[world-carfree-news_eng] WORLD CARFREE NEWS #22 - July 2005

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WORLD CARFREE NEWS >>>
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Edition no. 22 - July 2005 - English version
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Contents:

QUOTATION OF THE MONTH

IN BRIEF

WORLD NEWS
- BRITAIN'S ROAD PRICING
- BRINGING THE BUS TO MEXICO CITY 

ANNOUNCEMENTS
- TOWARDS CARFREE CITIES IN BUDAPEST 
- CAR BUSTERS #24 OUT SOON
- ECOTOPIA GATHERING, AUGUST, MOLDOVA
- HOW TO CREATE CHILD-FRIENDLY STREETS

DEDICATION

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QUOTATION OF THE MONTH >> 
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Re: WCN has received 3 new grants

Great Work Arie and all the staff.

Micah

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arie farnam" <afarnam@...>
To: <carfree_network@...>
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 2:40 AM
Subject: [carfree_network] WCN has received 3 new grants

> Hi all once again,
> 
> I am happy to announce that World Carfree Network has received 3
> new grants. 
> 
> First, the Ecotopia Biketour has received 28,000 Euros from the
> European Union Youth Programme. This will cover WCN costs related
> to the biketour (including fundraising, web design and staff). It
> will also cover some activity costs for the biketour and some of
> the travel costs incurred by participants AFTER July 1.
> (IMPORTANT NOTE: Particularly if you are living in Austria,
> Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Repubic, Serbia and
> Montenegro or Romania, if you join the biketour after July 1, you
> can probably get 70 percent of yor travel costs covered. Please
> contact info@... for further information.)
> 
> Second, WCN has received 10,000 Euros from the Council of
> Europe's European Youth Foundation for a Carfree Network European
> Youth Workshop in April 2006. The workshop will be held in Tabor,
> a beautiful little town in South Bohemia. It is a skills-building

NEW WCN Steering Committee members wanted NOW!

note: The following must be acted on by 11 July!!

To all World Carfree Network members, provisional
members, and future members,

The Steering Committee (SC) of the World Carfree
Network <www.worldcarfree.net> is looking for from 3
to 9 new people to join us.

New SC members will be selected/voted in at our Annual
General Meeting on 22 July in Budapest, which follows
the Towards Carfree Cities conference
<www.worldcarfree.net/conference> 

-------
!!! Important: Candidates or their organisations DO
NOT have to be present at the AGM !!!
---------- 

SC members come from WCN member organisations
(including provisional ones). Please read details and
view current SC at:
<http://www.worldcarfree.net/about_us/steering.php>

----------

Note: Organisations who are planning to join WCN may
also simultaneously nominate someone from their
organisation for the SC. Eligibility of candidate is
of course contingent on the new organisation being

WALK-21 conference Zurich 21 - 24 September 2005

Bangkok Car free day- who can ride and who cannot?

RE: Bangkok Car free day- who can ride and who cannot?

Re: Bangkok Car free day- who can ride and who cannot?

--- "Carlos F. Pardo" <cpardo@...> wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
>  
> 
> I was just asked a question that I think is worth
> asking to more people
> before answering it. I have been in the (rather
> difficult) process of
> helping Bangkok officials try to organize a car-free
> day in their city. They
> have posed may questions, and most of them are
> basically "textbook", so
> there's no problem. But after a while of discussing
> they asked me if
> motorcycles should or should not be allowed to move
> during a car free day.
> My inmediate answer would be no, since a motorcycle
> is also dangerous (more
> than a car, I would say), polluting (mostly if it's
> two-stroke, but
> polluting nonetheless) and motorised! However, and
> to a great extent in
> Asia, a lot of low income people use motorcycles as
> their main mode of
> transport, sometimes even taking their wife and
> kinds (2 or three of them!)
> in the same vehicle (obviously because they don't
> have the means to pay for
> a very low transport fare).
> 
>  
> 
> Also, though officials didn't ask about it, I was
> thinking if it would also
> be necessary to prohibit circulation of tuk tuks
> (three-wheeled motorised
> taxis), since they would also be a highly informal
> service that would pose
> the same threats of motorcyles (same engine, similar
> lack of safety, etc).
> As I said before, an inmediate reaction to these
> questions would be a strict
> "no", but since current transport conditions and
> affordability of a
> transport fare is an issue, I don't think the answer
> could come out so
> lightly. 
> 
>  
> 
> Another option would be to think that simply Bangkok
> is not ready for a
> car-free day, which I sometimes also feel is the
> answer. but then again it
> would be backing up too soon. I have also thought
> that maybe Bangkok could
> start simply by developing car-free Sundays or
> car-free areas (if not at the
> same time), since the complete closing of roads to
> all cars seems to give
> heart attacks to all the people whom I have talked
> to (and most of them work
> in the "nonmotorised" section of the traffic and
> transportation division).
> Also, giving free rides in public buses is almost
> completely out of the
> question, unless we looked for funding from an
> international organisation.
> difficult to get before September 22nd.

TODD: I think the ideal thing is to make people want
it, so they can get it, so in the end they "own" it.

I would do something less confrontational at first,
Carfree Sunday or some isolated events are good ideas.
I would spend alot of attention on communication with
the public BEFORE the event, then when they are and
immediately afterwards (ideally in combination with
the media) ask "Did you like it?" "What did you like,
or not like?" etc.

If you cannot provide temporary or near-future
alternatives for two-stoke mopeds or the fact that
public  transport fare is too expensive, I would leave
those things out of it. 

Focusing on children is always a good thing, from the
borderline cynical "human shields" reason to the fact
that children are negatively affected by noise and
emissions and of course road safety stuff. 

Can you get free bikes for kids? Will they ride them?

Todd
> 
>  
> 
> So, what would you do? I greatly appreciate your
> comments and/or
> suggestions, since I thikn these issues should be
> discussed with all you
> experts before I give my opinion to the Bangkok
> administrative staff. 
> 
>  
> 
> Best regards,
> 
>  
> 
> Carlos F. Pardo
> 
> Project Coordinator
> 
> GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP)
> 
> Room 0942, Transport Division, UN-ESCAP
> 
> ESCAP UN Building
> 
> Rajadamnern Nok Rd.
> 
> Bangkok 10200, Thailand
> 
> Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 2576
> 
> Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042
> 
> Mobile: +66 (0) 1 - 772 4727
> 
> e-mail:  <mailto:carlos.pardo@...>
> carlos.pardo@...
> 
> Website:  <http://www.sutp.org/> www.sutp.org
> 
> ___________________________________
> 
> Disclaimer:  If you have received an email from an
> unknown sutp.org account
> or with a strange attachment, please do not open it.
> We do not send emails
> from any of the following addresses:
> webmaster@..., support@...,
> service@..., register@..., mail@...,
> info@...,
> administrator@..., postmaster@...
> 
>  
> 
> 

		
___________________________________________________________ 
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RE: Bangkok Car free day- who can ride and who cannot?

On the Bangkok question:

>Here in Brisbane, Australia I am seeing more and more people decide that it’s simply too expensive to own
and run a private car, and motor scooters are becoming more and more popular.  I see this as a good thing
because they take up less space on the streets, use only a small fraction of the fuel as cars.

Yes, but:

They pollute more per vehicle mile than cars (a lot more)
They are much noisier than cars

>However, and to a great extent in Asia, a lot of low income people use motorcycles as their main mode of
transport, sometimes even taking their wife and kinds (2 or three of them!) in the same vehicle (obviously
because they don’t have the means to pay for a very low transport fare).

What is the level of bicycle ownership? Can most people not simply
drop the motorcyle/scooter for the day and bike?

>Also, though officials didn’t ask about it, I was thinking if it would also be necessary to prohibit
circulation of tuk tuks (three-wheeled motorised taxis), since they would also be a highly informal
service that would pose the same threats of motorcyles (same engine, similar lack of safety, etc). 

The tuk-tuks are probably responsible for the largest single share
of air pollution in Bangkok, which, the last time I was there,
in 1990, was by far the worst I have ever experienced. If you want
to show the people of Bangkok what their future could be, let them
have a day without tuk-tuk exhaust.

I know that fares on the new rail systems are very high, but I
had been under the impression that fares on the regular buses
(not the air conditioned buses) were quite low and within the
reach of most people. Surely it is cheaper to take the bus than
to ride a scooter (of course, this is assuming that you factor
in all costs, including depreciation, which most people do not
actually do....)

I agree that the first attempt should probably be modest, maybe
leaving the main arteries open, until the question of the 
adequacy of alternatives is clear. The one thing you do not 
want to do is turn people against the idea by the first attempt.
It seems to me that you have a large number of unknowns and are
working in a culture that is quite distinctly different from
places where there is a lot of experience with carfree days.
In particular, the motorcycle culture of SE Asia is quite
distinct from other parts of the world. The Honda 70 really
changed the face of your region.

Good luck!

Joel

------                          ###                            -----
J.H. Crawford                                         Carfree Cities
mailbox@...                           http://www.carfree.com

RE: Bangkok Car free day- who can ride and who cannot?

Hi Carlos,

May I suggest contacting Louis de Waal in Cape Town, where they had the
first 'Vehicle Free Event' (calling it a car free event would maybe scare
politicians away) some years ago. It was limited to a Sunday morning just on
Klipfontein Road and it was a big success. Since then the event is growing
in reputation and length and is called Car Free Day.

Pascal J.W. van den Noort 
Executive Director Operations Velo Mondial
Executive Board Velo.Info 
+31 (20)6270 675
+31 (0) 6270 556 88 
www.velomondial.net 
www.velo.info 
mailto:operations@... 

-----Original Message-----
From: J.H. Crawford [mailto:mailbox@...] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 1:02 PM
To: carfree_network@...
Subject: RE: [carfree_network] Bangkok Car free day- who can ride and who
cannot?

On the Bangkok question:

>Here in Brisbane, Australia I am seeing more and more people decide that
it's simply too expensive to own and run a private car, and motor scooters
are becoming more and more popular.  I see this as a good thing because they
take up less space on the streets, use only a small fraction of the fuel as
cars.

Yes, but:

They pollute more per vehicle mile than cars (a lot more)
They are much noisier than cars

>However, and to a great extent in Asia, a lot of low income people use
motorcycles as their main mode of transport, sometimes even taking their
wife and kinds (2 or three of them!) in the same vehicle (obviously because
they don't have the means to pay for a very low transport fare).

What is the level of bicycle ownership? Can most people not simply
drop the motorcyle/scooter for the day and bike?

>Also, though officials didn't ask about it, I was thinking if it would also
be necessary to prohibit circulation of tuk tuks (three-wheeled motorised
taxis), since they would also be a highly informal service that would pose
the same threats of motorcyles (same engine, similar lack of safety, etc). 

The tuk-tuks are probably responsible for the largest single share
of air pollution in Bangkok, which, the last time I was there,
in 1990, was by far the worst I have ever experienced. If you want
to show the people of Bangkok what their future could be, let them
have a day without tuk-tuk exhaust.

I know that fares on the new rail systems are very high, but I
had been under the impression that fares on the regular buses
(not the air conditioned buses) were quite low and within the
reach of most people. Surely it is cheaper to take the bus than
to ride a scooter (of course, this is assuming that you factor
in all costs, including depreciation, which most people do not
actually do....)

I agree that the first attempt should probably be modest, maybe
leaving the main arteries open, until the question of the 
adequacy of alternatives is clear. The one thing you do not 
want to do is turn people against the idea by the first attempt.
It seems to me that you have a large number of unknowns and are
working in a culture that is quite distinctly different from
places where there is a lot of experience with carfree days.
In particular, the motorcycle culture of SE Asia is quite
distinct from other parts of the world. The Honda 70 really
changed the face of your region.

Good luck!

Joel

------                          ###                            -----
J.H. Crawford                                         Carfree Cities
mailbox@...                           http://www.carfree.com

Carfree Institute work group in Budapest

Hi All,

I'll be facilitating the Carfree Institute work group
again this year in Budapest.

I'd like to suggest a couple of things for those who
will attend this group to think about before we meet.

We missed a major funding opportunity this year because
we simply were not well enough organized, didn't have
a clear project, and had not developed a functioning
network that could put together a competent proposal.

Such a proposal would be for grants from about
Euro 100,000 to 2,000,000 or so--we're talking
serious money here. This only happens for network
grants, and you have to have serious institutions
behind the proposal.

I'd like to suggest two major areas that could be
the focus of an effort:

1. Survey people in carfree areas (Venice, Fez,
Freiburg, Zermatt, maybe others) about their
reactions to living in a carfree area, the problems 
they face, the solutions they have found (or not),
and their feeling about life in a carfree area.
Summarize and report.

2. Develop software that compares various urban
options (auto-centric, carfree, typical European
city, etc.) and their inputs, outputs, costs, etc.
Publish the software in a form than any group would
be able to use. Erik Rauch (Princeton) is already 
nibbling on this problem.

If anyone has other major themes for such proposals,
now would be an excellent time to suggest them!

Arie, could you possibly plan to attend the start of
the CFI workshop, to lay out what you think the funding
opportunities with a 1 September 2006 deadline are
likely to be? Sketch out what's involved in a successful
application? etc.?

Thanks & regards,

Joel

------                          ###                            -----
J.H. Crawford                                         Carfree Cities
mailbox@...                           http://www.carfree.com