This blog is part of an ongoing project on Sustainable Mobility, mobility that doesn't take more than it gives .
The first subject we are tackling within this project is the Congested City. The suffocating grip traffic has on our daily life. Specially in older cities, never build for large number of cars, we could do with a new approach.
A congested city (or country) usually means an economic congestion as well, but it definitely spells problems concerning safety and health for the people living in the city.
So what can we do? Well, one of the biggest problems is using your car for short trips. One possible solution: everyone should use a bicycle for trips shorter that 5 Km.
To a City like Amsterdam this would mean an almost car free city. It means an economic boast because of the more Accessible City, and last but not least it would have a big positive effect on health because of the improved air-quality, safety on the roads and people simply getting more exercise. There is a lot to profit.
Now, this is never going to happen quick. Mentalities, politics, laziness and old habits are in the way. They always are. But in due time there is no doubt that things will start moving.
Now!Move is going to give a little push.
This blog is put up to keep you posted. But more important we set up a experimental "project group twitter" to have a real conversation.
So join the NowMove Twitter group conversation on Twitter
and place @NowMove before your Tweets so we can track the conversation.
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Now!Move
This blog is part of an ongoing project on Sustainable Mobility, mobility that doesn't take more than it gives .
The first subject we are tackling within this project is the Congested City. The suffocating grip traffic has on our daily life. Specially in older cities, never build for large number of cars, we could do with a new approach.
A congested city (or country) usually means an economic congestion as well, but it definitely spells problems concerning safety and health for the people living in the city.
So what can we do? Well, one of the biggest problems is using your car for short trips. One possible solution: everyone should use a bicycle for trips shorter that 5 Km.
To a City like Amsterdam this would mean an almost car free city. It means an economic boast because of the more Accessible City, and last but not least it would have a big positive effect on health because of the improved air-quality, safety on the roads and people simply getting more exercise. There is a lot to profit.
Now, this is never going to happen quick. Mentalities, politics, laziness and old habits are in the way. They always are. But in due time there is no doubt that things will start moving.
Now!Move is going to give a little push.
This blog is put up to keep you posted. But more important we set up a experimental "project group twitter" to have a real conversation.
So join the NowMove Twitter group conversation on Twitter
and place @NowMove before your Tweets so we can track the conversation.
The first subject we are tackling within this project is the Congested City. The suffocating grip traffic has on our daily life. Specially in older cities, never build for large number of cars, we could do with a new approach.
A congested city (or country) usually means an economic congestion as well, but it definitely spells problems concerning safety and health for the people living in the city.
So what can we do? Well, one of the biggest problems is using your car for short trips. One possible solution: everyone should use a bicycle for trips shorter that 5 Km.
To a City like Amsterdam this would mean an almost car free city. It means an economic boast because of the more Accessible City, and last but not least it would have a big positive effect on health because of the improved air-quality, safety on the roads and people simply getting more exercise. There is a lot to profit.
Now, this is never going to happen quick. Mentalities, politics, laziness and old habits are in the way. They always are. But in due time there is no doubt that things will start moving.
Now!Move is going to give a little push.
This blog is put up to keep you posted. But more important we set up a experimental "project group twitter" to have a real conversation.
So join the NowMove Twitter group conversation on Twitter
and place @NowMove before your Tweets so we can track the conversation.
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About Me
- Arne van Oosterom
- Owner and Strategic Design Director at DesignThinkers, lecturer and chairman of the Service Design Network Netherlands (Service Design Netwerk Nederland).
nice initiative
ReplyDeleteThanks. I hope we'll get something done.
ReplyDeletejust some thoughts of my impression of travelling in Amsterdam two months ago... that was the first time I went to Amsterdam and I was pretty impressed by the clarify of public transportantion signages. But I did found the car parking along the street (right next to the river)is very dangerous to new drivers or foreign drivers... and I got totally lost in the evening as the lighting is just terrible (the place was so pretty during the day but turn into a blackhole in the eve...) not quite sure how you guys are planning to carry out the research, but getting travellers involved might give you a change to see things that locals are too used to spot :)
ReplyDeleteI live in a small town in Germany that has a very good bike infrastructure, which makes all the difference. I've lived in Sydney and London, which both have very cycle unfriendly attitudes. Having lived in those different countries, you see very clear differences between social value systems and their relationship to congestion. One of the main culprits is the growth of enormous supermarkets in both the UK and Australia, which means there is an awful lot of simply daily shopping car traffic.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, Offenburg (where I now live) has a bakery on every corner and a proper active market in the town centre twice a week (not a faux fancy "farmer's market" selling overpriced delicatessen goods). The distributed nature of these smaller shops means both better produce (fresh bread/rolls from the bakery every morning, for example), less transportation from both the producers and the consumers and a thriving community.
From some recent service design insights research I did up in Hamburg, it is clear that trying to tackle transport in terms of transport itself makes little sense. You have to look at the reasons why people travel, why they use a car or train or bus instead of a bike and when. It's not fixed and often subtle things make a big difference (lighting in a parking space, secure bike storage, the fact that a Smart FourTwo can't take a beer crate in the boot).