A somewhat bulky envelope awaited me one day in mid-March in my mailbox. When I opened it, I found that Ole Thorson, the great reference in mobility and defender of pedestrians, had sent me his latest dedicated book. Just a few days later, he passed away. Suddenly, I found myself digesting the loss of a good friend and that on my desk lay nothing less than his professional testament, everything he had to say about what was the great work of his life.
The title of the book is already a declaration that summarizes his ideology: Movernos. Caminando con seguridad y sostenibilidad (Moving. Walking with safety and sustainability). I met Ole more than 30 years ago. He was an engineer who settled in Barcelona in the 70s and who led, from various associations, a movement that claimed the role of pedestrians and public transport users in the urban mobility system. The first impression he made was peculiar, to put it in a way that is not at all offensive.
With a Scandinavian appearance, blond, thin, tall, and with his everlasting bow tie around his neck, you didn't quite know at first impact if this endearing Dane truly believed what he defended or if he was just an opportunist hunting for commissions for reports and consultancies. The mystery was cleared up after 10 minutes of conversation ---even sooner---, because one immediately realized that he was in front of a man who, in addition to his human quality, knew very well what he was talking about, because he explained with data and almost scientific evidence that in the 20th century mobility had become "a threat to the life of the citizen."
Ole Thorson maintained that modern society had despised the natural mobility style of human beings, "which is walking." At a time when this activism in defense of pedestrians was still incipient, Ole maintained ---and denounced--- that motor vehicles "have absorbed most of the urban street space," despite the fact that pedestrians and public transport users represent 75% of public space users, against 25% for vehicles. In other words, a minority has "undemocratically" taken over the street, subjecting the vast majority.
Ole Thorson spent decades clamoring against the "invisibility" to which "walking people" had been relegated. When he participated in mobility meetings, he always complained: "You have stopped mentioning pedestrians." Little by little, his discourse took hold, and today cities are trying to reverse the situation and prioritize spaces for people, while limiting those intended for vehicles. And Ole achieved it with large doses of patient insistence. His activism against cars was much more than mere activism. He based his arguments on data, on the thousands of deaths caused by vehicles in accidents and the effects of pollution. Furthermore, his crusade was always supported by reason, shunning posturing and unnecessary overacting.
And it is that Ole Thorson was a man of deep and solid humanist values, which governed his professional, personal, and associative life that he cultivated. For this reason, he was also a Freemason, because in Freemasonry he found a way to promote values such as solidarity, justice, tolerance, fraternity, freedom, and equality, which he sometimes thought had been expressly made for him. From time to time, you would find in your email Ole's reflections on various matters and issues that awakened one's conscience about certain things.
Ole spent decades clamoring against the "invisibility" to which "walking people" had been relegated: "You have stopped mentioning pedestrians"In the epilogue of the book, he states that "the enormous number of people injured in urban mobility and on roads gives an idea of a basic mistake in letting drivers get away with it." For this reason, he considered it extremely necessary to "change the course of mobility," whose future, he said, must pose "new, more human, more global, and sustainable challenges."
We have lost a friend and a reference, but we are left with the consolation ---if anything can console his loss--- that his decades of crusade have been prospering. He started preaching in the desert, but today those almost hippie ideas from when he arrived in Barcelona are on the urban planners' table and are part of political debates. We are still far from the totality of his ideals, but, if we look back, we will see that Ole has already made us walk a long way. His last book, his political and professional legacy, should be required reading even for those who remain skeptical and even denialist of his postulates.