Sustainable Urban Mobility : Rapid Buses and Bikes Show the Way

Traffic continues to be one of the biggest problems in cities across the globe. Our continued dependence on motorised vehicles is costly, unhealthy and often deadly. In Bangkok, economic losses due to traffic jams amount to anywhere from 3% to 6% of the national GDP. Twenty years ago, as many as half a million people died every year in road accidents. Today, we have 20 to 50 million injuries and a shocking 1.25 million road traffic deaths per year globally, with the vast majority of these deaths occurring in cities of the Global South.(1)

Traffic is not a new phenomenon, of course. Road congestion was a problem in ancient China, antique Rome, medieval London and Renaissance Florence as much as it is in present-day Cairo, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Manila, Mexico City or Los Angeles. What is new, however, is that our irrational way of getting ourselves from our sleeping to our working habitats is not only detrimental to our own mental and physical well-being, but is also permanently affecting the global environment. One particular problem of modern day mobility, apart from the different orders of magnitude and speed at which we are transporting goods and people, is the exhaust pipe. In the early 1970s, motorised transport was responsible for about 45% of global oil consumption. By 2010, this share had risen to over 60% (2). Transport is also responsible for up to 90% of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbon levels in heavily trafficked urban areas. Breathing the air in Mexico City is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. In heavily motorised countries such as the US, the transport sector is responsible for a third of all climate-changing emissions. Globally, 15% of all CO2 emissions come from vehicles.

In order to successfully halt the depletion of non-renewable natural energy resources and to cut down emissions we need to drive less and switch to more efficient, non-fossil fuel dependent forms of transport. People often forget that even the so-called clean, ‘zero emission’ electric cars still require lots of energy to produce and operate and that their lead-acid batteries are still highly toxic, presenting big challenges for proper disposal. Also, without aggressive government support, cleaner cars are very slow to penetrate the market even in high-income countries. Plug-in electric cars, including hybrids, for example, still only make up a miniscule 0.1% of the world’s billion cars (3). And even if the whole world suddenly switched to non-polluting, small vehicles, roads and parking spaces would continue to take up valuable urban space and still sever natural habitats and urban communities.

Attempts to constrain citizens’ auto-centric habits are often tantamount to political suicide. The authoritarian city-state of Singapore is perhaps the most notable exception, boasting high luxury taxes on cars, strict area licensing and a sophisticated electronic road-pricing scheme. Yet, even in places where recourse to such drastic measures is not a political option, there are lots of things cities can do. Well-designed strategies combining disincentives to car use with a variety of non-motorised and mass transit solutions and long-term land-use planning will benefit any city, thus creating a healthier, cleaner and more efficient environment for all its inhabitants. What is needed is not so much a technical as a mental revolution in the minds of planners, politicians, prominent thinkers and, ultimately, ordinary citizens. Luckily for the rapidly developing cities in the Global South, solutions do not have to be as costly and as dependent on high-tech Western imports as they are often made out to be. Innovative transport solutions are more a question of imagination and creativity than of high-tech gadgets and fancy engineering.

People often forget that even the so-called clean, ‘zero emission’ electric cars still require lots of energy to produce and operate

All of us, and especially transport experts, urban planners, developers, politicians and civil servants, need to abandon the mistaken notion that modernisation is equal to motorisation, and that moving up in the world is equal to moving around in a bigger vehicle. It is true that globally, motorisation growth rates tend to be closely associated with economic growth. It is also true that transport infrastructures, including roads, are a fundamental requirement for economic development, providing access to jobs, markets, goods, services and natural resources. But especially in dense urban environments, cars have long become a handicap rather than a solution. That’s why young professionals in Amsterdam or Copenhagen use bicycles more often than cars and why even New York City’s rich bankers access Wall Street by taking the subway or the express bus.

A quick glance at some of the most successful cities around the globe shows that most of them at some point radically changed their attitudes towards transportation and mobility. In the 21st century, smart cities exchange their policies of accommodating ever growing numbers of cars for innovative strategies that curb car use, strengthen public transport and encourage 
people to walk or bike.

Car dependency continues to be the most extreme in North America and Australia. Yet even Los Angeles, formerly a poster child for a low-density, sprawling, auto-dependent metropolis, has spent billions of dollars since the 1980s to bring back regional and urban rail. Marred by construction disasters, corruption scandals and planning mistakes, the actual systems put in place still leave much to be desired. However, their existence proves that even a culture as car-loving as Southern California is finally coming to terms with the fact that you simply cannot build your way out of the traffic collapse.

Studies have irrevocably proven that new road capacity entices road users to drive even more and further, thus attracting new traffic (4). Experts call this ‘the law of induced demand.’ In practice, this means that new roads are often clogged soon after they open. Los Angeles’ most famous example of this phenomenon can be found along the 405 Freeway. In 2014, after years of delay, a new lane for multi-occupancy vehicles was opened along a 10-mile stretch at the cost of $1 billion dollars. A few months later, traffic was found to be moving even slightly slower than before (5). This is why even die-hard California motorists are willing to let go of their steering wheels in exchange for an early-morning and late afternoon laptop session on a commuter train or express bus, especially if they are Wi-Fi enhanced. In addition to developing new mass transit systems, many US cities are now also actively encouraging bicycle use. As a result, the country has seen a 62% increase in bike commuting since 2000 (6).

Especially in dense urban environments, cars have long become a handicap rather than a solution

In Western Europe, Dutch cities like Amsterdam, Utrecht or Groningen are most frequently cited as positive examples for successful transport and land-use planning. Back in 1992, the Dutch Bicycle Master Plan made cycling an integral part of the national traffic system. Today, about half of all trips in Amsterdam’s city centre are by bicycle and two-thirds of the residents use their bikes on a daily basis (7). Traffic calming and pedestrian zones are ubiquitous throughout the Netherlands. In addition, a centralised and highly integrated public transport system provides a competitive alternative to car use, particularly in urban areas. Few other countries have gone as far in limiting car dependency, but the world is increasingly taking note of the Dutch transport model.

Bus transport, meanwhile, is still the predominant mode of transport in South and Central American cities, although they, too, have experienced strong growth in individual motorisation. To take but one example, almost three quarters of the population in Bogota, Columbia, uses buses, while less than one-fifth use private cars. To ease congestion and air pollution, the Bogota city government pursued several very innovative transport projects, including the implementation of an ambitious bicycle master plan and an adaptation of a so-called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that was first developed in Curitiba, Brazil in the 1970s. Called the Transmilenio, Bogota’s BRT first opened to the public in 2000. The system now features 70 miles of bus lanes used by 12 different lines.

Key characteristics are the dedicated right-of-way and bus way alignment in the centre of the road, priority treatment at intersections, off-board fare collection and speedy platform-level boarding. Even with all these features, BRT can be built at a fraction of the cost of light rail transit (LRT) while actually exhibiting higher capacities than most fully grade-separated rail systems. In the last decade, BRT has proven itself as a highly adaptable sustainable mobility solution across the globe, spreading from South America to Asia, Africa and even Europe and North America. China alone currently has over 30 BRT projects in the planning or implementation stage (8).

In Asian cities, the extremely high population densities ensure traffic standstills at much lower levels of motorisation than in other parts of the world. Exhibiting a bias towards cars and motorised three wheelers, many Asian cities started banning traditional cycle rickshaws from key sections of the urban road network in the 1990s, thus creating considerable access problems for the lower-income citizens dependent on these non-motorised modes. More recently, after initially also having been banned from many Indian roadways, electric rickshaws have become ever more prominent there. Transport often has a strong gender dimension as well. A large percentage of women in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is highly dependent on rickshaw taxis, for example, because the cultural practice of purdah requires the social segregation of men and women in public, thus making it highly unacceptable for women to use crowded public transport. In many other countries, sexual harassment involving groping and even rape is another serious deterrent to women using transit services. Seeking a solution, a courageous woman in Lahore, Pakistan, recently introduced a ‘pink rickshaw’ service that trains female drivers who are then to exclusively serve women. Interesting examples of similar women-only services exist in many other cities across the globe (9).

Access to a traditional bicycle can truly transform people’s lives, saving valuable time and transit costs

Similar to South Asia, motorisation in Africa has skyrocketed in the last decades, often in two-wheeler form. Motorcycles are obviously much more affordable than cars and also more flexible in crowded traffic. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Africans do not have access to any form of motorised transport. Low-income people typically walk for many miles every day because they cannot even afford public transport fares. In this difficult context, access to a traditional bicycle can truly transform people’s lives, saving valuable time and transit costs. Unfortunately, bicycles are strongly stigmatised as ‘poor man’s vehicles’ in much of Africa. This strong image and gender bias against this most energy efficient of all transport modes discourages many potential cyclists. But recent examples from Mozambique and South Africa show that such biases can be overcome if approached in an appropriate, culturally conscious way. World Bicycle Relief is one of several organisations that either donate bicycles to women and girls or provide micro-credit programmes for purchase, ideally combining this with basic ride and repair training (10).

Although often favoured by high-level decision makers, technological fixes will not get us out of the global transport mess. Dimensions of access, poverty and sustainable development have always been intricately linked. Bus Rapid Transit, new light rail systems and bikeways are but a few ways to untie the Gordian knot of sustainable mobility. Ironically, even in the hypermodern cities of the 21st century, simple pedal power typically remains your fastest transport option for all shorter trips under three miles. Given that cycling is also affordable, improves your health, keeps your air clean and your community intact, it remains the best zero emission vehicle to take us towards global urban sustainability. 

(This article is partially based on an opinion piece published in 2000 in the now defunct journal ‘Sustainable Development International’.)

REFERENCES

1. For detailed figures, see the World Health Organization’s webpage at http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/, last accessed 4.30.2016.
2. See the 2013 UN Habitat Report ‘Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility’ downloadable at http://unhabitat.org/planning-and-design-for-sustainable-urban-mobility-global-report-on-human-settlements-2013/. Last accessed 4.30.2016.
3. See Randall, Tom. “Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis”. Bloomberg News (February 25, 2016). Last accessed 4.30.2016
4. A good place to start reading up on this debate is here: http://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/6994159/traffic-roads-induced-demand. Last accessed 4.30.2016.
5. See http://la.curbed.com/2014/10/9/10036932/405-commutes-now-a-minute-worse-than-before-carpool-lane. Last Accessed 4.30.2016
6. See http://bikeleague.org/content/updated-bike-commute-data-released. Last accessed 4.30.2016.
7. For more details, see http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/media-centre/city-hall/dossier-cycling/cycling-facts-and-figures. Last accessed 4.30.2016
8. A very good place to start learning about BRT systems across the world is the BRT site of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy at https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/the-bus-rapid-transit-standard/. Last accessed 4.30.2016.
9. For press coverage on the recent Lahore example, see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/10/women-only-rickshaw-hits-the-road-in-lahore. For a more comprehensive view on women-only services, please read my 2013 UN Habitat Thematic Report on Gender and Sustainable Urban Mobility, downloadable at https://goo.gl/XyjR1l.
10. See www.worldbicyclerelief.org. Last accessed 4.30.2016.