth they take from the economy is fairer than making them pay taxes on their rewards from contributing to it.

With that reservation, I strongly recommend this book. It meets a great need and should be widely read and studied and discussed.