The Penang Transport Council – As seen in 2009

Penang Transport Council to tackle transportation problems

George Town. 10 March 2009. The Sun Daily. – http://www.thesundaily.my/node/158168

Traffic jam road February 1, 2009 in Georgetown, Penang.

The Penang government hopes to resolve the transportation problems in the state with the setting up of a Penang Transport Council (PTC).

Local government and traffic management committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said today the members of the working group on transport set up last year will be roped in to form the PTC.

“With the setting up of the PTC, we hope to come up with a Penang transportation master plan to review the public transport systems and traffic management and find ways to improve them,” he told a press conference.

“The PTC meetings will be open to the public when the need arises — and the principle of accountability and transparency will be followed,” he said.

Listing traffic congestion, parking problems and inadequate public transportation as among the main transportation woes, Chow said the PTC will be the coordinating body for all such issues.

PENANG TRANSPORT COUNCIL – SUMMER 2015 PROGRESS UPDATE

We shall be looking at this important politically appointed advisory group of twenty nominated men and two women in the weeks ahead to see if an independent analysis might help our readers come up with ideas to help Penang do better. We hope to be able to share with out readers all reports and recommendations coming out of this group and passed on to the State government or other institutions since 2012.

The Penang Transport Council website states its mission as follows: “To adopt a new vision-paradigm in tackling transport – one that moves people away from over-dependence on private transport to a more economically and ecologically sustainable public transportation system.”

The following text is taken as is from the PTC site at http://ptc.penang.gov.my

Critiquing the Penang Transport Master Plan (2013-2030)

The following  strategic commentary appeared in the form of a long letter responding to an invitation by the chief transport planner of Penang with the State Government Office to comment on a strategic presentation and commentary he was about to make at end year in Kuala Lumpur reflecting back on the  Penang Transport Master Plan (2013-2030) carried out for the State by Halcrow and AKC Planning   and published in a final version in October 2-12. Mr. Lim’s commentary. Cross Roads, Game Changers & Bulls’ Horns, is available here. 

Update. My quick six-point “Summer 2015 Executive Summary” follows:

LOOK FAMILIAR?

WORLD STREETS __ A New Mobility Action Plan for 2022

A lovely morning trip to work in Toronto. Seems to be working not quite as planned. Hmm!

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INVITATIONAL THINKING EXERCISE: Why Ubernomics could be fatal to itself, its customers and mass transit?

Commentary and reflection on an article originally appearing in a Geek Wire posting by Bob Sullivan on 24 January – which when posted last week to our World Streets Online Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/WorldStreetsOnline attracted considerable attention. In the posting that follows, we propose an open thinking exercise in three parts which you are invited to join.

The World Streets Sampler. Selected articles: 2009-2015

Admittedly it may not be so easy to get a feel for what World Streets is supposed to be all about when you first check in here, since we have since 2009 published more than 1500 articles and twice that many graphics, photographs and illustrative short videos on a very large array of issues, approaches, countries and cultures.. So to open up this virtual Pandora’s box for first time readers we decided to cull about one percent of the contents to see if we could come up with a selection of diverse articles, most of them quite short, to try to give the first time reader an idea of the variety and quality of what goes on here. We call this a “Sampler” and invite your comments, suggestions and eventual contributions to what is, above all, an open, collaborative and convergent environment.

Welcome to World Streets Worst Practices Department

Since our founding in 2009 World Streets has given attention occasionally to poor, and at times desperately poor, policies and practices in the fields of cities and transportation, in what we call our Worst Practices Department. The WPD has its useful place in World Streets and the world more generally because when it comes to transportation there has never been a shortage of bad ideas and even worse implementations.

Most of the bad ideas you will see skewered in this section are the results of some variable combinations of hubris, avarice, haste, short-sightedness, self-interest, pure ego, and invariably sheer ignorance of the complexity of the 21st century mobility environment.  And of course all too often of sheer unbridled  stupidity. (And so it goes.)

“Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay.”

Who is reading World Streets where today?

* * Click map for higher definition version * *

The above map reports the locations of 451 readers checking into World Streets over the last two days. (Approximately 10% of our total registered readers as of this date.)

Why sustainable development is so hard, when it should be as “simple as riding a bike”?

UNLEARNING as a sustainability strategy?

What does not being able to ride a bike have to do with sustainable development?  Or rather of course UNsustainable development, which is the dominant and to now apparently unbreakable pattern? Thousands of conferences have been organized, more thousands of books printed,programs launched,  actions organized, treaties signed, promises made (and broken), and despite all that and by just about all valid indicators, the bottom line of our unsustainability continues tragically to deteriorate, to destroy our gasping planet. As you can see here:

Interview: World Streets editor interviews busy mayor on his sustainable transport strategy

Asking the mayor of Freedonia to walk the talk

Freedonia City Hall, 20 June 2015.09:00. The mayor is comfortably seated  at his  imposing desk, looking fondly at an unlit cigar.  After a lengthy wait and a nod from the imposing receptionist, the editor of World Streets knocks lightly and waits timidly at the door, entirely drenched and  more than a bit disheveled. Not a pretty sight.

The Mayor: Well sir, you are a fine mess. Careful there, you are dripping on my favorite chair.