What are, say, the five questions concerning transport and equity (and Helsinki) that you would like to have me ask in your behalf in Helsinki starting tomorrow in our first Stakeholder/Peer Group Dialogues? Maybe easiest if you might give me your list via eric.britton@ecoplan.org
It would also be good if you could also pop in your signature block (name, position, institution, city, etc.) so that we can properly acknowledge your ideas. You will see how this plays out in the crowdsource sections on the site here. Thanks if this works for you. And keep your eye on Equity.
Eric Britton
PS. When I sent this out first this morning to test the water to a handful of friends with deep expertise in the field of sustainable transport policy and practice in different parts of the world, an interesting and I think meaningful thing occurred. Every one of those who responded was not able to stop with five salient points as suggested. To a man/woman they all offered up six. Now THAT is already a message.
Examining the Prospects for Equity-Based Transportation 
From Elizabeth Deakin
Professor of City and Regional Planning
University of California, Berkeley
1. There is always the question of intergenerational equity vs. equity for the people out there today and how to serve both interests.
2. Cars are making the lives of some better, but they are making the lives of many others worse. Discussions of internalizing externalities seem to get very little traction. What can we do to make full cost pricing a way to move forward? Or if this is Quixotic, what other options are more likely to succeed?
3. Would free bikes for everyone be a step forward? (can you ride a bike in a burkha?)
4. Where are the children in this discussion?
5. Where are the many adults who have mobility limitations, physical or economic? (where am I in 20 35 years = I plan to stay active till I drop, but what if that is increasingly difficult? Do I have to sit by the window and knit or tat or something equally implausible?)
6. Could we reclaim most streets for people and make the cars stay in their place, on separate guideways that do not intrude on places for people?
7. How do we manage freight and urban goods delivery in a less obnoxious way?
Rory McMullan
New Mobility China
Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, China.
skype: roryer +86 13924708082
1. Cost – how can we make transport cost the same percentage of everyone’s income? making public transport free? Subsidies?
2. Time? How can we equalise the travel time budget? (I would love a three bed with a garden near to my job in London zone 1 but instead I need to live miles out).
3. Accessibility for all. Disabled, old, young, men, women.
4. Equality of impact – e.g. Brixton in the UK has amongst the highest pollution, traffic incidents involving sub-16 year olds, lowest incomes and lowest car ownership in London.
5. What role does sharing play?
Here are my five questions for the Helsinki discussants:
1. What is equity (and what is it not)?
2. What is Equity-Based Transport?
3. Does the extraordinary Finnish equty-based education system give us a hand up for transport?
4. Who are the non-car majority and how do we serve them best
5. What is the future of the automobile in the city?
6. What does the “better than car” system look like?
7. And the role of the ITC interface?
8. Social Media roles? (It’s not 1990, eh?)
9. Are the forces for change/improvement working together in Helsinki?
10. A note on civil society and the social brain as an untapped resource
11. What would an Equity-Based Transport system for Helsinki look like? – and what would be the best way to get there?
The most urgent question you should ask Helsinki stakeholders:
Why developing public transfer is used as an excuse to destroy the most valuable green areas of our city (Vallilanlaakso and Keskuspuisto)?
Existing streets could be used instead of constructing new ones through parks, but Helsinki cityplanners are not allowed to work on the alternatives.