An open letter to participants in the earlier Children on the Move!
program (1999) and our friends in Lots Less Cars.



And this is to ask if you and anyone on any of your networks might be
interested to be informed about and perhaps even participating in some
way in a new open collaborative project just getting underway under our
New Mobility Agenda (http://www.newmobility.org), and The Commons: Open
Society Sustainability Initiative (www.ecoplan.org
<http://www.ecoplan.org/> ) which looks specifically at our children and
the ways they get around in their communities in their day to day lives.
There is a bit of a story behind this which I would like to sketch
quickly so that you perhaps will have a better feel for what we think
needs to be done now.



Backdrop:

Let me start with a quick rundown of some of the main reasons why we
think this is an extremely important area of public policy and private
practice and thus worth our and your concerns and efforts. Of course
whatever we end up proposing, promulgating or supporting must of course
be safe for the children, but there is certainly no need to be paranoid
about other ways of getting the job done, and indeed we also must be
ready to work with them in ways that open up the benefits of . . .

* Personal development

* Health and hygiene

* Independence

* Curiosity

* Exploration

* Socialization and peer relations in unstructured unsupervised
situations

* Personal Choice and responsibility (including maybe not going to
school or being late .. valuable lessons to be learned which you can't
if you are strapped in Mommy's shiny SUV)

* Environmental awareness

* Traffic reduction, active participation in

* Increased self-reliance

* Opportunities for the development of extraordinary children

* Personal citizenship, responsibility and choices

* Reinforce and enrich family dialogues and collaboration



In fact we tried to launch a group project along these lines a full
decade ago, but for various reasons it never took off, in part because
of a lack of time and resources here, but I think upon reflection
because we simply did not find a way to make it interesting enough to
bring in enough people and ideas to create the necessary critical mass
to get the whole thing to take off on its own. This time around I hope
that we shall be able to learn these lessons and from the outset see if
we can turn this into what I like to call a self-organizing
collaborative network (i.e., no boss, no hierarchy, but a wide open
participatory framework that brings in ideas and energy and makes
interesting and useful things happen). You'll see at least the first
glimpses of how this might work if you click over to the draft site at
http://www.kids.newmobility.org <http://www.kids.newmobility.org/> ,
where you will see an in-process of revision and extension of a web
site, that is being opened up precisely to see if it can in time and
with multiple sources of inputs, ideas and energy be transformed into a
useful turntable for ideas and communications on these I think terrible
important issues and choices.



And while you will see it on the site let me already remind you here of
the first handful of areas and issues on which we propose to concentrate
at the outset:

* Walk to School programs (including of course cycling and skating. .
. human transport as it is often called)

* Play Streets

* New Mobility School Program

* Green Maps

* Extraordinary Children - New Mobility Initiatives



Now what?

Noble sounding goals, but what in fact do we have in hand today to be
able to proceed on all this? For now, neither funding, any form of
institutional support beyond that which we bring to it, no official
mandate, no staff, and no commitments or even firm plans at to how we
want to proceed on this. That's, if you will the bad, news. But what is
the good news?



1. Well for starters we have a timely and important topic, which
corresponds to real needs which many parents, citizens, teachers and
local leaders - and kids! - can see and appreciate.

2. And then too, we have a long track record of being able to
create and then support viable international networks and programs in
very similar areas, whether they involve topics as abstract as
sustainable transport, sustainable development and social justice, or
much more focused topics and issue areas, as you will see in some detail
if you check out the New Mobility Agenda at http://www.newmobility.org
<http://www.newmobility.org/> .

3. To which we can add a rather varied tool kit, which while in
places rather rudimentary nonetheless give us both solid experience and
a decent starting point in coming up with something that will be much
more suited to the challenges of the Kids/New Mobility program and
support effort. (These tools include our various web sites, idea
factories, shared document and link libraries, audio and video
libraries, blogs, wikis, newsletters, free or low cost audio and video
conferencing systems, and even such 'old technology' devices like
physical conferences, expositions and various kinds of get-togethers
running from world-level meetings to local Accelerated Learning
Sessions.)

4. And finally we have over the years created international
networks consisting of thousands of distinguished and varied people and
hundreds of programs and groups in more than fifty countries world wide
who have shown themselves to be open to our projects and exchanges. What
is perhaps most interesting about these people and groups is that they
come from such a wide range of economic, social and political contexts.
Plenty of often very different things and pints of views to learn from.



Now that may not be bad for a start, but it would be a real pity if this
time around we allowed ourselves to start to put together this program
from our own various bricks and pieces, as if we here know best how to
get this job done as it should be. The truth is that we, that I am
simply not smart enough or sufficiently well equipped to deign this
program by myself. And here is where you and our networks come in.
Specifically we propose a four step, iterative, interactive development
process over the months ahead, perhaps along the following lines:



Step 1. Alpha project: Consider the site as it now stands (at
http://www.kids.newmobility.org on12 Nov. 06) as a crude alpha version
of . . . something . which is intended not as a final design or even as
a rough model but rather as a first draft put before you just to get the
ball rolling in a group effort to figure out and put into place the best
structure to get this job done. It is my point of view in this that
literally everything is up for grabs and open to redefinition,
elimination, replacement, refinement . . . what have you. For instance
the present draft suggests that it will be a web site of some sort that
should be the central source of information, sharing and interaction.
Now, it may be that rather than this old html stuff stuck on a virtual
page we should be putting something like a wiki, blog or who knows what
at the center. These are the sorts of things that we would like to hear
from you all about.

Step 2. Brainstorm: Over the next two months (Nov., Dec. 2006) , we
would like to invite ideas, suggestions and inputs from as many of our
international colleagues as we can incite to do so, so that the entire
project can be put together in a more effective, efficient and useful
package.

Step 3. Beta project: Then starting in January 2007 we and others who
wish to take part in this can get started in creating a much improved
program and support frame, and then start to go to work with it. It is
our experience that once the necessary critical mass has been reached in
terms of the number of participants (200 or more is a number that we
have seen work in other situations) and the lines of communication and
established and used, the whole thing can gradually be improved,
extended, etc. so that by, say, summer 2007 we would have a pretty
viable structure in place and perhaps also the first collaborative
projects and even perhaps external support and funding either for
specific task or events or possibly for the program as a whole.

Step 4. Full program - 2007-2010: Aiming at the period 2007-2010, at
which point a sunset clause should be involved to examine if the effort
should be continued, and in what form.



Some small next steps:

To conclude: if what you see today on the draft site is still pretty
primitive and out of date, here are a number of more focused areas in
which we would be pleased to hear from you with your ideas and
suggestions to start to get all this formed up and more useful:



* List of leading international and local programs working in these
areas (ours is way out of date) - including of course in each case their
web site and if possible key contacts. These will then be immediately
posted to the site as they come in.

* Key documents and ppt presentations

* Your comments and suggestions to Idea Factory

* Videos? And audios

* Content and editorial suggestions:

* Calendars and dates of key related events



* * *



But there is one final point in all this concerning which I would be
particularly grateful to have the benefit of your wisest and frankest
thoughts - namely, is this a project that is worth doing? And are we the
people to do it? Is there someone out there who is better equipped to do
exactly this job? Because if that is the case, what we should doubtless
be considering is how we might be able to support them in their work.
Truth to tell however, what I have learned over the years is that there
is a very big world out there and the problems we need to be grappling
with are many and hugely varied. In this context the idea of useful
redundancy is not one that necessarily stands up to close inspection
(e.g., nature is redundant and isn't that why it works?). But if that
is the case, let me hear from you and we can then draw the necessary
conclusions.



Thanks for giving this your time. I look forward with real interest to
hearing from you on this.



Eric Britton



New Mobility Advisory/Briefs. Don't know about them yet?

Maybe you should have a look at http://newmobilitybriefs.org
<http://newmobilitybriefs.org/>

Accelerated Learning for partners & decision-makers in cities





The New Mobility Agenda: on line at http://www.newmobility.org

Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France

Tel: +331 4326 1323 +338 7044 0343 Skype: newmobility

E: <mailto:contact@...> contact@...
Backup: <mailto:fekbritton@...> fekbritton@...





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]