CONGRATULATIONS ANDREW: Best one person transportation initiative that I have seen since first starting to follow developments in Penang in September 2013.
Category Archives: 2016
Kaohsiung Accomplishments And Technical Competence Deficits In Penang
Comment from Yueh Kwong Leong in today’s WhatsApp S/P exchanges: “Kaohsiung in Taiwan was considered the most polluted industrial city in Asian. It is today considered as one of the most green city in Asia.”
Kaohsiung, yes! Good example.
For the record, we have been strategically involved in the Kaohsiung transition process in the transport sector since 2009. Among that city’s great accomplishments have been an important capacity building effort over the last decade, both within the various local government offices, but also because Taiwan has developed world level technical, planning and policy capabilities and a professional/university network that puts the necessary expertise at the fingertips of local government. These networks of competence are important factors in the advances being made not only in Kaohsiung but also a number of other cities in Taiwan. (Cities compete!)
As far as I am concerned this is THE GREAT WEAK POINT in your capabilities in Penang today – and the general chaos that has surrounded the so-called PTMP has in large part due to these persistent technical competence deficits.
41 Measures to Manage Traffic Congestion in Penang
COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS: REVIEW OF URBAN CONGESTION
TRENDS, IMPACTS AND SOLUTIONS
Study of Successful Congestion Management Approaches and the Role of Charging, Taxes,
Levies and Infrastructure and Service Pricing in Travel Demand Management
Battle of Ideas: The People’s Republic of South Yorkshire
Moving cars or moving people? Through the looking glass
A bit of background on The People’s Republic (Wikipedia):
The People’s Republic of South Yorkshire or the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire were nicknames often given to South Yorkshire under the left-wing local governments of the 1980s, especially the municipal socialist administration of Sheffield City Council led by David Blunkett, used by both detractors and supporters of the councils.[1] The councils pursued a social policy radically different from that of Margaret Thatcher‘s national government, following more closely along the lines of Militant tendency-dominated Liverpool City Council and the Greater London Council led by Ken Livingstone.[2]
The expression was coined by Max Williams, a leader writer at the Yorkshire Evening Post, although it was soon adopted by supporters of the council’s left-wing policies.[3] Sheffield Hallam was the only seat in South Yorkshire where the Conservative Party was a significant political force, the remaining seats being Labour safe seats or Liberal–Labour marginals.[4] Sheffield City Council and the South Yorkshire Metropolitan Authority were solidly left wing, remaining socialist even as Thatcherism became the dominant political ideology in the country as a whole.
– – >Continues: http://bit.ly/2F91tSn
# # #
“A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure,” UK Prime Minister Thatcher once said, according to legend
Summing up
In your eyes, how does all of this look today, a full generation later?
# # #
About the editor:
Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France
Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)
NGOs: Don’t rush to endorse Penang Transport Master Plan
Fifteen local NGOs have cautioned Penangites not to rush to endorse the state’s mega-billion transport master plan (PTMP), saying more consultation and transparency are needed in the massive deal.
The NGOs, including Aliran and the Penang Heritage Trust, issued a joint statement giving Penangites nine major reasons why “the people of Penang should not be rushed into signing this important agreement”.
They said this while commending and expressing support on the need to prioritise public transport over the present private car-centric transport system.
Critical issues they want the state and its appointed project delivery partner SRS Consortium to address include the tremendous costs involved – currently estimated at RM40 billion.. .
“The most worrying concern is that the PTMP lacks vision, it is touted as a plan for Penang for the next 50 years yet it is trapped in 20th century technology and approach in planning,” the NGOs said.
“It proposes obsolescent solutions to Penang’s transport problems, ignoring the latest developments in mass transit planning around the world.
“THE MODERN AUTOMOBILE MUST DIE”
“If we want to solve climate change, there’s no other option.”
By Emily Atkin, The New Republic, August 20, 2018
. . .
In 2010, a NASA study declared that automobiles were officially the largest net contributor of climate change pollution in the world. “Cars, buses, and trucks release pollutants and greenhouse gases that promote warming, while emitting few aerosols that counteract it,” the study read. “In contrast, the industrial and power sectors release many of the same gases—with a larger contribution to [warming]—but they also emit sulfates and other aerosols that cause cooling by reflecting light and altering clouds.”
In other words, the power generation sector may have emitted the most greenhouse gases in total. But it also released so many sulfates and cooling aerosols that the net impact was less than the automobile industry, according to NASA.
Since then, developed countries have cut back on those cooling aerosols for the purpose of countering regular air pollution, which has likely increased the net climate pollution of the power generation industry. But according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “collectively, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all U.S. emissions,” while “in total, the U.S. transportation sector—which includes cars, trucks, planes, trains, ships, and freight—produces nearly thirty percent of all US global warming emissions … .”
In fact, transportation is now the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States—and it has been for two years, according to an analysis from the Rhodium Group.
Continues: https://newrepublic.com/article/150689/modern-automobile-must-die
# # #
And on Penang?
The present PTMP is based on the goal of building more and large roads to accommodate more motor vehicles, and more cars. Period.
Penang needs a real transport master plan whose fundamental strategy (TDM) will be to reduce the number of cars on the road significantly beginning in 2019. THAT’S THE CHALLENGE.
Hello? Anyone home?
PS. See https://sustainablepenang.wordpress.com/tag/ptmp/ for all sides on the ongoing vigorous deebate on the right way for Penang to proceed from hee.
# # #
Editor’s note: I would say rather that “the modern motor car is dying”. All you have to do is look hard and the vital signs of decline, ongoing and future, are undeniably there.
About the editor:
Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France
Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)
Archives: Brainstorming the Penang Transport Master Plan(s)
Draft introduction: Welcome to a collaborative thinking exercise inviting any and all who may have some questions about the focus, the vision and in the end the quality of future mobility services as being proposed and aggressively pushed by the state government of Penang. The central instrument for this group investigative process is a group of poster illustrations which combine simple images and a few telling words in order test our understanding of the Penang Transport Master Plan — all this as prepared for the recent Gertak Sanggul Art Festival by Kin Yin and a group of young collaborators (who will be identified shortly in the final section of this first presentation).
Penang Transport Master Plan (2016 official SDS version)
State Government’s announced “Big Bang” approach to a “Holistic” Penang
The full content of the official Penang Transport Master Plan (SDS version) as available on 27 June 2016 is reproduced here for the convenience of our international visitors interested to follow progress . As indicated this is considered by local government as a living document, subject to extensions and updates. For the latest version of this document: http://pgmasterplan.penang.gov.my
Planning and Policy Objectives for a Real Strategic Transport Plan for Penang
Again and again and again, when it comes to “transport master planning” in Penang, it seems as if we always end up circling to the same old structurally wrong thing. And in the process allowing the under-trained proponents of the Big Bang “solution” of the present government package, to occupy the center of the debate. This is a huge mistake.
It is my position that the starting place for responsible and effective transport planning and policy in Penang is NOT to link it to land deals — but to look at the challenge in and of itself. From a well defined, explicit strategic perspective.
Some will say that they do not have enough money to accomplish their objectives — which quickly become wild, pharaonic, costly and not related to the real problems and priorities at hand. Remember, transport for people and not for cars (infrastructure included)
Here is the simple question that the policy makers need to be asked and required to resolve.
(a) What is it that they can accomplish for the people of Penang,
(b) working with available resources in order to
(c) alleviate the day-to-day mobility problems of the people of Penang – with
(d) especial attention to the needs of the poorer half of society and the vulnerable populations (elderly, handicapped, poor, isolated, non-car owners, and
(e) above all women of all ages and stations of life, and in
(f) in the coming three years, i.e., 2018-2020.
How hard is that? And why is no one minding this store?
Let’s open up a lively public dialogue between State government and their principal suppliers/partners, civil society
# # #
About the author:
Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France
Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)
Jane Jacobs as our example for Penang (“Nobody but a bunch of mothers.”)
Battle Royal: Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses
It was late Spring 1958 (as I best recall) in New York City when a young Eric Britton, just out of the US Army and about to dig into the Graduate Faculties of Columbia, was – as young men will do — checking out the action in Washington Square Park in the Village on a warm day. When he ran into two little kids wearing a sandwich sign saying something like “Save the Square!”. The kids handed me a pamphlet and explained that they were there to help their mother, who was just over there (they pointed).
And that was how I first met Mrs. Jane Jacobs, hard at work on an at-first very lonely effort to save this precious bit of NYC public space from the depredations of Robert Moses plan to run an urban highway extension of Fifth avenue over the concrete remains of what would once have been a beautiful and much used public park. It was clearly going to be a losing cause, but she decided to stick it out. And as she did others, unknowns and celebrities, gradually started to get behind her cause.
To a Citizen Climate/New Mobility Action Plan for Penang 