Paris, Thursday, January 18, 2007
Dear New Mobility, World Transport, Kyoto Cities, LotsLessCars, Land Café and Global South Colleagues, wherever you may be this morning:
This is to express my heartfelt thanks to Todd Littman for all the fine work he has done over these last years, and which he so generously continues to share with all of us who care about these important matters. Cracking the hard nut of unsustainable transport and cities in desperate need of new ideas, examples and practices is not something that any one of us will ever be do in isolation. But by continuing to put our heads (and hearts) together, we will, I absolutely promise you, be able to make a difference.
All this comes to mind this morning as I race over the two latest of his rich offerings which just came in here yesterday: (a) "Win-Win Emission Reduction Strategies" at http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf; and (b) "Win-Win Transportation Solutions," at http://www.vtpi.org/winwin.pdf. And then beyond that of course all that he shares with us via the Victoria Transport Policy Institute and the ever-useful Online TDM Encyclopedia at http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php. What I so much appreciate about Todd's contributions and perspectives is that he takes on the same issues which are right up the center of our preoccupations here of what we call the New Mobility Agenda and which by any name is our common cause, and gives us his specific vision and interpretations. Through all that he shares with us, Todd informs me, reminds me, challenges me, and initiates a process of questioning and rethinking which I find most useful and enriching.
So thank you Todd for all that -- and now what? Well, to get the ball rolling, in addition to this all too brief note of thanks, I have just popped a small video note ( a minute and a half) in which I try to set out a couple of ideas on this, o which you can click directly from here via http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8312398871175245527&pr=goog-sl. (No big deal of course, but it always strikes me that richer forms of communications such as this at times have their place, and this is one of them)
As you will see there, the idea is simply to provide an indication of our collective thanks, possibly through a short (or less short is that is what you prefer) email, possibly copied to the New Mobility Agenda Idea Factory via the address NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com so that we can eventually work them into some sort of compendium. In the past we have through our collective efforts found ways to gain high profile public recognition for the work of several of our colleagues and partners who are making important contributions to the sustainable cities and sustainable lives challenges. I would just remind you that thus far our list includes people like Enrique Penalosa (Bogotá), Hans Monderman (Groningen), Jan Gehl (Copenhagen), Ken Livingstone (London), Lee Myung-Bak (Seoul), Sue Zielinski (Toronto), and Wolfgang Zuckermann. As well as a fair number of projects that are leading the way in areas such as carsharing (Helsinki, San Francisco, Paris, Gothenburg), Walk to School programs, and yes even Car Free Days here and there.
Now I am not quite sure how all this ties in to how we might express our thanks to Todd for all his hard work that serves many of us so well, but here you have a thought and now let's see what we do with it. It's your turn.
Eric Britton
Sustainable transportation, sustainable cities and sustainable lives: One city, one project, one person at a time.
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