Dear Friends,



This is the final note in this series which is intended to make our fora more
useful and easier to use for you and your colleagues.  Nine out of ten of you
show that you fully understand all this, but it is I hope a useful reminder for
us all. These are not must more “chat sessions” and it really does help if
we all keep that in mind.



Thanks for being patient and helping in this. We all benefit in the end.



Eric Britton





Forum use hints & good practices

   _____

  Participation <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#participation>

  Message Procedures <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#messages>  &
Etiquette

  Message Search <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#enhanced>

  List Monitoring <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#monitor>

  Time <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#time>  starved?

   _____

Welcome to our shared Communications Center and Library for this specialized
program under The Commons. If you intend to participate in the email
discussions, or the posting of materials to the Library or Links & Media
sections, please to be sure to read this short section carefully.

{I realize that this is a terrible terrible bore. But please give it five
minutes; it will make life really much easier and more efficient -- for you and
for the others. Think of it as warming up before you launch, full blooded and
raring to go, into the sport of your choice. Now, off we go!)


Participation and Email Frequency

Participation makes it easy to access the Public Library, link & Media and other
sections of the Forum (Café or Idea Factory) , as well as receiving messages of
the list into your own email box, in the manner you prefer. To become a member,
you are invited to send an empty email to the postmaster@... indicating
which group you wish to join. After a short while you will receive a
confirmation, unless there is a technical problem with your address. When you
have signed up you can elect to receive feedback from this site in any of four
forms:

(a) Individual emails. To receive all individual email messages.
(b) Daily digest: To receive all emails for the day in one message.
(c) Special notices. Only send important update emails from group moderator.
(d) Don't send me email, I'll read the messages on the site at leisure.

If your time is short, we strongly recommend the Daily Digest, and while you are
at it opt for the "Fully Featured" version. Very clean and efficient. To
accomplish that, all you have to do is check into your forum, where you will see
at the top of the YahooGroups page a link, Edit Membership. From there on you
will see.

If you wish to leave the list at any time, just send a blank email to

·         (forum-name)-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:the-commons-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> .


Message Procedures & Etiquette

In this day of titanic, paralyzing information overload, here are a few small
suggestions which I would strongly suggest you bear in mind as you work with our
fora and discussion groups. It will make use the whole process more efficient
for you and for all those hundreds of time-pressed colleagues who come here.

  1. Stay on focus:
And bear in mind that this is one of a series of more or less focused websites
and discussion groups, and we try hard to keep each of them in its chosen focus.
To understand this, in case you do not already, I suggest that you click here to
our page "Focus <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/nma-programs.pdf>  programs and
peer discussions". You'll see there how all this is intended to work.



  2. Make sure you are replying to the correct party.
When you answer a group message, your answer will in many cases be sent to all
the members of the list. If you wish the sender only to receive your answer,
please click on the "Forward" button instead of "Respond" and copy the sender's
email address into the "To" box. Remember, there is no feeling so "sinking" as
when a personal message goes instead to 500 busy, possibly unhappy people. We
would ask you to be extremely careful about distinguishing between:

a.       Basically personal messages (such as a thank you note, a specific
question or an observation intended for this or that person) which are best
addressed to your individual correspondent, and

b.       Communications to the group as a whole.

  3. Exception Information is the rule here:
We are all asked to bear in mind that our colleagues are very busy people and we
want to make sure that whatever comes out of this forum (I) they do not receive
more than a handful messages a week on average and (ii), more important, that
what is distributed to the group is quite literally "exception information",
i.e., communications which address issues which are of high common interest. I
hate to say it, but when we see people being a bit too casual in their choice of
mode, our list administrator actually goes in and picks off what we think to be
a bit too personal and indicate this to them as such. This may strike you as a
bit priggish on our part and indeed is a bit of a bore to actually do; but we
think it's better that than overloading people who have a lot of real work to do
and who see this as a useful tool and not one more wasteful Internet chore.


  4. "Judicious snipping": Take care to avoid promiscuous copying content of
earlier communications
Please do not simply copy and pass on the content of all previous
communications. Nobody, nobody likes to wade through this stuff. Moreover, it
obscures the point of your message for those whose time is important. Where you
need to cite an earlier note for context purposes, please do this in a sparing
and structured way ("judicious snipping" we call it). We will all appreciate
your thoughtfulness.



  5. Copying email addresses: Please do not copy emails to the list in which
you indicate the email addresses of colleagues under the cc. heading. This is a
potential disservice to them and can lead to their addresses being picked up and
then bombarded by lurkers or hackers, which of course you do not wish to be the
cause of.



  6. Retain Subject Headings:
Once a discussion of any given topic has got underway, it really helps for later
reference purposes if you kindly retain the original subject heading. (This is
because this heading in one of the main ways in which we can recall any given
dialogue and exchange around that topic, a process of recall which we believe is
extremely important to the extent to which this collective intellectual
patrimony is available to be mined for subsequent uses. Likewise, if you note
that the subject heading is preceded by a FWD: or Re: in any given case, it's a
good idea to delete this so that your message will enter into the correct
repertory.)



  7. Long signature lines.
No more than three lines please, all in. Once you have introduced yourself to
the group on joining, we all know who you are and don't need all that garble
about when, where and why. Screen space and time are scarce commodities, so
let's keep an eye on this small courtesy.


  8. Message format, fonts and color.
It is a real courtesy if you avoid background colors, large fonts or funky
signatures when writing the groups.



  9. How many messages should YOU be posting to the group?
Certainly no more than two or three per week please. In exceptional cases let's
get together and figure out a strategy (since there are other options including
our several "cafés".) Thank you.



  10. Show respect:
Just like our grandmothers told us. Do not mock others, do not allow your anger
to show, do not make ad hominem or personal remarks, do not pontificate and
don't be a wise guy. Remember half the people here are smarter and know more
about the subject than you (or I) do. Many of them have been at this for years
and have made important contributions, They are not newbies by any stretch of
the imagination, so be careful when you think you may be telling them something
they have not already thought of. The odds are they have. So a bit of modesty
and, as we say over here, 'retenue' will make your grandmother proud (always a
good objective).



  11. Other guidelines to keep in mind:

·         Please proof-read your submissions. The time you take is magnified
500-fold in time savings by readers in trying to understand your points.

·         Don't send very long messages, papers, or binary files to the list;
rather, post a summary in straight text, offering to send to those requesting it
the longer or coded document. Such requests should always be OFF-LIST (to the
person offering it, not the whole list). Another good alternative is to point
people to a website with your material.

·         When referring to research or statements, try to cite them, either a
bibliographic or web reference.

·         Cool off: If you feel yourself getting heated about what another has
written, consider sending that to only that person, not the entire list. This
keeps the recipient from feeling as defensive and possibly escalating the
exchange into a conflagration.

·         After joining, don't post for a couple weeks, so that you can get a
sense of the style of the list. Your first post might contain a short (one
para.) introduction of yourself, but this is not required (when lists first
start, introductions are the best way to get things started).

To conclude: I think it's not a bad assumption to hold in mind that at least
half the people here are smarter than you are and smarter than me) and know more
about the subject. Such a collection of wonderful concerned citizens and
colleagues deserve a little time and attention. And hey! they will do the same
for you.


Enhanced Message Search

At this point, after more than a decade of exchanges among our world wide
colleagues we now have more than ten thousand past communications stored in
these sites, a valuable resource if you are trying to get up to speed on all
these international reactions and goings on. How to use it? Well, try this

With the advanced Message Search functionality, finding a particular message is
not only easier, but much faster. We've updated this by integrating powerful
Yahoo! Search algorithms - this results in an accelerated search experience for
you. Message Search now comprehensively screens the entire message archive of a
group, no matter how many messages have been posted.

What's more, new Message Search includes an "Advanced" search feature. This
feature allows you to drill down on a number of fields to make it easier to find
that lost message. You can use the options on this page to create a very
specific search -- simply refine message search in your group by:

·         Date. You can add a specific point on the calendar and have a search
performed before or after that time. Or, search a date range.

·         Author. Include the name of the sender and all messages from that
name will be returned. You can also exclude a specific sender name from the
search.

·         Subject. Add any words from a subject line and it will be returned.
You can also exclude specific words from the subject line too.

·         Message Body. Add any words from the body of a message and the
relevant messages will be returned to you in your search results. Again here you
can also exclude specific words from your search.


List Monitoring

For better or worse, this is a "monitored" list. We do this, not because we like
it, and certainly not because we enjoy playing that role, but in order to
protect our subscribers and work partners from various forms of abuse and
e-overload. On the one hand, we provide an additional screen to help protect
from various forms of spam that occasionally manage to get through the generally
pretty good YahooGroups controls. And in addition, we occasionally find
ourselves constrained to reject letters that have been penned perhaps a bit too
aggressively for our taste, or simply send out a reminder in instances in which
someone has either sent to the group a communication that would be better routed
to a specific individual, or loaded down his note with unnecessary encumbering
copied material. Every once in a while we may unintentionally strike a nerve,
but by and large this seems to work so we'll keep on doing it.


Time Starved? (And who isn't?)

1. Go for the Daily Digest (see above).
You do this by going to the forum, and clicking the Edit Membership link toward
the top. There you can one click to the Digest. We also recommend that a bit
further down on the page you opt for the Fully Featured version. Quite nice
really.

2. Faster yet:
This may surprise but it works really very well. What you get for all the fora
you wish to follow (and I do this for each of the dozen we work with) is a
morning summary of all messages posted within each forum in which you
participate and receive email.

Here is what you see on your http://my.yahoo.com/ page when you sign in in the
morning. (More on how you do this just below.) This is the summary I found when
clicking in on Tuesday 25 July 2006. (What is sweet about this is that on the
page you can click directly to the article you wish to read and it brings you
into the full content of the entry).

   _____

·         London traffic - 11 hours ago
I agree with Roland that economists do not always understand what cities are
about, and I also think that in all markets they focus too much on pricing

·         "Moving forward : towards better urban transport" - in the open vide
- 18 hours ago
If you go to our in-process New Mobility Video Libraries, you will see three
great entries just posted by Paul Barter. The details on this three part entry

·         London traffic - 18 hours ago
Hi I think the statement that public transport SHOULD be provided on a
commercial basis is possibly a bit too strong. The economics of cities is a
challenging

·         Bus subsidies - 18 hours ago
Buses and trains may have external costs, but extra passengers on them occupying
seats that would otherwise be empty don't -- not significant ones, anyway.

·         Urban cyclists looking for a lane of their own - 21 hours ago
I have found the recent stuff about Shared Space/Naked Streets very simulating.
And now Chris Bradshaw's CURBBBB suggesting is intriguing (as are many of his

·         [The New Mobility ThinkPad] Ending our mediocrity - A planner's-eye -
22 hours ago
Note from the editor: From Canada here is a very thoughtful 'planner's eye view'
of what a good city is supposed to be all about. From our perspective

·         London traffic - 22 hours ago
Public transport should be provided on a commercial basis once cars and planes
are properly priced and regulated (regulating car includes bus priorities,

·         Vancouver Map Measures Walkability - 1 day ago
By Jeff Nagel Black Press Jul 19 2006 Downtown Vancouver and New Westminster are
by far the biggest, most walkable parts of the region, according to a new

·         Urban cyclists looking for a lane of their own - 2 days ago
I think Chris's idea is innovative and interesting (although in my
live-and-let-live vision, cities would be full of shared spaces, with road-users
interacting

·         Are bicycles good for the environment? - 2 days ago
Zvi, On 21 Jul 2006, at 16:01, ... I'm not so sure... At least in the UK, I
would say that walkers would go to more local

   _____

To get on line with this, all you have to do is go to the bottom of the home
page of the Forum (Café or Idea Factory) and there you will see an icon marked
My Yahoo. Click and take it from there.





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

Dear Friends,



If you follow the discussions here, it may be useful for you to know a
bit more about how the New Mobility Agenda websites and focus discussion
groups are organized. The following note intends to do that job.



We have talked about email overload in the past, and just below you will
see our suggestions on how to avoid that unpleasant state of affairs.



Eric Britton







The New Mobility Agenda � Focus programs and peer discussions



The New Mobility Agenda has a twenty year track record as a fully
independent, open, and diversified world wide collaborative peer program
concerned with showing how progress can be made, step by careful step,
toward more sustainable communities and lives by creating more human and
more efficient transportation arrangements.



The Agenda has been organized into a cluster of related but specific
focus groups -- each with its own targeted concerns, working style and
membership base. For each program (indicated here in large font), there
is a corresponding discussion forum and shared library which can be
reached directly in all cases via the top menu (where it may be marked
as Forum, Caf�, or Idea Factory). The discussions are lightly but firmly
moderated to ensure that they keep on track, produce more light than
heat, and generally provide good value for the busy participants.  See
the final section of this note for a few use hints.



  <http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm> Welcoming Note: Before
actually participating actively in any of the groups, we invite you
most energetically to read our Welcoming Note
<http://www.ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm>  here. Also: There are
pretty good internal Search tools in most of the following. These help
to turn what are otherwise just ephemeral one-time messages into useful
and in many cases quite substantial databases. Give it a try using your
selected keywords.



  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewMobilityCafe/join> Email overload?:
Some busy readers may wish to sign into the Daily Digests, particularly
for the New Mobility Idea Factory and the Lots Less Cars Caf�, both of
which can get quite busy from time to time and generate what may to some
prove an uncomfortable flow of email and references. No problem.  Click
to the forum in question, go to �Edit Membership� on their top menu,
click and put yourself down for the Daily Digest, preferably in their
quite nice �Fully Featured� version.


The New Mobility Agenda <http://www.newmobility.org/>  (The Politics of
Transportation.) � at http://www.newmobility.org
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewMobilityCafe/>

The New Mobility Idea Factory, opened its virtual doors in 1988 as the
Access Caf�, offering a free, public, flexible discussion space for our
international peers, concerned citizens and groups who feel that our
transport systems need to be, and can be made to be, more sustainable
and more just -- and who wish to freely exchange ideas and information
about it.  Unlike most generally similar fora the focus is above all on
the Politics of Transportation. The orientation of the exchanges is
strategic, informed and generally sober if often quite contentious.



Kyoto World Cities 20/20 Challenge <http://www.kyotocities.org/> :  --
http://www.kyotocities.org

The Kyoto Cities <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/%20Kyotoworldcities/>
Forum  Since 2004 a reserved area for announcements and discussions in
support of Kyoto World Cities Program, Organized around a single
question:   "What can you do in your city to reduce traffic and its
negative impacts dramatically (say on the order of 20%) in a very short
period (we propose 20 months), and within your existing transportation
budget."



Lots Less Cars in Cities Idea Factory � http://www.lotslesscars.org

  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lotslesscars/> Lots Less Cars Forum
"What we are looking at here is not quite zero cars (in most places)
but, let us say, many fewer cars in our cities, a more tranquil
environment, and a lot more safe and happy people." Free flow exchanges
& shared information on how to address and achieve "less car" solutions
to the challenges of transport in cities. Lots on non-motorized
transport and traffic reduction measures. And lots of disagreement.
Quite activist, rather informal and laid-back.



New Mobility Advisory/Briefs � at http://newmobilitybriefs.org

  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewMobilityCafe/> The New Mobility Idea
Factory  serves as the forum for the Briefs.  Informs and advises local
government and concerned agencies about measures and policy options
which can get visible results within a time horizon of two to three
years. Supported by Accelerated Learning Sessions which tackle key
topics in intense three day workshops, the first  being organized in
Monaco for European subscribers and other s interested from 29-31 March
2007: The Monaco New Mobility Policy Dialogues: Accelerated Learning for
City Managers, Planners and Decision-makers



World Transport Policy & Practice � http://www.wtransport.org

The  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldTransport/> World Transport
Forum goes back more than a decade, and at present serves more than five
hundred transportation experts, activists and policy makers world wide.
The main business of the forum is to provide support and interactive
discussion space for the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice.
For exchanges of a more general nature on the transport-environment
theme try the New Mobility Agenda and its Idea Factory.



Global South Mobility <http://www.globalsouthmobility.org/>  �
http://www.globalsouthmobility.org
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sustran-discuss>

  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sustran-discuss> Global South - Sustran
Network : Global South Mobility provides a Collaborative relay station
for world-wide information and discussions. The forum is run by Sustran
- the Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific -- an
email discussion list devoted to people-centred, equitable and
sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global
South'). Sustran: a major discussion forum on urban transport in
developing countries." Discussions are well focused, expert-based and of
very high quality.



The Gender, Equity and Transport Forum <http://www.gatnet.net/>  -
http://www.gatnet.net/  <http://www.dgroups.org/groups/worldbank/GATNET>


  <http://www.dgroups.org/groups/worldbank/GATNET> GATNET - Gender and
Transport - This is the discussion group of a community of practice that
began with a program on mainstreaming Gender into the World Bank's
Transport Sector. It is open to all those who are interested in issues
relating to improving mobility and access for poor women, children and
men in developing countries.



World Carshare Consortium <http://worldcarshare.com/>  �
http://worldcarshare.com <http://worldcarshare.com/>

Carshare Caf� <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldCarshare> : This free,
cooperative, independent, international communications program supports
carsharing projects and programs, world wide. Since 1997 it offers a
convenient place on the web to gather and share information and
independent views on projects and approaches, past, present and planned
future, freely and easily available to all comers.



World Car Free Days <http://worldcarfreeday.com/>  �
http://worldcarfreeday.com

The  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lotslesscars/> Lots Less Cars in
Cities Forum � also serves for Car Free Day exchanges. This program
resulted directly from the early work of the New Mobility Agenda, which
led to an international call for days without cars in October 1994 in a
new mobility congress in Toledo Spain. This wide open program looks at
Car Free Day projects around the world and tries to determine if they
are working, not working, useful or in need of a real overhaul. Critical
discussion with at least half of the members convinced that all this is
a good idea. But only half.



  <http://www.xtransit.org/> xTransit: New ways of getting there -
http://www.xtransit.org/

xTransit  Idea Factory for small
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xTransit/>  vehicle transit-  Another
joker, this one given over to what we believe to be one of the most
important single transport modes for the future, small vehicle systems,
usually independently owned and operated, and prime targets for
technology and supportive rethinking of legislation and relationships
with the rest of the system. Getting people in and around cities in road
vehicles, smaller than full sized buses, driven by real human beings,
dynamically shared with others, and aided by state of the art
communications technologies -- and all of that as no less than the only
way to offer "car like" mobility in most of our 21st century cities
without killing the cities themselves (the good old old mobility way).


The Land Cafe: Putting Value Capture to Wor <http://www.landcafe.org/> k
� http://www.landcafe.org

The Land Caf� <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/landcafe/> : But how are we
ever going to pay for all this? Check out our very busy Land Cafe if you
are on the lookout for new thinking on this critical topic. An informal,
shared, public interest, knowledge-building consortium -- supported by
The Commons as an independent Open Society project, specifically to
serve and bring together people and groups around the world who are
concerned to find practical ways for our societies to come to grips with
the troubling but important issues of value capture and land tax reform
in an age in which important public services remain substantially
under-funded.

Children <http://ecoplan.org/children>  on the Move!: Small Steps to
Sustainable Lives � http://ecoplan.org/children

The Small-Steps <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Small-Steps/>
Forum: If children cannot get around safely and with full independence
in our communities, then we are in real trouble. If there is a mine
canary to the New Mobility Agenda and the challenges behind it, this is
it. You have a framework here you can work with and the next step is to
extend the net to bring in a couple of hundred concerned citizens like
you (our proven critical mass to get anything done in this fora.)  Dig
in. Get involved.  Make the future.





*     *     *

Videos, audio, media: You will find that many of these programs are
supported by a variety other than print media, valuable components of
the tool kit needed if we are to move toward more sustainable cities.
You will find this information in the respective sites.









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

On Behalf Of willtell9z


--- In LotsLessCars@ <mailto:LotsLessCars%40yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com, "Eric Britton" <eric.britton@...>
wrote:

''.. what is important is that the kids get there under their own
steam and safely.. ..''

And of course WSB (walking school bus) doesn't actually achieve this.

Yet the newspaper article presents a resounding triumph :-

'' the news from Australia that the Auckland Regional Transport
Authority had won a prestigious international award for its TravelWise
programme for schools..''

And Roland tells us

''. I just thought I'd pass on the fact that Auckland in New Zealand
has had really significant success with walking school buses, resulting
a million
fewer car tripes per year.''

(I hope this ''tripe'' isnt a Freudian slip :-))

Looking into the ''cautious evaluation report '' I notice the
increase of independent walking is only 2%; walking school bus up
only by 1.6% ; cycling up only by 0.1% ; public transport down by 3.1%
. ...and a few other not very optimistic looking stats, (IMHO).

Eg family car use is down by 3.8% but ''using friends cars'' is up
2.8%.

No wonder the overall decline in car use to school is only 3.8%

(Until recently I lived next door to a primary school. Would I, or
the school occupants have noticed if 97 cars rolled up at the school
gates instead of the hundred last year? I doubt it.)

How this programme adds up to ''a million fewer car trips'' beats me.
And if the stats are correct, doesn't it just show that a million
out of a squillion is just a drop in the ocean.

Are walking school buses really a cause for celebration or just a
variant of the old road safety establishment ''evidence''- the roads
are ''safer'' by citing fewer casualties, when in fact this only
proves the roads are more dangerous. (Less casualties occurring only
because the roads have become so dangerous that they're avoided and
there's no longer any humans around to get killed.)

In this quoted case it seems children are no longer walking
independently, nor cycling, let alone playing in these streets.

''.. He and parent volunteers of Gladstone Primary's Zippy walking bus
were busy rounding up more than 50 youngsters, before escorting them
safely home for the weekend along Carrington and Woodward Rds in Mt
Albert.

Woodward Traffic was fast and furious on both roads, and a passenger
train barrelling through the Rd crossing to meet its timetable with no
sign of slowing....''

Surely having to ''round up'' and marshal children by vigilantes
before they can be escorted safely along their own streets shouldn't be
something we're proud of at all. Couldn't the truth be that
walking buses only demonstrate the extent to which we have surrendered
to aggressive motor vehicles in this society and now tolerate the
hostility of motors even in our own local streets wrecking our
environment and communities?

So my note of dissent would be that routes to school can't be regarded
as safe until we genuinely reduce the number of cars in the towns and
cities and force drivers go so slowly that children can comfortably
walk, run, skate, cycle and play in their own district's streets
unsupervised and don't need to be marshalled by men in yellow
fluorescent danger jackets. Indeed I notice in the UK schemes that
everyone has to wear high-visibility clothing, -meaning the children
dressed up in banana danger jackets -and we call it ''safety''.

Bill Telfer

Nudged by the interesting comments on the matter of school transport of
late, we have decided to go back into an important but long dormant
program here - Children on the Move! - to see if we might be able to
breath some useful life into it. The original thesis and organization
was I think quite strong, but the press of time and resources took our
attention in other directions. I would like to invite those of you who
have an interest in this general area to have a look at the in-process
rebuilding of the site at http://ecoplan.org/children  - and if you have
any comments or suggestions this would be a great time to have them.



The three main areas that we are trying to advance under this
cooperative brainstorming and communications program include different
forms of information and support of the many fine (a) Walk/Travel to
School and related programs, but also (b) Play Streets and something we
call the (c) School Program, an approach to involving children actively
in the process of mobility changes and choices that we all should be at
least thinking about and, when we can, actually doing.



It's all very chaotic for now, as you will see when you go to the site,
but I do think it's an important cause and there is room for some useful
contributions there.



Eric Britton



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

'Parents And Children Think The Walking Bus Is Brilliant'


Published on 07/11/2006

WALKING BUSES are operated by many primary schools across Cumbria as a
safer way for children to get to and from classes.

A walking bus is a supervised group of children who walk to or from
school with at least two adult volunteers, who act as a 'driver' and a
'conductor' and es cort the children. Everyone wears high-visibility
clothing.

The bus follows a set route and 'walks' to a published timetable.
Children can join or leave at set points and times along the route. Each
driver should have a register of students who use their bus on each day.
Parents are expected to wait with their children for the bus to arrive.

The decision on when and where a walking bus operates is left to the
school and volunteers; it doesn't have to operate morning and afternoon,
or even every day.

Walking buses depend totally on support from volunteers.

Children who walk to school on a walking bus are part of a large and
visible group. This reassures parents who are concerned about letting
their children walk on their own.

The walking bus helps children learn pedestrian skills so that when they
begin to walk on their own they are better equipped to deal with
traffic.

Walking Buses have been set up for the first time in Cumbria through a
partnership with News & Star parenting magazine Your Kids and county
council teams Better ways to School and Safer Roads for Cumbria.

Lazonby School near Penrith has been organising a Walking Bus for about
six months. It operates on Wednesday and Thursday mornings for about 18
of the school's 65 pupils.

Headteacher Rod Rogers said: "Parents and children think it's brilliant.
They love it. It's a very valuable road safety tool as it teaches the
children the proper way to cross roads.

"Visibility around the school can be poor because of all the parked cars
and so it's vital that they know what to do.

"It's also good in terms of exercise and reducing the number of cars on
the road."

View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital reproduction,
just like the printed copy at www.newsandstar.co.uk/digitalcopy

Other stories from this category that may interest you:

*



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

Hello,

The moderator of the childs-play group has changed the group's name.
This means that both the group's email address and the group home page
location have changed.

The group email address:
small-steps@yahoogroups.com

The group home page location:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/small-steps

If you have links which point to this group or an address book entry
for the group, you should update them, as the old addresses will no
longer work.

Regards,

Yahoo! Groups Customer Care

Dave, Roland, Anzir, Simon, Martin:



I am absolutely delighted to have these different vies and wise
expressions of support for the 'walk to school' (might also be cycle or
skating but what is important is that the kids get there under their own
steam and safely). In fact, the concept of this walk is one of the
central pillars of the New Mobility Agenda -- to the extent that it is
almost impossible to consider that the Agenda is in place unless this is
the main means of getting to school each day. It is so very important
for reasons of health and the child's social and psychological
development, that its role in the community must be seen as a
fundamental underlying target of transport and school policy.



A decade ago we opened up a parallel focus program under the Agenda
somewhat awkwardly entitled "Children on the Move! Small Steps to
Sustainable Lives" -- our intention being to develop a lively forum and
group project to zero in on these are related child/transport issues, a
very rich and important sub-set of our overall mandate here.
Unfortunately I never found the key to make  it work, more than anything
else a matter of limited time and resources here in this all too finite
world. If you go to   <http://ecoplan.org/children/ch_index.htm>
http://ecoplan.org/children/ch_index.htm you can see the shards of that
earlier attempt, which we could still do some interesting and useful
things with if anyone wished to get in and give it a go.



To give you a feel for the extent to which this is far from a moribund
subject, I can suggest that you click the "Small steps news" on the top[
menu. It's a bit of a jungle but nonetheless offers ample food for
thought.



A great place to sharpen your tools on this is the International Walk to
School website at  http://www.iwalktoschool.org/, and the UK site at
http://www.walktoschool.org.uk/ are golden resources for this.



One aspect possibly worth mentioning is our belief that children can and
should themselves get directly, actively involved in the process of
mapping and understanding the transport dimensions of their lives. And
in the process take their first steps toward becoming better informed
and more responsible as active citizens. It is never too early to start.



It would be great if we could find out how to be useful, helpful in all
this.  Your good letters underline the importance of all this.



Eric Britton









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

Schools slow to develop travel plans
By CANDICE REED

Monday, 06 November 2006


News Features Headlines



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/11/art100013899.php>
. Tackling traffic problems at the school gate



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/11/art100013900.php>
. Schools slow to develop travel plans



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/11/art100013901.php>
. These feet were made for walking



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/11/art100013902.php>
. Free buses for city kids would help



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/11/art100013904.php>
. Congestion impacting on driver behaviour



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/11/art100013905.php>
. Outside the school gate ......



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/08/art100013001.php>
. Kiwis choose good health over indulgences



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/08/art100012920.php>
. Media not only factor in body image debate



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/04/art100011231.php>
. The last "good" war: World War II NZ involvement: 1939-1945



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/04/art100011232.php>
. The forgotten war: The Malaysia-Indonesia Confrontation NZ
involvement: 1965-1966



<http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/news_features/2006/04/art100011233.php>
. The ongoing war: VietnamNZ involvement: 1965-1972

. Howick and Pakuranga Times

TRAFFIC outside schools remains congested 18 months after an initiative
launch to reduce the number of cars travelling to and from schools.




Only two local schools have established a School Travel Plan, which aims
to give children a wider choice on how they get to and from school, and
six schools have established walking school buses.

Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) figures show there are 10
walking bus routes in Howick and Pakuranga involving a total of 173
children. This has removed 57 cars from the roads resulting in more than
40,000 fewer car trips to and from schools per year. (Figures are based
on each car making four trips each day). These buck national trends,
which claim the programme is already achieving more than 20 per cent of
the 10-year Regional Land Transport Strategy (RLTS) target of 12,600
fewer car trips.

Figures from RLTS show over 3000 children walk to school through 180
Walking School Buses operating across 87 schools and by June 100 schools
had developed or were developing School Travel Plans. Only two of the
131 Auckland wide schools  are from the local community, Willowbank
Primary and Baverstock Oaks.

ARTA school travel coordinator Debbie Lang says while the  schools are
still in early stages of establishing a plan, progress is going well to
reduce the number of car trips to and from school gates.

Both have conducted surveys of parents and students, asking them a range
of questions on preferred transport options.

"We ask them how they get to school, why they drive (if they do) and
what the parent's barriers are to walking, for example safety concerns,"
Ms Lang adds.
The next stage is to establish a working committee of parents to develop
a plan to make walking routes safer and to offer other environmentally
friends transport options.

Some $1.5m was allocated over two years for the travel plans as part of
the Auckland sustainable cities programme.

Nearly a year and a half later, council has not identified the school
travel plans as a priority for any other school in the area. One school
in Manurewa will establish a plan next year.

Manukau city traffic engineer Bruce Conaghan says council is looking at
all options to reduce the traffic congestion, but says much of the
responsibility falls with parents.

"Parents have a huge role to play in the road safety surrounding
schools," he says. "Some need to realise there is no need to drop their
child off right outside the gate. If they need to drop them off a bit
down the road and the child has to walk 100 metres then so be it."

Reduced speed zones and drop off limits could also be enforced, but this
would be a city wide rollout says Mr Conaghan.

School traffic congestion will always be a problem, he says, but work to
break down the barriers parents have to alternative transport modes. "It
was part and parcel in my generation that you walked to school, it was
the norm, now parents have stepped away from that and drop their
children off at the school gates," he says.

ARTA sustainable transport manager Anna Percy says travel planners work
with schools to reduce the number of students dropped off by car, nearly
double than 10 years ago.



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

] On Behalf Of Tramsol@...
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 1:47 AM
  Subject: [LotsLessCars] school travel



Simon & Martin



We gain a major educational advantage by being able to walk or cycle to
the school with our kids.  We can observe the changes of the seasons, we
meet and interact with people - both those we want to meet and those we
want to avoid (there is a whole education in doing that!).  They are
gaining independence as we leave them to walk in from the opposite side
of the last main road and who knows in a year or two we may let them
walk in with some older children who live nearby.



DH







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

Dear Friends,



Martin Cassini, Simon Norton and a few other stalwarts have asked what happened
to the good (if I may) �Taxing Bad� discussions that got underway a bit back in
the New Mobility Caf�. Well, it got moved over to our Lots Less Cars in Cites
forum, for reasons that I would now like to explain. And while I�m at it, let me
use this opportunity to clarify how we try to organize all these diverse
discussions and keep them on track.



For a good general introduction I would point you to the Talking New Mobility
link on the left menu of http://www.newmobility.org
<http://www.newmobility.org/> .  But here in brief is how the turf is
�organized�.



1.       The New Mobility Caf�: This talking parlor for the strategic discussion
of transport-related issues. It is (with the odd wild exception) sober, balanced
and professional.  The main site is at http://www.newmobility.org and the mail
address is NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com.



2.       Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice: For discussion of
articles and comments and proposals for future issues � the web site it
www.wtransport.org and the mail address for your contributions,
WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com



3.       Carsharing (http://worldcarshare.com <http://worldcarshare.com/> ) �
everything on that goes to their forum, for which the group mail address is
WorldCarShare@yahoogroups.com>



4.       Land Value Tax/Value Capture: - The site is at www.landcafe.org and the
mail address for comments, etc. LandCafe@yahoogroups.com



5.       Children on the Move! Is an important but sadly for now little used
focus group. The address is http://ecoplan.org/children/ch_index.htm and the
email group is reached via : childs-play@yahoogroups.com. (Consider breathing
some life into this worthy group.)



6.       Lots Less Cars in Cites/ World Car Free Days: Now we come to the joker,
a forum which now combines two older groups, closely related as you will see the
New Mobility Agenda: World Car Free Days at http://worldcarfreeday.com and the
Lots Less Cars in Cites at http://www.lotslesscars.org
<http://www.lotslesscars.org/> . Their combined forum has the address
LessCars@yahoogroups.com





Okay, what�s the difference in particular between #1 and #6? Well, LLC/WCFD are
single minded and more frankly adversarial in their approach. �Get the cars out�
(or at least a lot of them) either for a day or forever. That�s what brings the
243 people who show up here together and that is what they work with as their
uniting theme.  For this reason, when �Taxing Bads� started to narrow in on the
cars in cities dilemma, there it went.



Three quick points inclosing for your organization:



o              If you haven�t yet, please do read the Welcome Note
<http://ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm>  that is published right at the top of
every site here. You can go to it direct via
http://ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm. Please do.



o              And if you are getting too much individual emails, please
consider opting for the Daily Digest
<http://ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#time>  (you�ll see how that works in the
above note or by clicking here <http://ecoplan.org/general/welcome.htm#time> )



o              And finally we have more than ten thousand past communications
stored in these sites, a valuable resource if you are trying to get up to speed
on all these international reactions and goings on. How to use it? Well, try
this:



Enhanced Message Search.

With the advanced Message Search functionality, finding a particular message is
not only easier, but much faster. We�ve updated this by integrating powerful
Yahoo! Search algorithms � this results in an accelerated search experience for
you. Message Search now comprehensively screens the entire message archive of a
group, no matter how many messages have been posted.

What�s more, new Message Search includes an �Advanced� search feature. This
feature allows you to drill down on a number of fields to make it easier to find
that lost message. You can use the options on this page to create a very
specific search -- simply refine message search in your group by:

* Date. You can add a specific point on the calendar and have a search
performed before or after that time. Or, search a date range.
* Author. Include the name of the sender and all messages from that name
will be returned. You can also exclude a specific sender name from the search.
* Subject. Add any words from a subject line and it will be returned. You
can also exclude specific words from the subject line too.
* Message Body. Add any words from the body of a message and the relevant
messages will be returned to you in your search results. Again here you can also
exclude specific words from your search.





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

Walking School Buses Help Overweight Kids

Thursday, 8 December 2005, 12:17 pm
Press Release: Health Promotion Forum
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE0512/S00025.htm

New Walking School Bus research shows Aucklanders are benefiting from more
than just the annual reduction of 720,000 car trips Walking School Buses
generate. It shows school kids and adults alike love the daily physical
activity of the school walk.

Dr Pat Neuwelt who completed the research for the Health Promotion Forum of
New Zealand says, " One third of New Zealand's primary school children are
overweight. Lower physical activity levels of children contribute to this
problem. Walking School Buses help decrease obesity levels by enabling
physical activity and shifting children's attitudes about walking, helping
to improve the overall health of our children.

"The research found that many Auckland children want to walk to school and
those on Walking School Buses view physical activity as a natural part of
life. Children's attitudes to walking change when they walk on Walking
School Buses.

"Walking School Buses offer a sociable and fun way to be active and healthy.
Some school Principals also reported potential benefits in the classroom, as
walking bus kids tend to be better prepared for learning when they get to
school."

Anna Percy, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority's (ARTA) Manager
Sustainable Transport said, "This research further confirms that Walking
School Buses are a very healthy and safe way for children to get to and from
school.

"For ARTA, Walking School Buses are about reducing car use, helping kids
develop road safety skills, and working with local councils to make the
roads safer for all pedestrians. And for the kids, it's about friendship,
fun and fitness.

"It's encouraging to see how Walking School Buses are helping to change
attitudes to active transport in the region. In challenging the accepted
norm of driving to school, young walking bus members and adult volunteers
are reducing traffic congestion and having fun at the same time," said Ms
Percy.





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

-----Original Message-----
From: UKplayworkers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:UKplayworkers@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Michael Tombs
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 12:27 PM
To: UKplayworkers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: {UKplay!} UKplayworkers Features



Hello all.

I thought I'd take a few moments to update members as to teh web
features that UKplayworkers currently offers to full yahoo members.

UKplayworkers offers a free internet based mailing list for
Playworkers from the UK and abroad. Around 10% of our membership is
based in the USA. Messages are distribute to over 600 members.

In addition to this on the yahoo pages of UKplayworkers
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UKplayworkers you can find all archived
messages going back to the date of creation 22nd March 1999. Yahoo
took the decision not to store attachments in this archive, members
may be able to get recent attachments can contacing the message poster
direct.

Other features include:

Files - please do browse this section or upload your own useful files,
a notification will be sent to the group saying you've added a file -
please keep files on topic.

Photos - A photo's section, please upload any playwork related photo's
to this section, remember to cautious about children's pictures. If
you'd like to add your own picture to the members section, please do.

Links - UKplayworkers has a long list of links, please add your own
playwork or childcre links, if you spot one that no longer workers
just let me know and I'll sort it.

Database - UKplayworkers can now make use of databases, I've started
three, these can be adapted and more items can be added, please have a
look and add any books, terminology or contact details, I will be
updating these over the Chritsmas break so that they are difinative
databases.

Polls - UKplayworkers has a few polls on the go, these mainly relate
to the profile of members but also to any play related issue, please
feel free to create or take part in a poll.

Calendar - Please feel free to add your own events to this calendar,
if anyone wants to take the time to turn this into a difinative
Calendar of playwork events across the UK please contact me.

Chat - this is a dedicated chat room for UKplayworkers, it only works
if your internet browser is enabled with Java, most Windows XP systems
are not.

If you are not a full yahoo member but would like to check out these
features, visit yahoo and sign-up. The whole world will then be at
your finger-tips.

Enjoy your UKplayworkers experience.

Michael Tombs
Owner of UKplayworkers.









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

Policymakers often wish to promote 'green' travel and 'healthy exercise'
modes such as walking and cycling. But what about roller skates, scooters
and skateboards? Could they play a greater role in providing mobility and
exercise for children (and others)? If public authorities provided more and
better routes and spaces for them, might these modes be used more? Or are
they a nuisance, a danger to their users and others?

The use of skates, scooters and skateboards is not necessarily picked up in
conventional traffic monitoring or travel surveys.

Does anyone know of any existing research findings on:
- Ownership of rollerskates, scooters, and skateboards?
- Who uses these, where, how far, when, and why (not)?
- Public route infrastructure provided for these modes?
- Is there any evidence of suppressed demand?
- Is there any evidence of health benefits versus accident danger?

This enquiry is part of research into Children's Activities, Perceptions
and Behaviour in the Local Environment (CAPABLE). For further information
(and publication of findings in due course) see:

http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/capableproject/

thanks

Stephen Marshall


Dr Stephen Marshall
Senior Lecturer
Bartlett School of Planning
University College London
Wates House
22 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0QB
Tel: 0 (44) 20 7679 4884
Fax: 0 (44) 20 7679 7502

Dear Friends and youth activists:

As you may have heard, the World Bank plans to publish its 2007 World
Development Report on the theme of Youth and Development.

I am scheduled to meet the people drafting the report � which, because of
publishing schedules, has to be ready in draft form early in 2006! � on
September 19th.  So I have been corresponding with some of the officers
working on it, and today, have received this remarkable letter, inviting
answers to a series of very challenging questions. The letter is very
encouraging to all of us interested in YLD as he mentions that the Bank is
�committed to the idea that young people can be agents of their own
development�� Also he acknowledges that he - and thus probably the Bank -
are �approaching this issue from a position of complete ignorance.�  and
thus, he asks me to help him answer what I believe are just the right kinds
of questions we should be asking ourselves about YLD.

Because you provided what, in our assessment, the best, most imaginative YLD
Project proposals through our Taking IT Global appeal for projects ahead of
this year�s World Youth Congress,  I am writing to you in the hope that you
will assist me in developing him answers to them:

1.      Under what conditions does YLD work best, or worst?
2.      What sorts of issues are most successfully dealt with, and what
issues are poorly handled by young people?  (ie entrepreneurial, social,
environmental, political)
3.      Are successful actions exclusively locally oriented?
4.      At what age does it become useful to engage young people in YLD?
5.      Do more successful ideas and organizations come �top down� or
�bottom up�?
6.      Are young people more successful if they engage in partnership with
public-sector institutions? � or with other established private (NGO)
institutions?
7.      Is youth activism the exclusive purview of relatively wealthy and
well-educated youths?
8.      What is required to engage or encourage participation among the
young poor?

Please send your answers directly to me BEFORE SUNDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER!!   You
might also like to answer a final question which is the generic one we
address at each of our World Youth Congresses:

What is the most effective role for young people in development?
But please, think �Hard evidence� � �Case Studies� � �Facts� � �Statistics.�
It would be so easy for you to write breezy, esoteric answers to these
questions based on your fantasies of what YLD ought to be. Pointless. No
help at all.  What we need is the hard, factual stories of what you have
done to back up ever answer you give.

I will prepare a digest of your answers and send it to all of you who answer
me � along with the results of the meeting I have with Mattias in Washington
on 20/22 September.

thanks for your help

Sincerely

David Woollcombe



From: Mattias K.A. Lundberg
Development Economics Research Group
World Bank
7 SEP 2005   10.31 EST

Dear David,

Many thanks for your kind note, and your offer to make time to meet with us.
I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet, to learn from your
experience, especially on youth-led development.  We are committed to the
idea that, as Juan Felipe has said, young people can be agents of their own
development.

What we really need in the WDR is more hard evidence -- whether anecdotal or
systematic, including successes and failures -- of experience with youth-led
development.  The WDR is really an operational document, presenting solid
recommendations derived from robust evidence.  So I would be enormously
grateful for any information that you could give us on a range of questions,
such as

1.      Under what conditions does YLD work best, or worst?
2.      What sorts of issues are most successfully dealt with, and what
issues are poorly handled by young people?  (ie entrepreneurial, social,
environmental, political)
3.      Are successful actions exclusively locally oriented?
4.      At what age does it become useful to engage young people in YLD?
5.      Do more successful ideas and organizations come �top down� or
�bottom up�?
6.      Are young people more successful if they engage in partnership with
public-sector institutions? � or with other established private (NGO)
institutions?
7.      Is youth activism the exclusive purview of relatively wealthy and
well-educated youths?
8.      What is required to engage or encourage participation among the
young poor?

I realise this is a broad range of questions, but in my (fairly shallow)
reading of the literature, there's rather little evidence on any of these
issues � at least little that has been compiled in any systematic way.

So I'm approaching this issue from a position of complete ignorance � not
biased by prior knowledge. Thus I'm also eager for any light that you can
shed on these issues.  I look forward to meeting you in a few weeks' time.

Mattias
___________________________________
Mattias K.A. Lundberg
Development Economics Research Group


------ End of Forwarded Message


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

From: Universities Transport Study Group [mailto:UTSG@...] On
Behalf Of Banihan Gunay
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 12:35 PM


Dear Colleagues,

We are conducting a piece of government funded research on "Safe Journeys to
School".

         i.e.    involving children and young people in the research / field
work,
                 seeking their views,
                 seeking the parents' views, etc.

For this work we need to look at data that have already been collated for
the same or similar purposes.

Could anyone kindly provide me with some information or direct me to sources
of any secondary data?

Thank you very much.

Kind regards, Banihan.

--------------------
B Gunay
Transport and Road Assessment Centre
University of Ulster
+44(0)28 90 366022
www.geocities.com/banihan

It is our view here at The Commons that the fast growing IP communications
toolset that is springing up all around us holds one of the main keys to the
matters of sustainable development and social justice that are being looked
at here from the very widest international perspective.  And it is for this
reason that we from time to time bother you with leads and notes on the
latest tools and uses thereof.  Below you have the text of a link that you
will now find sitting handily on the top menu of the website, and which I
very much hope you will at least be considering and, more hopefully yet,
even using.



Your comments are invited, including by clicking one or both of the two
communications links (Skype, SightSpeed) that you will see at the top of the
left menu.  Be brave. Give it a try.  I am sure that we have something
interesting to learn from each other. And once we get this down we can start
to organize group conferences for exchanges of hints and experience.







New Mobility Communications for The Commons

(A working note for our international colleagues and fellow problem solvers)

   _____


Immediate access:

*   <callto://ericbritton> Click here for Skype phone link

*   <http://people.sightspeed.com/eric.britton@ecoplan.org> Click for
SightSpeed Video link

*   <http://www.worldtimeserver.com/time.asp?locationid=FR> Check Paris time
for call


Deep background:

*   <file:///D:\Web\www\kyoto\challenge\ipcomst.htm> How it works

*   <file:///D:\Web\www\kyoto\challenge\e-environment.htm>
Electronic/Environment

*   <http://ericbritton.org/htdocs/general/eb-examples.htm#it> ICT
Operations Profile: 1972-200




IP in 2005: Efficient. Powerful. Cheap. Sustainable.




The vital key to real progress in the struggle to sustainability resides in
our ability to combine forces to build knowledge and consensus. The inputs
to accomplish this are not going to come from a single place. A world wide
outreach is needed. And to accomplish this we have to make good use of all
the assets we have in hand. Which brings us smack to the issue of mastering
available communications technologies.

Here is how our "virtual presence/distance work" communications toolset that
we have built up here at The Commons looks thus far (with more to be added
as the project moves ahead and the collaborators start to be more
comfortable with these concepts and tools).

You can start immediately to get a feel for how this works. Just click the
Skype and/or SightSpeed links, and we can start talking or one-on-one
videoconference at no cost to you. Once you have got the hang of it, believe
me you will not go back. For more background, read on.


Why?




Because we all need to learn, to be able to communicate better: more easily,
more succinctly, and most likely in fact not necessarily all that much more
in terms of sheer quantity of time spent. (Remember that every hour you
waste sitting in an airport or on a plane is an hour stolen from your real
work. So let's see how we can use our latest technologies to do a better job
of all this.)

Because we need to behave in a more responsible manner and do what we can,
including through clever use of these technologies, to cut our CO2 etc.
profligacy. Start by using this toolset to see if you can reduce your
physical travels by half. Go on a CO2 diet. You and the planet will feel a
lot better.

The tool set that you see on this page is explained in this first instance
largely in terms of one-on-one communications, with the option of trying it
out with us at The Commons and our various programs that use these tools.
But bear in mind that the final objective is not so much talking with us
(though that is certainly a pleasure from this end), but rather to put these
tools before you for broader uses. With your other colleagues in various
places around the world, and of course in group situations. As you will see
if you continue to read on here, there are some very


Skype: Free IP Telephone




  <http://www.ecoplan.org/kyoto/challenge/skype.com> Skype is a world wide IP
communications service offering free or almost free phone calls anywhere in
the world. Since it is easy to install and enormously cost-effective (and
secure), we have found that even our most technology wary colleagues are
able to get the swing of this and more over to it comfortable without having
to undergo some kind of gut-wrenching mid-life culture change.

It is our goal to move all of our international colleagues over to this
handy means of communicating (or some similar, see below for a few more
options), since we are convinced that those who are working to push the
frontiers in these important areas need to have easier and cheaper access to
each other.

Click here <http://www.Skype.com>  to get full background information on
Skype <http://www.Skype.com> , as well as step by step guidelines for the
very easy download and install routine. The whole thing should take you ten
minutes. And if you wish to test your system, just pop the name ericbritton
into the address box and you will be directly in touch with us here.
Quality: very high. Cost: zero.

  <callto://ericbritton> Already on Skype? Click here to call direct.


SightSpeed: videoconferencing and group work system




If you are comfortable in this general technology environment, all you have
to do is click here  <http://newmobility.sightspeed.com/> and follow your
nose. If not, just drop down to the next paragraph and the leads it provides
to facilitate your access.

* First <http://people.sightspeed.com/eric.britton@ecoplan.org>  easy
video connect (PC and Mac support, multilingual)
The free SightSpeed.com package is the fastest and easiest to make that
first contact. Works for both PC and Mac. The install routine is
straight-forward with quick and clear step by step instructions for your
first visit (download plug-in and off we go). Your cost for use with us:
zero! (And later if you decide to use it mo0re generally in support of your
work, very cheap.)
* System requirements:
Ideally in addition to your high speed internet connection and basic
computer set-up, and Internet Explorer 6.0 or better, with sound card (see
System <http://www.ecoplan.org/kyoto/challenge/ipcoms.htm#ss>  Check below,
ideally you have a proper webcam (example: good Logitech model, again see
below). But even that is not absolutely necessary for the trial. If you are
without camera, you will still be able to hear and see us in this first
step.

And if you are not accustomed to this sort of thing, courage! In truth it's
no big deal. You will quickly get comfortable with this new and very useful
functionality. Very high quality Help & On-Line Support available direct
from: http://www.sightspeed.com. Be sure to check out your system and
equipment requirements first (more on this below).

Still running into problems and areas of uncertainty? Don't worry, pick up
the phone and let us hear from you via Skype or the suddenly very old phone
system +331 4326 1323 or try an email at secretariat@....

And once you get comfortable with this, we can begin to look further and
start to make use of some of the more complete group conferencing packages,
for which more information follows.


SightSpeed supports The Commons and the New Mobility Agenda:




The SightSpeed group has generously offered to support the work of The
Commons, the New Mobility Agenda and the Kyoto World Cities 20/20 Challenge
program by offering free one year subscriptions to all those who are
cooperating with these projects. All we need to have for you to set up your
free service is a one line email indicating your interest addressed to
secretariat@..., with a copy to pzottolo@....


MSN Messenger: Useful support tools




MSN Messenger: When we collaborate on a group project, we ask each member of
the team to check in via MSN Messenger (that's http://messenger.msn.com/)
and it's free.. We find this the best way either to knock gently on the door
to set up a conferencing appointment, or alternately for you to leave a
message to indicate that you dropped in, and when you'd like to hear from
us, etc.

MSN Messenger also offers a useful complement to both Click to Meet and
SightSpeed, especially for the latter since it permits additional group work
functionality, allowing for such things as simultaneous sharing and viewing
of documents, webpages, high speed file transfer, whiteboards, chat, etc.)


Group work and conference environment




Once you have been on line a few times with our 'alpha' or learning system
thanks to SightSpeed, it will be easy for you to take the next step, which
is our much more complete and powerful group work and conferencing
environments. The excellent and ever evolving software for this has been
developed by a group called First Virtual Communications, based on early
work carried out at Carnegie Mellon University going back a full decade. It
is a mature product that works. We are grateful to our long time friends and
colleagues at the  <http://fg.uni-mb.si/defaultEng.asp> Construction IT
Centre of the  <http://www.uni-mb.si/podrocje.aspx?id=0&langID=1033>
University of Maribor in Slovenia for making these sites available to us for
our pioneering public interest work.

Note: When you enter either of these sites for the first time, please bear
in mind that there is no need for you to register. Thus when it asks you to
"sign in" you can safely ignore and keep moving right along, as if no one
ever asked. (Later when you decide to join and wish to make fuller use of
the capabilities, we can set up your sign in routine.)

1.  <http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=200>
Click to access to our virtual office (appears in own window)
Our virtual office is intended for private meetings and consultations,
including eventual initial conversations about either our on-going work,
future projects or ideas that you may have for collaboration or support.
(The full office address in case you wish to pop it into your IE browser
direct is:  <http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=16143>
http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=200. If I am not
there when you check in, please drop me an email note and we can setup a
mutually convenient time for a meeting.)
2.  <http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=16143>
Click to access to Conference facility (appears in own window)
There is more to this than just videoconferencing (a powerful state of the
art tool for our daily uses in any event). The program works to turn all
more commonly used applications into a multi-level group work environment,
integrating with the common desktop applications, your web browser, Windows
Messenger and Outlook for calendaring and scheduling. The simple upload of
PowerPoint, Word and Excel files allows seamless collaboration with others
in the conference. (The full conference room address in case you wish to pop
it into your IE browser direct is:
<http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=16143>
http://cgiserver.uni-mb.si:8080/clicktomeet/index.htm?ID=16143.)

Both of these group work programs -- PC only, sorry -- are comprehensive
tool sets for distance group work: they offer not only offer direct or group
videoconferencing and/or voice access, but they also accommodate different
levels of participation (works with full webcam/sound, sound only, no-see
no-hear but view visual proceedings). You will see more about this as you
get into the programs themselves.

However if you are not familiar with this technology, we counsel that you
check out the following. A little care here will go a long way to make this
an easier and more effective experience.


Check out your system first




What you have here is one-click access to some very complete group work
facilities, which you will find amply explained below and on the sites
themselves. But let's start by checking out your system requirements,
showing you first an optimum but still quite affordable set-up, following
that with a rig that is perfectly useful for daily operation.

Best audio, video, data experience:

* Pentium IV 1.8 GHx 512Mb
* QCIF video size at 30fps w/ 8 videos received
* G.722 audio
* Echo cancellation enabled (Windows XP)

Still quite good:

* CPU Windows: Pentium III 800 MHz 256 Mb
* Operating Systems Windows: 2000 or XP
* Macintosh: G4 800 MHz or faster
* Macintosh: OS X 10.3 or higher


Communications:

* High speed (broadband) connection: Min. > 256k

Peripherals

* Sound card, with headset or speaker phone
* Webcam ( <http://www.sightspeed.com/page.php?page=cameras> Click
here for a useful listing. Note: If you wish only voice access, you will not
need a webcam.)

Click to Meet Specifications:  <http://www.fvc.com/eng/products/ctm4.htm>
http://www.fvc.com/eng/products/ctm4.htm


Attitude (Check out yourself too)




IP Conferencing although fast advancing is still very much in the process of
finding its way. This means that when things are well prepared and
conditions correspond, then it can offer an extremely satisfying and useful
experience. On the other hand if you are working alone and without good
support, you will need to exercise patience and forbearance from time to
time. And in this a little knowledge about what you are actually trying to
do helps.

The bottom line: if you have a low frustration threshold and expect things
always to work the first time around, this is probably not for you. Come
back again in a year or so and you will certainly find a more facile working
environment. But then too, you will have missed twelve months of working
creatively with others perhaps many miles away and who just may have a lot
to share with you, to teach you, and, yes, to learn from you. And of course,
imagine all the CO2 that you are not burning when you keep off that plane.
That should make you feel good, and the planet will certainly thank you.


How to use. . . and protecting your time




One of the more daunting tricks of these technologies is not only to get
them up and working (which fortunately is getting easier with each
generation of new products), but also the no less challenging task of
figuring out how to make a useful tool of what you can have. This is not
always so self evident and does require a bit of a strategy.

For our part, when we go on line with services like Skype, SightSpeed and MS
Messenger, which we have on line all the time during the working day, we
make sure in the first place that we restrict entry only to those friends,
family and colleagues that we want in fact to hear from. In each case when
you get the product up and working, it is worth paying some attention to
seeing how this can be done.

But the other half of this coin is the matter of netiquette: how do we then
figure out how best to let someone know that we want to speak or
videoconferencing in a manner which is properly discreet and not disruptive
of their work or concentration. Now there is of course the option there of
simply and boldly clicking them in -- but this as you can well imagine
amounts to an uninvited breaking down of their door. Not on clearly!

All three of this first level of software products offer the possibility of
leaving them a discrete note inviting them to a meeting, which they can then
ignore, give you a good time for or whatever. This is very handy and works
well for us and those with whom we are in frequent contact.

Finally a note on CO2 et al. These technologies will, if you give them even
half a chance, help you gradually to cut back on your physical movements,
which of course is what in our view at least "New Mobility" is all about. If
in the Kyoto World Cities Challenge we are asking on the cities to cut back
on their CO2 and traffic by 20% in 2o months - well it is only fair that we
do at least as well for our own part. And indeed we can.


Hosting and Costs




Thanks to a long standing relationship of friendly cooperation and exchange
on matters relating to our deeply shared common interests and commitment to
the sustainability agenda, the use of this system is free to The Commons and
our programs and international associates and supported, with all costs and
technical overheads most kindly covered by our colleagues at the
Construction IT Centre <http://fg.uni-mb.si/defaultEng.asp>  of the
University of <http://www.uni-mb.si/podrocje.aspx?id=0&langID=1033>  Maribor
in Slovenia.


For more information/Help




*  General background on Click to Meet: http://support.fvc.com

*  On current program (Ver. 4.0): http://www.fvc.com/eng/products/ctm4.htm

*  Full background on SightSpeed.com <http://www.sightspeed.com/>



   _____



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

-----Original Message-----
From: Universities Transport Study Group [mailto:UTSG@...] On
Behalf Of Todd Alexander Litman
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 6:27 PM
To: UTSG@...
Subject: Re: [UTSG] Kids safer going to school outside the car

A related issue is the perception that living in a suburb is safer than
living in a city. Although suburbs may be slightly safer in terms of murder
risk, this is more than offset by increased traffic fatality risk. Per
capita traffic fatality rates are about four times higher in more
automobile-dependent, sprawled cities than in more compact, multi-modal
cities. So, all those parents who move to the suburbs or rural villages in
order to have a safe place to raise their children are actually increasing
their overall risk.

For information see:

Lucy, William (2002), Danger in Exurbia: Outer Suburbs More Dangerous Than
Cities, University of Virginia (www.virginia.edu); summarized in
www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2002/lucy-april-30-2002.html.

Litman, Todd (2004a), Safe Travels, Victoria Transport Policy Institute
(http://www.vtpi.org/safetrav.pdf).

-----Original Message-----
From: Hugh Mcclintock [mailto:Hugh.Mcclintock@...]
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 11:20 AM
To: eric.britton@...
Subject: Re: [UTSG] Kids safer going to school outside the car

Eric,

NB

References and websites mentioned at:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sbe/planbiblios/bibs/sustrav/refs/ST07.html

best wishes

Hugh


Hugh McClintock
Institute of Urban Planning
School of the Built Environment
University Park
Nottingham
(GB-) NG7 2RD
tel. +44 115 951 4875
fax. +44 115 951 3159

Dear Colleagues,



It would be much appreciated if you might copy your communications on these
matters of transport involving children, and schools, to
Childs-play@yahoogroups.com.



This is the discussion forum of Children on the Move! Whose site at
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/ is at present badly out of date but will be
the object of our work and attention in the weeks and months ahead.  The
discussions are of course an important part of this process and the
usefulness of the site to those who care about children and transportation.



Also, if you have any ideas about sites or programs to whom we might at
least usefully link or take contact, this too would be much appreciated.



With kind thanks,



Eric Britton



The New Mobility Agenda is at http://newmobility.org

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

T. Europe: +331 4326 1323   N. America +1 310 601-8468   Skype: ericbritton

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







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

-----Original Message-----
From: Universities Transport Study Group [mailto:UTSG@...] On Behalf
Of Anzir Boodoo
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 2:30 AM
To: UTSG@...
Subject: Re: [UTSG] Kids safer going to school outside the car

Dave,
On 3 Aug 2005, at 23:56, Tramsol@... wrote:

I recall some work - possibly Australian - which showed that there were greater
risks for kids taken to school in cars - through a number of factors including -
lack of supervision and security ("its only a short school run no need for seat
belts" can fit 6 kids in my 5 seat saloon etc), and stressed driver (get
everyone through breakfast drop breadwinner A at the station rush to the school
drop kid B and then take kid C to nursery before rushing to the part time job
which just about pays to keep Kid C in nursery etc).  Combine this with many
schools which still have inherently dangerous arrangements for mixed flows of
kids, teachers cars, delivery vehicles and parents cars all circulating in the
same areas and it seems a logical outcome that the kids taken to school in the
cars are in greatest danger, as well as posing greatest danger to those not in
cars.
*****************************************************************

But it's what people *believe* that matters, not the facts...

...such as TV presenter Davina McCall being interviewed on Sunday,
claiming she bought a Range Rover because her children would be safer
in it than in a saloon car, something which is in fact an urban myth,
and not borne out by the Euro NCAP safety ratings. However, because
of such people saying such things on TV, and the *perception* that
big 4x4s are safer, people will believe it.

The same thing is true of walking to school v going by car - many
people *believe* going by car is safer, and perpetrate the myths.

This street in Bracknell is a cul de sac with a school on it, built
as part of a New Town neighbourhood (ie designed to be easily
walkable). The volume of school traffic has caused the emergency
services to complain that if a life threatening incident did occur
during the school run period, this street, and the streets near it
would be inaccessible to an ambulance or fire engine. It is widely
believed on this street that there is more chance of someone dying
because the emergency services can't reach them than because of
children walking to school.

Now when I was at school there a mere 20 years ago, we used to have
huge numbers of schoolkids walking down the road in both directions
(up the hill to the primary school, down the hill and through the
alleyways to the secondary school). Of course, back then, all the
pupils lived nearby because there wasn't the ridiculous "school
choice" system which means kids from the next town can come to our
primary school and clog up our roads. Of course we didn't have so
many 3 and 4 car households then either...

--
Anzir Boodoo MRes MILT Aff. IRO
transcience, Leeds Innovation Centre, 103 Clarendon Road, LEEDS LS2 9DF

-----Original Message-----
From: Universities Transport Study Group [mailto:UTSG@...] On
Behalf Of Tramsol@...
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 12:56 AM
To: UTSG@...
Subject: [UTSG] Kids safer going to school outside the car

I recall some work - possibly Australian - which showed that there were
greater risks for kids taken to school in cars - through a number of factors

including - lack of supervision and security ("its only a short school run
no need
for seat belts" can fit 6 kids in my 5 seat saloon etc), and stressed driver

(get everyone through breakfast drop breadwinner A at the station rush to
the
school drop kid B and then take kid C to nursery before rushing to the part
time
job which just about pays to keep Kid C in nursery etc).  Combine this with
many schools which still have inherently dangerous arrangements for mixed
flows
of kids, teachers cars, delivery vehicles and parents cars all circulating
in
the same areas and it seems a logical outcome that the kids taken to school
in the cars are in greatest danger, as well as posing greatest danger to
those
not in cars.

Dave Holladay
Glasgow

Court Watch

Hi All,

Our group is located here:

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/criminallawincolumbusohio/>

This group is meant for discussion of criminal law issues in Franklin
County Ohio. Defendants and lawyers are free to weigh in. Find a
lawyer, ask a question, or just tell everybody how you feel about the
legal system. No business solicitations or naughty language, please.

Also, please understand that I belong to an ENORMOUS number of
advocacy groups, and cannot monitor them individually.  If you want
to get in touch with me, please join the Court Watch group, and I'll
be happy to try to help.

An attorney interested in defending civil rights
or anyone else interested in civil rights, for
that matter, is also very much welcomed to join.

John W. Vogel, Esq.
Chairman, Columbus NAACP Legal Redress Committee

This email has just come in from our wonderful able colleauges at the
International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD), addressed
to our Children on the Move program (which for the moment is sadly not
nearly as active a one wouel like.  Problem of time and resources, and
neither of importance nor lack of desire on our part to do this and do it
well.)



I was sure that a number of you would wish to know about their program, and
perhaps you may have some ideas or support for them as well. If so, it would
be kind if you would post them both to this list and to
childs-play@yahoogroups.com as well.



Finally, if anyone out there would like to give us a hand in getting the
Children on the Move program at
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/index-bis.htm into gear, that would be
wonderful.  I think that we have a sound base here, but we will need tome
help to build on it and make it work as well as we are managing in others of
the areas of  sustainable development and social justice that we are
addressing here.



Kind regards,



Eric Britton





-----Original Message-----
From: Priyanthi [mailto:priyanthi.fernando@...]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 5:18 PM
To: childs-play@...
  Subject: children on the move



Dear friends



I have just come across this website, and thought that you might be
interested in an initiative that I have been really excited to be part of.



Initiated by Dr Gina Porter and colleagues from the University of Durham,
supported by DFID, and carried out in collaboration with the Concerned for
Working Children in Bangalore, the South African National Forum Group of the
IFRTD and its host organisation the CSIR and the University of Cape Coast,
Ghana, the programme to improve policy on children's mobility and access
through the development of a participatory child-centred field methodology
aims to empower children to collect and use information about their own
transport needs.



The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), who have been working with
children in Karnataka for many years, demonstrated to us the importance of
not just making child-friendly decisions, but actually allowing children to
participate in the decisions that affect their lives.  CWC point out that
this is their right, given to them by the UN Convention of the Rights of the
Child, to which most national governments have signed up to. CWC facilitated
a workshop with 29 children from three villages in Karnataka, where, over
five days, the children used their knowledge of their transport problems to
develop a research framework and pilot test three tools for conducting
research into the problems.



These three tools, a transect walk, focus group discussions and mapping
access and mobility for different children were field tested by the children
in one panchayat.  CWC will continue to work with the children, and will
also help colleagues in Ghana and South Africa to replicate the process.



* More information about the project can be obtained from Dr Gina
Porter r.e.porter@...
* An overview of the workshop can also be found on
www.ifrtd.org/new/news/full.php



I think there is an exciting opportunity for there to be a link between the
Children on the Move work, and the work described above.  I am not sure how
many children are actually involved in Children on the Move (I found it a
little difficult to navigate the site), but there is considerable room to
involve kids both from the developed and developing world in interacting
through the internet and discussing their mobility problems or sharing
experiences.   I am copying this to my colleagues so we can begin to move
this idea forward.



Best wishes



Priyanthi





Priyanthi Fernando

Executive Secretary/Team Leader

International Forum for Rural Transport and Development(IFRTD)

113 Spitfire Studios

63-71 Collier Street

London N1 9BE

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 7713 6699

Fax: +44 20 7713 8290

Web: www.ifrtd.org



The IFRTD is a global network of individuals and organisations working
together towards improved access and mobility for the rural poor in
developing countries



S



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

Should we not be getting some kids to give us a hand?  My 12 year old nephew
is pretty savvy about websites, and I am sure if we look around us we could
find loads more such.



Priyanthi



Priyanthi Fernando

Executive Secretary/Team Leader

International Forum for Rural Transport and Development(IFRTD)

113 Spitfire Studios

63-71 Collier Street

London N1 9BE

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 7713 6699

Fax: +44 20 7713 8290

Web: www.ifrtd.org



The IFRTD is a global network of individuals and organisations working
together towards improved access and mobility for the rural poor in
developing countries



   _____

From: Eric Britton (personal) [mailto:mail@...]
Sent: 18 January 2005 16:41
To: WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com
Cc: priyanthi.fernando@...; childs-play@yahoogroups.com
Subject: children on the move



This email has just come in from our wonderful able colleauges at the
International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD), addressed
to our Children on the Move program (which for the moment is sadly not
nearly as active a one wouel like.  Problem of time and resources, and
neither of importance nor lack of desire on our part to do this and do it
well.)



I was sure that a number of you would wish to know about their program, and
perhaps you may have some ideas or support for them as well. If so, it would
be kind if you would post them both to this list and to
childs-play@yahoogroups.com as well.



Finally, if anyone out there would like to give us a hand in getting the
Children on the Move program at
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/index-bis.htm into gear, that would be
wonderful.  I think that we have a sound base here, but we will need tome
help to build on it and make it work as well as we are managing in others of
the areas of  sustainable development and social justice that we are
addressing here.



Kind regards,



Eric Britton





-----Original Message-----
From: Priyanthi [mailto:priyanthi.fernando@...]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 5:18 PM
To: childs-play@...
  Subject: children on the move



Dear friends



I have just come across this website, and thought that you might be
interested in an initiative that I have been really excited to be part of.



Initiated by Dr Gina Porter and colleagues from the University of Durham,
supported by DFID, and carried out in collaboration with the Concerned for
Working Children in Bangalore, the South African National Forum Group of the
IFRTD and its host organisation the CSIR and the University of Cape Coast,
Ghana, the programme to improve policy on children's mobility and access
through the development of a participatory child-centred field methodology
aims to empower children to collect and use information about their own
transport needs.



The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), who have been working with
children in Karnataka for many years, demonstrated to us the importance of
not just making child-friendly decisions, but actually allowing children to
participate in the decisions that affect their lives.  CWC point out that
this is their right, given to them by the UN Convention of the Rights of the
Child, to which most national governments have signed up to. CWC facilitated
a workshop with 29 children from three villages in Karnataka, where, over
five days, the children used their knowledge of their transport problems to
develop a research framework and pilot test three tools for conducting
research into the problems.



These three tools, a transect walk, focus group discussions and mapping
access and mobility for different children were field tested by the children
in one panchayat.  CWC will continue to work with the children, and will
also help colleagues in Ghana and South Africa to replicate the process.



* More information about the project can be obtained from Dr Gina
Porter r.e.porter@...
* An overview of the workshop can also be found on
www.ifrtd.org/new/news/full.php



I think there is an exciting opportunity for there to be a link between the
Children on the Move work, and the work described above.  I am not sure how
many children are actually involved in Children on the Move (I found it a
little difficult to navigate the site), but there is considerable room to
involve kids both from the developed and developing world in interacting
through the internet and discussing their mobility problems or sharing
experiences.   I am copying this to my colleagues so we can begin to move
this idea forward.



Best wishes



Priyanthi





Priyanthi Fernando

Executive Secretary/Team Leader

International Forum for Rural Transport and Development(IFRTD)

113 Spitfire Studios

63-71 Collier Street

London N1 9BE

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 7713 6699

Fax: +44 20 7713 8290

Web: www.ifrtd.org



The IFRTD is a global network of individuals and organisations working
together towards improved access and mobility for the rural poor in
developing countries



S



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

We focus on three areas of Character Education:

Self-Responsibility
Values - Pillars of Character Education
Tolerance of Others

Our materials are being used by schools across the country,
causing immediate, tangible, and often profound changes
in student populations.

Please CLICK on http://www.makingpositivechoices.com to visit
our website, or cut and paste the the following into your
browser:  http://www.makingpositivechoices.com

If you do not want to be contacted by MakingPositiveChoices.com
in the future, please put your email address on the subject line,
and send to mpcoptouts@...

MakingPositiveChoices.com
23300 Boulder Lane
Clovis, CA, 93619

Dear Colleagues:

As part of our just getting underway program of upgrade and extension, I
would like to invite you to visit our site at
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/ where you will see two first new
additions that are intended to make the site a more useful place for
you. Quickly, they are:

* Our Small Steps News Alerts site, organized through Google News,
calls up related items from the print press drawn from the web and
covering more than four thousand news sources. Roughly 90% of the
entries relate to our topic, with the items stocked for one month after
appearing.  Check it out from time to time. You may be surprised at how
much is going on in this patently unsustainable world. (For what it's
worth here is how I make use of this terrific toolset. In a phrase, I
treat it as my morning World Small Steps Newspaper
<http://news.google.com/news?q=transport%20OR%20transportation%20childre
n%20OR%20kid%20OR%20child%20OR%20kids%20-smugglers%20-police&num=50&hl=e
n&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&sa=N&as_qdr=y&tab=wn> . I grab a cup of
coffee, click up the latest news and have a look at what has transpired
on this small planet in the last 24 hours. )

* World Sustainability Resource Inventory:  Our current collection
of leading international sources which provide useful points of
departure and information on the overall challenges of sustainability
and social justice.  But there are a number of important kids transport
references there which we find useful.

If you have suggestions on either of these, or sites that you think
should be added to the World Inventory, it would be kind if you could
take a minute to share them with us.

Back to work.  We have a lot more to do before this program becomes
useful to you.

With all good wishes,

Eric Britton


		 The Commons                __ technology, economy,
society__
		 Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara
		 75006 Paris, France, Europe
		 T: +331 4326 1323   Fax/Voicemail hotline: +331 5301
2896
		 W : http://www.ecoplan.org     IP Videoconference:
81.65.50.149
		 E: Eric.Britton@... Personal webpage:
www.EricBritton.org
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Our program Children on the Move! Small Steps to Sustainability at
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/ch_index.htm has been entirely moribund
for various reasons, but please be assured that we intend to do
something useful with this.  IN the meantime, I propose that you keep up
with our New Moblity Agenda at  <http://newmobility.org/>
http://newmobility.org, which also has some elements that relate to our
intersts here.

In the meantime, we are eager to hear your ideas and suggestions for all
this.

Eric Britton

  PS. The attached news item popped up on our New Mobility Agenda site
news section.  FYI.

The Commons                __ technology, economy, society__
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara                75006 Paris, France
Tel. +331 4326 1323   Fax/Voicemail hotline: +331 5301 2896
http://www.ecoplan.org     IP Videoconference: 81.65.50.149
Personal webpage: www.EricBritton.org
Email: Eric.Britton@... or ecoplan.adsl@...


Putting your best foot forward

The Government wants parents to stop driving children to school to ease
traffic congestion and improve health. Linda Blackburne reports on the
green alternatives to the school run
18 March 2004

Freezing sleet paints the rooftops white as the school "bus" winds its
way through the streets of Wickford. The driver, conductor and children
are wearing orange fluorescent jackets and hats, gloves and walking
shoes. The driver and conductor wait at "bus stops" for their
"passengers" and as each child climbs aboard, the conductor ticks off
their names in the register.

Halfway along the 20-minute route, the driver has to pull off the
pavement on to the road to negotiate a large pile of rubbish bags. She
makes a note in her logbook to complain to Basildon Council. Further on,
the bus has to cross a road and a real driver, seeing the bright orange
crocodile, stops to let it go by.

This is the "walking bus" for Hilltop county infant and junior school in
Wickford, Essex. It is one of 40 walking buses in the county, where
1,000 children are registered for the journeys, and is also the
strongest indication yet that something is being done to cut down on car
use.

Co-ordinated from its first trial run in May last year by the infants'
head teacher Celia Ebrahimi, and nurtured by a band of parents
determined to reduce car congestion and promote healthy exercise, the
Hilltop scheme is exactly the kind of endeavour that the Government is
backing in the School Transport Bill published this month.

Ministers are asking 20 local education authorities to begin pilot
schemes for innovative school travel plans in September 2006 as part of
its effort to get people out of their cars. By the end of March 2004 it
wants authorities and schools to have drawn up 3,000 travel plans: a
target that has already been exceeded, according to officials.

The Education and Transport departments are pouring �500m a year into
school transport in an effort to change school travel patterns, cut car
congestion and pollution and to reduce obesity among children and
adults.

During term time in urban areas, nearly one in five cars at 8.50am is on
the school run. Childhood obesity now affects 8.5 per cent of
six-year-olds and 15 per cent of 15-year-olds.

But the controversial bit is that the Bill gives councils the green
light to charge for normal school-bus journeys. Until now, bus journeys
of less than three miles have been free. The worry is that if charges
are introduced, people will stop using the bus and leap into their cars.

David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head
Teachers, thinks this is a very real worry. It could result in the
Government achieving the opposite of what it wants, he believes.

The Catholic Education Council agrees and is lobbying hard on the issue.
In Colchester, Alan Whelan, the principal of St Benedict's Catholic
comprehensive school, calls Essex County Council's decision to charge
�100 a term for school-bus journeys "a Catholic education tax". It will
cut his Catholic intake from deprived areas in Clacton and Harwich by 20
per cent, he says. The school will survive, but only by taking
non-Catholics and undermining the mission of the school.

The transport charges put Catholic education in peril, according to
Father George Stokes, the director of education for the Brentwood
diocese. The gentleman's agreement established in 1944 between the
Catholic Church and the local education authorities was that transport
to denominational schools would be free, he says. Essex replies that
there are special concessions for large families and parents facing
financial hardship. The Government expects modest charging to pay for
transport in areas where there are poor services, but says that families
on low incomes will be protected. The argument continues.

But in addition to the charges, the Government is proposing that
starting times at neighbouring schools be staggered - as happens in the
United States - so that buses can drop children off at more than one
institution. This may take time to bring about. Enquiries to local
education authorities drew a blank; no schools seemed to be staggering
their hours.

Parents and teachers at Hilltop needed no government prompting for their
scheme. They introduced the walking bus after 20 years of severe car
congestion on an adjacent housing estate. Some parents were parking on
the estate as early as 8.15am or 2pm to make sure they got a place. "I
was determined to make this work," says Mrs Ebrahimi, who walked with
the bus on its first runs. "This is the sort of task most head teachers
would say they couldn't be bothered with, but it needed someone with a
bit of clout."

Hilltop operates three walking buses for a total of 60 children. There
is one adult to every four children for the infants, and one for every
eight children for the juniors. And children are given an incentive to
choose the healthy option; each time they walk with the bus they receive
a stamp, and when their book is full they receive a 50p token to spend
in the school bookshop. In addition, the children get a free gift of
encouragement every term, such as a pair of gloves, a pencil or a ruler.

The walking bus is popular with everyone - parents, drivers and
authorities - though some of the youngest children complain about all
the walking. Basildon Council quickly removed the offending rubbish
bags, and a rail company resurfaced a pedestrian crossing with non-slip
material for the children. "We all get to school safely together," says
one parent helper, Mandy Smart, whose two children walk with her. "We
are very visible and that makes people more aware. It teaches the
children road-safety skills. Many of the children in cars get out at
exactly the place they have to be, and they don't learn these skills."

But the scheme needs dedication to succeed. Parents have to apply for a
place and adult helpers have to be police-checked. Problems arise when
parent helpers leave or their children move on to other schools. In
Solihull, for example, a walking-bus scheme for St Alphege primary
school ended when the co-ordinators moved on.

Walking buses are not the only schemes the Government wants to
encourage. Nationally, there is a wide range of innovative projects
aimed at increasing children's exercise and cutting car use.

In York, traditionally a cycling city, Lakeside primary has in the past
five years increased the number of children walking to school from 62 to
68 per cent. Cycling has increased from 1.2 to 9 per cent, and bus use
from 0.8 to 1 per cent. Car use has been cut significantly.

The city council in York takes bike training very seriously. One-third
of 12-year-olds receive cycle training, and in 2002 more than 12 per
cent of York's secondary-school pupils chose to cycle to school. But the
city knows it has a long way to go because the number of cyclists has
dropped in the past decade. In 1994, 20 per cent of people cycled; today
it is nearer 10 per cent.

School safety-zones forcing drivers to slow down to 20 mph have been
introduced to most schools in the city; �4m has been targeted on key
pedestrian and cycle routes and cycle training; and �100,000 a year is
being spent on cycle sheds so children can safely leave their bikes at
school.

In Cambridgeshire, a partnership of 13 independent schools and two
sixth-form colleges has set up a website where parents use a password to
log in their travelling details. If they find a match with other
parents, they can save on travelling costs and the number of journeys.
Since this scheme and others were introduced five years ago, the
partnership has increased car sharing from 9 to 16 per cent, cycling
from 10 to 13 per cent, trains from 12 to 14 per cent and mini-buses to
2 per cent. Car use has declined from 41 to 29 per cent.

In Ilkley, West Yorkshire, Ben Rhydding primary has a walking bus and
has recently sent a questionnaire to parents asking them what kinds of
schemes they want. One idea yet to be tried out is for parents with
babies to park in a cul-de-sac a short distance from the school. Parents
will take it in turns to watch over the babies while the older children
are walked to Ben Rhydding.

Not everyone, however, likes sharing their cars with other children. And
some will never enter into the community spirit, no matter what the
incentive. As a result, shared transport may always be a minority
activity. And we have yet to see whether charging will have the effect
of pushing people back into cars. The best bet may be the walking bus -
at least for children who live close enough to school.

education@...





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Tomorrow The Commons, including its various programs, will pass the 100k
visitors mark since the current version of our sites were first placed
on the web in July 1995. Moreover, it is a testimonial to the fact that
we must be doing something right that visitors are now coming in at a
rate averaging more than 100/day.  In addition to celebrating this
wonderful event of sharing and concern about more than the volume of
meat on our personal plates, it is an opportunity for us to invite all
of you to consider joining and getting behind no less that three of our
programs which until now have been quiet but which are shortly going to
start to see the kind of attention and energy which you can see, for
example, on our fine World Carshare Consortium site at
http://worldcarshare.com <http://worldcarshare.com/> :

* The Commons Sustainability Agenda  itself -- at
<http://ecoplan.org/> http://ecoplan.org
* Rethinking Work -- at
<http://www.ecoplan.org/new-work/nw_index>
http://www.ecoplan.org/new-work/nw_index
* Children on the Move! -- at http://www.ecoplan.org/children/

Should these particular topics not interest you, you may nonetheless
have colleagues or friends who may wish to see how things can be
advanced if they come in and add their brains and efforts to our and
others in these three vital areas of our societies.

And why should you do it?  ;-)

Eric Britton

The Commons                __ technology, economy, society__
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara                75006 Paris, France
Tel. +331 4326 1323   Fax/Voicemail hotline: +331 5301 2896
http://www.ecoplan.org     IP Videoconference: 81.65.50.149
Personal webpage: www.EricBritton.org
Email: Eric.Britton@... or ecoplan.adsl@...

Keeping Children Safe in Traffic

Tragically, one child out of every 2100 will die before his or her 15th
birthday in a road-related incident, and even more will suffer severe
injuries or lifelong disabilities.�This report provides the latest
statistics on children's injuries and fatalities, outlines progress�and
trends�in children's�traffic safety in OECD countries, and�identifies
areas�for further improvement. It provides the latest statistics and
makes a series of policy-related recommendations for improving
children's road safety.

05-Apr-2004,  Link:
http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,2340,en_2649_37433_31416393_1_1_1_37433
,00.html


In many OECD countries, road-related crashes are the number one killer
of children under the age of 15. Since the last OECD report on
children�s transport safety was published in 1983, an estimated 100,000
children have perished in road-related crashes. Of course, this level of
fatalities is not acceptable.
Considerable advances have been made by most countries, particularly
since 1990. Many of the recommendations from earlier OECD work have been
implemented with the support of Ministers for Transport in OECD and ECMT
(European Conference of Ministers of Transport) countries. In fact, the
number of children killed per annum on the roads in OECD countries was
halved between 1990 and 2000. Nevertheless, at current rates, one child
out of every 2100 will die before their 15th birthday in a road-related
incident, and a considerably higher number will suffer severe injuries
or lifelong disabilities. Many such fatalities would be avoided if all
OECD member countries adopted practices known to be effective in
improving children�s road safety.

This latest version of Keeping Children Safe in Traffic draws on best
practice and research results to show how child casualties can be
reduced whilst at the same time encouraging children to develop into
safe, active and independent road users. It focuses on the contribution
education, training and publicity can make; measures related to the
risks children face in the road environment; vehicle and bicycle
standards; safety equipment and the importance of appropriate
legislation. It outlines the progress that has been made in OECD
countries in the last 20 years. It provides the latest statistics on
children�s injuries, fatalities and trends in transport.

The report considers the relative levels of risks in OECD countries and
the casualty reduction programmes and strategies that can improve
children�s road safety. It identifies practices drawn from OECD member
country experience that have proven to be most effective in improving
children�s road safety. It also outlines possible further improvements
based on research undertaken.
One of the report�s conclusions is that, currently, the best-performing
countries have population-based road crash fatality rates for children
that are less than half the OECD average and only a quarter of the rate
in the worst-performing countries. Therefore, there is considerable
potential for improving child road safety in most OECD countries. After
examining the most effective strategies, based on the research
undertaken, the report makes a series of policy-oriented recommendations
for achieving such improvements in children�s road safety.

Keeping Children Safe in Traffic is particularly geared towards policy
makers, transport planners, regulators and strategists as well as road
safety professionals, motorist associations and researchers.
A survey of children�s road traffic safety in OECD countries was
commissioned by the United Kingdom�s Department for Transport and
undertaken in 2002 and 2003 to complement and help with the preparation
of this report from the OECD�s Child Traffic Safety Expert Group.
Responses to the International Survey were therefore an important input
to this report. Twenty-one of the 30 member countries responded, and
data was supplemented where possible by internationally available data.

The main purpose of�this report is to highlight successful programmes
and strategies that could be adopted by OECD countries to improve
children�s safety on the roads and to identify possible further
improvements.

The executive summary of the report can be downloaded here in�English�or
German. French�version forthcoming. The full report is available for
browsing and purchase on the�OECD On-line Bookshop. The French edition
will be published in late 2004.

Welcome to the Children and Mobility website



This website contains information and documents about the workshop on
Children and Traffic held in Copenhagen 2002, the Network on Children
and Mobility and other relevant information about children and mobility.




http://www.flux.teksam.ruc.dk/FLUX_UK/ChildrenMob/index_uk_ChildrenMob.h
tm



Thyra Uth Thomsen, Ph.D.

Assistant Research Professor (forskningsadjunkt)



FLUX - Center of Transport Research

Dept. of Environment, Technology and Social Studies, House 11.1

Roskilde University

P.O. 260

DK-4000 Roskilde

Denmark



Tel: +45 4674 2544

Fax: +45 4674 3041

E-mail: tut@...

Web: http://www.flux.teksam.ruc.dk





= = = = =

Some good Links from this good site:






Transport Management Research Centre at Middelsex University Business
School draws on staff across the University who share a common interest
in transport management. Their aim is to develop innovative solutions to
fundamental problems, working in small teams that capitalise on a range
of expertise including statistical analysis, operational research,
psychology, engineering, marketing, and IT.

Link:  <http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/roadtraffic/welcome.htm>
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/roadtraffic/welcome.htm






"Children's Perception of the Road Environment: the Implications for
Highway Design - Analysis of Interviews and Video Recordings".
Intermediate Report 01/14N, Middlesex University Business School -
Transport Management Research Centre. Ken Lupton and Mariana Bayley.

This document describes and presents an analysis of the collected data.
Video recordings of children's road crossing behaviour have been made at
21 sites at 18 junior and secondary schools in Hertfordshire and the
London Boroughs of Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. At some of these
schools engineering measures to improve safety are currently being
introduced and 'before' filming has been carried out at these sites.
'After' filming will be carried out once these measures are in place.

Link:  <http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/roadtraffic/interview.pdf>
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/roadtraffic/interview.pdf






"Reducing Children's Car Use: The Health and Potential Car Dependency
Impacts", University College London (UCL) - Centre for Transport
Studies.

According to the
<http://www.transtat.detr.gov.uk/tables/2000/nts/nts00.htm> National
Travel Survey, between 1985/86 and 1995/97 children aged 16 or less
increased the percentage of their trips by car from 35% to 48%. Over the
same period the percentage of trips to school by car went up from 16% to
29%. These trends have led to significant decreases in the amounts of
walking and cycling by children. Whilst the reasons for these shifts are
fairly clear, it is also clear that they may lead to significant
problems. As the  <http://www.detr.gov.uk/itwp/paper/index.htm> 1998
White Paper on Transport says: `Not walking or cycling to school means
that children get much less exercise and builds in car dependency at an
early age'. Whilst there is an intuitive logic to this statement, it
raises a number of important research issues. The overall aim of this
project is to address these issues.

Link:  <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-studies/chcaruse.htm>
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-studies/chcaruse.htm
  <http://www.flux.teksam.ruc.dk/FLUX_UK/ChildrenMob/Links/Links.htm#Back
to top#Back to top>








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