Climate/Action/Plan Mobility Challenges & Innovations of the Subcontinent

23/12/2019

AN INDIAN EXPERIMENT WITH FREE TRANSIT

* On the 29 October 2019, the Delhi government operationalised free public transit for all women in the Indian capital – more than a third of total ridership. Dona Mathew and Dominic Mathew explore how and why the state has implemented such a system
Source: https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/93827/an-indian-experiment-with-free-transit/

"On a slightly chilly and smoggy mid-November day in New Delhi, India, a group of men board a crowded Delhi Transport Corporation bus, grumbling about the increased number of women riding alone or accompanied by their children or parents. Their barbs include comments on “women out for joyrides with their kids” and “shouldn’t they be taking care of the household”. Other than being a window into a patriarchal mindset, it also highlighted trip-chaining among women, linking short trips for shopping, day-care or taking care of the elderly in between a home and work trip.

The Delhi government operationalised free public transit for all women in the Indian capital on 29 October, the day of Bhai Dooj – a Hindu festival that celebrates the love between a brother and sister. An estimated 2.2 million women use the state’s bus and mass rapid transit network everyday, constituting more than a third the total ridership. Free transportation for women, in a city of 19 million residents where 30 per cent of all trips are made on public transit, will have a tremendous spillover effect on its economy.

Figure 1: People waiting to board a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus.

So how and why did Delhi do it? Why did the state opt to do away with fares that are 65 per cent of revenues for the Delhi Transport Corporation buses? The reasons are economics, safety concerns and politics. As per the 2016 National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data, Delhi has one of the lowest numbers of female workforce participation (only 11.7 per cent of the workforce in Delhi are women). Combined with a dismal gender ratio, economic mobility for women in the state is severely restricted.Compare this with American cities, where the clamour for free transit has picked up every now and then.

A recent three-day long public summit in Cleveland identified transportation as one of the biggest barriers preventing the city from rising, with free transit being a proposed solution. It is music to the ears of riders and, if backed by good quality services, can reinvigorate a city, but who pays the massive $51 million shortfall, the 16 per cent of revenues that fares make up for the Greater Cleveland RTA? In sharp contrast to Delhi and similar cities in ‘developing’ countries, where public transit can account for 30-40 per cent of trips, the car rules the road in America. Until strong political will and alternative financing for a sustainable free transit system is established, it is a tall order for any city to implement.

MORE: https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/93827/an-indian-experiment-with-free-transit/

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Dona Mathew is a researcher based in New Delhi working with an intergovernmental organisation. A lawyer by profession, her areas of interest are gender rights and criminal law.

Dominic Mathew is an architect-planner who works on addressing mobility and job-access challenges in Northeast Ohio with an economic development collaborative, the Fund for Our Economic Future. He manages an open mobility competition, the Paradox Prize, investing $1 million in 15 job access pilots.

The Delhi government operationalised free public transit for all women in the Indian capital. Dona and Dominic Mathew explore how and why.

22/11/2019

ON NOTABLE CLIMATE/MOBILITY PROJECTS, CHALLENGES, INITIATIVES IN NEPAL -
- 23-30 October 2019.

We welcome our 1078 members to share with us all particularly interesting Climate/Mobility news from people, projects and programs from f,or and in Nepal

Contact: [email protected]

22/11/2019

CLIMATE EMERGENCY: Word of the Year for 2019 (And why)

Oxford Dictionaries declares 'climate emergency' word of 2019

Oxford Dictionaries has declared “climate emergency” the word of the year for 2019, following a hundred-fold increase in usage that it says demonstrated a “greater immediacy” in the way we talk about the climate.

Defined as “a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it”, Oxford said the words soared from “relative obscurity” to “one of the most prominent – and prominently debated – terms of 2019.”

According to the dictionary’s data, usage of “climate emergency” soared 10,796%.

Oxford said the choice was reflective, not just of the rise in climate awareness, but the focus specifically on the language we use to discuss it. The rise of “climate emergency” reflected a conscious push towards language of immediacy and urgency, the dictionary said.

"The climate science is clear: it's now or never to avert catastrophe" -- Bill McKibben

Usage of the term increased 100-fold in the space of 12 months, dictionary says

07/11/2019

TRANSITION STRATEGIES: Selected Wikipedia checklist of key terms, concepts and references

Intended as a handy research aid, checklist and reminder for students, researchers and others digging into the rich Climate/Mobility nexus and related technical and policy challenges. A certain familiarity with these concepts is desirable; more than that I would say essential.

It is particularly important that those responsible for planning and policy be comfortable with these concepts. Anyone prepared to work in the field will already have familiarity with, say, 9 out of 10 of the concepts identified here. It concerns the stuff of sustainable transport, sustainable mobility and sustainable cities. (I would draw your attention particularly to those entries that are marked with two asterisks * * which touch on some of the more subtle and essential components of a sustainable transport policy.)

From the beginning in the late eighties the New Mobility Agenda was conceived as a shared space for communications and didactic tools zeroing in on our chosen topic from a number of angles, and over the last eight years World Streets has continued in this tradition. I hope that what follows may be useful to some of you. As you will see, I think it is an important and powerful tool — which those of us who care can help shape and put to work for the good cause.

How much can you trust Wikipedia — and what you can do about it . . .

Article continues at: : https://wordpress.com/post/worldstreets.wordpress.com/19170

Also have a look at
* https://www.facebook.com/MobilityBehavior
* https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/tdm-primer/
* https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/tag/2020actiontoolkit/

07/11/2019

AUGUST 30, 2019. THE COST OF URBAN COMMUTE

Public transport remains central to air pollution and traffic congestion abatement, climate change mitigation and health risk management in urban areas. The success of public transport depends on reliability, convenience and accessibility, but it is affordability, social inclusion, and financial sustainability that can make it a game changer, aiding it in keeping up with the needs of expansion and modernization.

Today, this issue of affordability vs financial sustainability concerns all public transport systems in India—bus- and rail-based. Systemic responses have varied from shock fare hikes to choosing political exigencies over financial health. Attaining the right balance remains tricky business.

What, if at all, is the way out? This study by CSE diagnoses this problem by looking at a wide range of public transport agencies in India as well as across the world, and offers a possible direction for cities in India looking to modernize and scale up their public transport systems whilst ensuring affordability of the services.

Continues: http://cse.mailinifinity.com/gtrack?clientid=2431&ul=CwUEAVJcGQdJUhZaVkhVQFpFRlkIdgRbVhQJWV8YVhdfTkw=&ml=CgsEAhpVGQYHD1wCSQ==&sl=ek5zSjM2GWR4YxhQRgMZX1JYXl8IXwdRVw0RQR9VVghEAg==&pp=0&

28/10/2019

05/10/2019

THE 2020 FIVE PERCENT CLIMATE CHALLENGE (update)

WORLD STREETS is betting its future on the coming immediate-term transition period led by certain ambitious, responsible cities, nations, organizations and citizens in different parts of the world to come together to break the downward pattern of ever-increasing climate stress — and before the challenge to plan and execute highly aggressive near-term initiatives aimed at sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the mobility sector.

And doing all this while working with proven tools, policies and strategies that harness cost-effective, readily available, measures, technologies, operational and management competence.

And our job is to support them as best we can.

Continues:

– – – – – – – – > Working draft update of 5 October. To be finalized over October. WORLD STREETS is betting its future on the coming immediate-ter…

29/09/2019

_____________CLIMATE/ACTION/PLAN _______________
THE NEW SENIORS AND THEIR NEW MOBILITY AGENDA

This new World Streets collaborative climate/mobility forum went on line only yesterday at -- and for the moment is still something of an empty box. But this going to change fast as you will see if you check in to https://www.facebook.com/ClimateActionPlan-The-New-Seniors-and-their-New-Mobility-Agenda-121610345902618/?modal=admin_todo_tour

TO FOLLOW.

01/08/2019

PROVOKING THOUGHT WHEN WE NEED IT MOST.

To understand how we get the future that our children need ,want,and deserve we have to challenge our usual ways of thinking, seeing, reacting, deciding, and doing. Here are some wise reminders worth pondering as we look to a different future . . .

• You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. – Buckminster Fuller

• Every tree, every plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing; those which average eyes would see as fixed and still. - Rumi

• Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden, and must be wrested from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry. John Dewey

* Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.― Jane Jacobs

• The power of a new mobility concept depends not on how well it solves a given, targeted problem. But on how many problems it (partly) solves. - Brömmelstroet

• If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it? - A. Einstein (attributed)

• Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. - Rumi

• Education is not the filling of a bucket – it is the lighting of a fire. - WB Yeats

Finally George Bernard Shaw on unreasonable people (slightly adapted):

• The reasonable woman adapts herself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable woman.

And finally a Haiku to remind us all to listen,

the great art is to
listen to the softest voice
even in the wind

02/05/2019

THE ECOSYSTEM OF (SYSTEMIC) CHANGE IN A MODERN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

“The power of a new mobility concept depends not on how well it solves a given, targeted problem. But on how many problems it (partly) solves.” - Marco Te Brömmelstroet

(Notes: Full text to follow. In the meantime you might want to try this as a starting point: Alternatively you can just work your way down this listing in chrono order . Comments more than welcome. Here or to [email protected]

* RETHINKING NEW MOBILITY IN PENANG: The search for Values, Vision, Competence, Strategies, Tactics . . and Happiness. https://wp.me/p3GVVk-Po

* NEW ECOSYSTEM: NUDGE, SMILE . . . (PARADIGM) CHANGE
https://wp.me/p3GVVk-Tb

* NEW MOBILITY AGENDA ON BEHAVIOR & CHANGE . (And why people do what they do. https://www.facebook.com/MobilityBehavior/

Introduction. Dr. AH Abdul Hamid, an eminent traffic and transport engineer from the School of Housing, Building and Planning at the USM, has recently issued a strong call to respond to the at tim…