ITDP vs Carfree institute

(I'm cc'ing OurCultureOurCapitol because there are examples
of cultural visioning processes and successful attempts at
creating culture mentioned in this email (or maybe I'm just
archiving my posts).
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carfree_conf3/ is the list
this post was written for.)


I've been taking some time to study the work of ITDP (slowly
making my way through what's on their web site (itdp.org)),
and I wish I had done so prior to the conference.

In many ways I think they fill the role very well of a site
for bureacrats who are afraid of the word carfree.

With ITDP's focus on Non-motorized transport (NMT), some
might consider them more extreme than a possible carfree
institute.

Reading their documentation (don't miss
http://itdp.org/ST/index.html), one can also see the
learning occuring in the organization:
(I may have this wrong)
First they focused primarily on changing the lending
practices of institutions like the World Bank. Then, having
achieved some successes, they "began to work directly on
the planning and implementation of NMT infrastructure and on
improving NMT safety"
(and it seems like they're doing an awesome job!)

Earlier, they were involved in shipping used bicycles to
communities that needed them; Later they shifted their focus
to building cycle-manufacturing/repair/sales infrastructure
within those communities.


In addition,
they have several good articles on the transportation
history in Prague, as well as other Eastern European cities:
Winter 1998: "prague threatened by automania"
http://itdp.org/ST/ST8/ST8PRAGUE.doc

Budapest Metro: Trojan Horse from European Union
http://itdp.org/ST/ST8/ST8BUDA.doc
"The enormous national subsidies to the Prague metro were
one of the major contentions of the Slovaks' decision to
split from the Czech republic."

don't miss this either:
http://itdp.org/STe/index.html


To add to our Humour list:
their "legway" ZEV
http://www.ihpva.org/pipermail/slo-bike/2002-June/000065.html
http://itdp.org/STe/STe2/index.html#segway

And another (found in one of their yearly bulletins - it
is also in the carbusters database):
http://rightofway.org
These guys, Charles Komanoff and Michael Smith,
have done the most witty and eloquent job I have seen yet of
expressing what it is like to know that cars are evil, and
yet to continue to have to live in a world dominated by
them. They also speak to that feeling of being in NYC, where
the carfree are in the majority, yet they have not yet
overthrown the automobile.


In addition, I'm slowly doing more research into what
happened in Bogota.
Richard suggested that what happened there was hardly
relevant to most of our situations--it was so extraordinary.

Here is more on what happened in Bogota
http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/jones040402.asp?source=daily

Has anyone gotten the links to the "Bible" yet??

Destino Columbia: A Scenario-Planning Process for the New
Millennium
http://gbn.org/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=215

On the GBN site, may offer more of an explanation of "why
Bogota?" -- but I found no direct links. Perhaps it was just
as the Grist article and Diaz said: Penelosa's particular
orientation, and the feeling that they couldn't do anything
to make things worse.

But I have a feeling the country-wide visioning process
described in Destino Columbia may have a lot to do with what
happened (I have yet to finish reading that though).



Where does this leave the Carfree Institute and Carbusters?
I think there is a real need for the more radical, activist
kind of work that carbusters has been supporting, in
cooperation with ITDP work, perhaps.

Many of us are here because "carfree" has special meaning
for us.

I think a lot of good work could be put into Joel's idea of
changing the culture (let me note the APM's new
ishmael-inspired web site: http://culturechange.org).

Maybe there can be a focus on doing things that get people
to think--
for example riding a low-rider recumbent around Northern
Virginia (here's a movie of last friday's critical mass
http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64325)

or telling people I'm working on a carfree-ecovillage...

(I expect you have other ideas)

I'm also interested to hear others' thoughts on what ITDP is
doing-

Colin
http://j9k.org

ps: another place for list hosting is http://mutualaid.org

===============
One of Joel's posts re: the carfree inst. for reference:
===============

Hi All,

You've already received the prioritized list from the Carfree Cities
work group at the conference. Now it's time to discuss this in more
detail and to get started. (I've kept the "later" tasks at the end
of this note but will not discuss them now.)


New tasks, to be started within a year:
---------------------------------------

Listserves by Topic
-------------------
I would like to propose the following new list servers, basically
one for each major new task we decided to take up this year.
  Annual conference
  Fund raising
  Humor, jokes, funny photographs (this list also needs volunteers
    to try to distribute the jokes to a wide audience; it also neeed
    some Really Funny People to make up jokes, cartoons, etc.; some
    of this is already on-going, but we want more stuff going to a
    much larger audience than just committed Busters.)
  World Carfree Day coordination (to lead evenutally, I suppose, to
    a web site, unless we want to keep using EcoPlan)

We probably also want to start one list for the following two tasks,
since they are so closely related, and since the content will probably
overlap, at least to some degree:
  Web site for bureaucrats
  Web site for activists (Is there any reason that Car Busters isn't
    a suitable domain for the Activists web site? I do think we
    agreed that the site for bureaucrats needed to have a URL/name
    that would not scare them off, but the activist site can remain
    CarBusters.org, no?)

Annual Conference
-----------------
Randy? Are you there Randy???

Fund Raising
------------
Web site with links to existing resources for grant writing & donations
List of funders/relevant foundations (likely to support our work)

Internet
--------
Site for bureaucrats (see the list-serve notes above)
Site for activists (ditto)

Continuing Projects
-------------------
Comics, cartoons (this should be folded into the Humor list and task)
Connecting with other carfree people (David Ceaser)
  I think that this note related to David Ceaser's project of putting
  up a database of people who are interested in short-term carfree
  projects; this resource should then be connected to the rest of the
  system and can serve as a way to find people willing to help with
  a given task.

Expanded Projects
-----------------
We want to increase our level of activity with the following tasks:

Library: research; books; images; video
  I'm working on a project to put virtually all of my photographs
  on the Internet (with a mirror site) as a copy-left resource for
  non-profit use without any further licensing. I'll be inviting
  people to contribute to this. The photo resource may have a databse
  front-end that makes it easy to search for photos. What are we
  going to do with respect to video, books, and research? Ideas?

Collect data: economic, sociological, statistical
  I suppose that this task really fits into the Library task;
  we need someone to set up an archive and a way to get data
  into it. Sounds to me like we need a Perl programmer. Anyone
  have an opinion on this or want to take it on?

Translation resources
  We need to have a list of people who can translate things for
  us. Already, we have Greek, Polish, and Spanish translations of
  the Introduction at Carfree.com under way. I'll do the Dutch
  myself, when I find time. We need someone who can maintain
  a list of people willing to translate, and which languages.
  This list could be manually maintained, but there may be
  advantages to adding it to the Library and Collect Data tasks
  and database.

Campaigning tools: graphics, media kits, press reeleases, logos
  Uh huh. This needs a volunteer. I don't even know what's needed,
  so I'd like to pass this task off to others ASAP.

Directory of interested parties
  I think this might usefully be a sub-set of David Ceaser's
  database, but I may not correctly recall what this was all
  about. David? Others?

World carfree day coordination (how?)
  Another task I don't think I should involve myself in.
  Volunteers?

Only with a Partner
-----------------
Education/carfree syllabus
  It was agreed that this task was needed but that we would not
  undertake it without a partner to share the work & fund raising.


---------------------------Tasks for Later (not this year)-------
Psychological research
News point: text/video
Summaries for general public
Planning referral service
Speakers' bureau (with agent fee)
Media response
Letters of support from officials
Referral service (agent fee) for architects, designers, green
  builders, etc.
Support for giving up driving (autoholics.org)
Slide show
Folk songs
Public service announcements (canned)