Penang. Highway construction. Source: reuters
- By Paul Barter, Adjunct Associate Professor, LKY School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
The twin desires for congestion-free and affordable driving are understandable. They are politically seductive and play to motorists’ desires and the interests of car industries. But these desires are sending too many cities and their mobility systems down inequitable, costly and environmentally destructive development paths.
The results of preventing congestion and of keeping driving cheap
If private vehicle numbers rise quickly in a city with few cars, it is tempting to focus first on boosting road capacity. And, since such cities are not rich, it is also tempting to try to keep driving cheap.
The result, before long, is a “Traffic Saturated” city (increasingly filled with traffic but not yet well-adapted to cars). Such cities, such as Cairo, Delhi, Jakarta, Manila, and Tehran, have escalating problems:
- street-based public transport mired in congestion;
- slow goods movement;
- increasing road crash casualties;
- health impacts of air pollution;
- blighted public places;
- shrinking space for walking or cycling;
- worsening exclusion of the poor, people with disabilities, the frail and the elderly; and
- burdensome transport costs for municipal budgets.
Furthermore, if governments continue to work over decades to expand traffic capacity and to avoid cost burdens on motorists, they risk creating an increasingly “automobile dependent” city (thoroughly adapted to cars), such as Atlanta in the USA or Perth in Australia with:
- Very high levels of car ownership and use.
- Dispersed jobs and very low population densities, with long trip distances, making any rise in driving costs or any drop in speeds a serious problem, especially for low-income households living in car-dependent locations.
- People without a car are seriously disadvantaged because public transport has low service levels outside key corridors and outside peak times.
- High per capita negative impacts of traffic such as high-energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. However, air pollution is often quite dispersed in these low-density cities and less of a problem than in traffic saturated cities.
- High total costs per capita, requiring large investments by households (in vehicles and running them) and by governments (in roads and in loss-making public transport) and by developers (in required parking for example).
- It is difficult to shift away from such deeply entrenched car dependence, since high car use is profoundly embedded in technical systems, planning regulations, industries and institutions, parking space, life-styles and habits, as well as personal investments.
The alternative? Strive to become more of a “New Transit City”!
Bogotá, Curitiba, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei are examples of cities that have increasingly become New Transit Cities. Each was suffering as a Traffic Saturated city but took decisive steps to change direction, using efforts to:
- Keep cars optional rather than a necessity. Politically, these cities often resist the cries of motorists that “I need my car”. Instead they constantly improve the alternatives.
- Face up to space and financial constraints as key reasons to avoid space-consuming car-dominated mobility priorities and to resist motorists’ pleas to keep driving cheap.
- Make enhancing ease of access a central goal rather than enabling fast driving. Focus on space-efficient modes of transport and foster compact development so people can easily reach a wide range of destinations with few long journeys.
- Enable liveability gains and great urban places by avoiding car-dominated mobility. Preserving much-loved places or rescuing them from traffic impacts is a key benefit of transit-city policies. building much-needed public support.
Which strategy do you think is best for newly motorizing cities or traffic saturated cities across Asia, Africa and Latin America?
If you are interested, this previous post has more on the “New Transit City” strategy.
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About the author:
Paul Barter is a transport policy researcher, advisor, writer and trainer. He has wide-ranging 
expertise but is increasingly focused on municipal parking policy. He was principal researcher and author of the Asian Development Bank’s 2011 report, ‘Parking Policy in Asian Cities’ and has provided parking policy insight and training in various Asian cities. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the LKY School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Find more of his writing on urban transport via www.reinventingtransport.org. Learn more about his parking ideas at www.reinventingparking.org.
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About the editor:
Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France
Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)
WORLD STREETS __ A New Mobility Action Plan for 2022 