4. Tagline and Logo

I’m in search of a tag line for Slow Transportation. Something on the order of:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” ― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

“Short trips. Not too many. Mostly walking and bicycling.” Well, it’s a start.

It also needs a logo, like the Slow Food snail. Maybe a tortoise, maybe a rabbit. Despite the fable, a rabbit is not a bad model, capable of speed when necessary, but mostly happy to much the grass and vegetables close to home, going only as far as necessary for the purpose of eating and living.

”Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” —Steven Wright

5. Sources for Slow Transportation

My thinking about Slow Transportation has been influenced by a variety of sources, most obviously Slow Food and Slow Money. Though I’d read it before, I skimmed: Tasch, Woody (2011-09-19). Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered. Chelsea Green Publishing. Kindle Edition. It helped me frame my thinking about slow versus fast.

Some tidbits from the two websites and books:

• “To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction. A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life. May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.” – Slow Food Manifesto
• “The combination of fast and slow components makes the system resilient, along with the way the differently paced parts affect each other. Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. . . . Fast gets all the attention, slow has all the power. . . .” – Stewart Brand, Clock of the Long Now
• “The public thought nothing of a car,” Ford wrote, “unless it made speed—unless it beat other racing cars. . . . I never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to consider the automobile in any light other than as a fast toy.” – from Inquires into the Nature of Slow Money
• Where we live is separate from where we work. Mobility takes precedence over responsibility. We become a nation of commuters and tourists. – Woody Tasch, Inquires into the Nature of Slow Money

My thinking is also strongly influenced by Strong Towns, which has so well documented the failure of stroads (the ineffective combination of a street and road, which serves neither livability or commerce) and the coming fiscal insolvency of our cities, counties and states, and Streetsblog, always a source of innovative thinking and solutions to the transportation problems that face us.

6. What Do You Think?

If you’ve gotten this far, you have probably found some resonance, found some things you disagree with, wanted clarification, or had ideas of your own.

Please, please comment. Though this has been useful to me to write it, it could be useful to others if you can help me improve it, maybe expand it, maybe simplify it.

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

The whole series, in one pdf.