Edited sentence: (The OECD project shut down its operation in July 2004, though the members of the original working group continue to communicate and collaborate at the specific project and policy level under the leadership of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Environment.As governments increasingly recognise sustainability as a core guiding principle, the need for more sustainable transport systems has been officially recognised in the transport strategies of the United Kingdom and of New Zealand.Donald Appleyard documented the consequences for communities of increasing car traffic in "The View from the Road" (1964) and in the UK, Mayer Hillman first published research into the impacts of traffic on child independent mobility in 1971.In Western Europe, cities continued to invest in public transport, walking and cycling and car travel never reached the levels of dominance seen in North America and Australasia.Many of the key concepts of sustainable transport were developed before the phrase was coined.One of the first international organizations to have a closer look at the links between transport and sustainability from the vantage of government policy was a small international working group led by Peter Wiederkehr at the OECD in 1994, that agreed that  a new policy approach is needed which places environmental criteria up front along with other policy goals.One result of this were the 1996 Vancouver Principles towards Sustainable Transportation.Recognizing this need, the OECD initiated in 1994 an international project to define and chart a path towards Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST).The core of the EST approach was to develop long-term scenarios and identify instruments and strategies capable of achieving it.The development of a car-based transport system in urban communities in the 1950s and 1960's met with opposition at the time.The overall objectives of the EST project are to provide an understanding of EST, its implications and requirements, and to develop methods and guidelines towards its realization.The writings of Jane Jacobs, in particular The Death and Life of Great American Cities provide a poignant reminder of what was lost in the transformation of American cities, and a record of community efforts to resist these changes.To this end the OECD organized with the Government of Canada the 1996  International Conference: Towards Sustainable Transportation in Vancouver, Canada