Transport Policy: A Need for Advocacy and Vigilance

Introduction

The May issue of World Transport Policy focuses on assessments and critiques of current transport policies and plans along with recommendations on what our cities, states and countries could and should be doing. New in this issue is a Trivia quiz. Test your knowledge about the history of the metro (aka subway) and current systems.

Interdisciplinary cooperation is the way forward

In keeping with WTPP's mission to engage the range of stakeholders from advocates to decision makers to practitioners to academics, the May issue presents policies from a variety of perspectives. The first is a policy critique on electric vehicles originally published by the Scientists for Global Responsibility. Another is a detailed critique of the United Kingdom’s new “Plan for Drivers”, which the author finds woefully lacking in that it continues the unsustainable  road-building mindset. The  May 2024 issue also features an article about how Nairobi, Kenya is improving the walking experience for all. Despite increasing motorization in the last decade, walking remains an important mode for a large segment of the population. The author provides lessons that can apply across the globe.

Highlighting how transport policies can spread across multiple disciplines, we have reprinted an abbreviated version of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Action Plan on Physical Activity. We have excerpted those proposed policies and actions—and there are many—which pertain to the transportation sector and to public spaces devoted to transport. In particular, an action step for Policy Action 2.3 is a preview of our Fall issue, which will focus on real life examples of the benefits of reducing speed limits. 

• WHO Policy Action 2.3: Support the implementation and strengthening of the enforcement of traffic speed restrictions (e.g. 30 km/hr in all residential neighbourhoods and 50 km/hr on urban roads)

If you also have experience and data to share on reducing speed limits, please send it to us at tcscrpi @ gmail.com).

WTPP Volume 29.1-May 2024

We invite you to check out issue 29.1 here and prior issues here, which also include:

•  Upcoming Fall 2024 Conferences to Know About
•  Book Review of: Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens by Rajiv J. Shah

Thanks to our peer reviewers and everyone else who helped bring this issue about.

TCSC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit in the state of California USA.