[sustran] Re: Skies turn grey in Ulan Bator

Brendan Finn etts at indigo.ie
Tue Feb 20 20:18:50 JST 2007


The challenges in Ulaanbaatar are complex. As in many problem cities, it is has taken quite some time and many fluffed decisions to get to this point, so it won't be easy to resolve it either. There are a few key factors : 

a) Ulaanbaatar has grown rapidly over the past few decades, and now has more than one third of the entire population of Mongolia (c. 1 million out of less than 3 million people). This has been mostly migration from the countryside, but also from mining towns and other small population centres. There are no other counter-balancing urban centres of note.

b) There is a legacy stock of Soviet-era apartments, but the bulk of the growth has been in "ger settlements". A "Ger" ('yurt' in other countries) is a felt-covered solid tent structures normally used in the countryside, and a very effective way to survive the harsh winters. No-one had foreseen settlements of thousands and thousands of these like a giant trailer park with individual fenced areas, small muddy lanes, animal husbandry and various other characteristics. I believe that about 45% of Ulaanbaatar's population is in gers. Mostly, their heating and cooking is done by coal, which contributes greatly to the air quality problems, not to mention sanitation and other issues.

c) Ulaanbaatar has a roads structure suited to the Soviet era of buses and trucks, a set of relative narrow arteries and key routes, and channelled traffic. Once private cars with dispersed movement patterns hit it, it rapidly congested. It was evident in 1995-6 how it was going to turn out, but our recommendations to establish bus priority before it was too late (along with many other measures) were ignored. I haven't been there in some time, but I believe it is now heavily congested.

d) The bus and trolleybus network - which in 1995-6 was fairly good but with aged rolling stock - has been seriously eroded. As I understand it, the minibuses have taken a very large share of the public transport market, extracting seriously from the large bus network, and contributing to the congestion. They are probably the only practical means of serving the ger settlements. The buses received from Korea and Japan in 1995-6 are now at the end of their viable life, and it's not certain what happens next. 

e) The topography of Ulaanbaatar is also a factor, being on a river plan between high ground to north and south. In the absence of wind, you can get a nasty build-up of emissions, and in sunny weather this can also lead to photochemical smog and low-level ozone. I don't know if the big coal-fired power plant on the west side of the city is still in service, but ten years ago it was a nasty addition to the problem except in summer when it shut down for maintenance.

I believe that some of the international agencies are getting active there on transportation and air quality issues, hopefully they will make some contribution, but I think the problems go deep into the migration of population into Ulaanbaatar, the lack of alternative employment centres, and the now-embedded ger settlement population who probably do not have the lifeskills to live outside their current environment.

I hope this is of some assistance to anyone looking at Ulaanbaatar's challenges. 

With best wishes, 


Brendan Finn. 
_____________________________________________________________________________________
>From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd.   e-mail : etts at indigo.ie   tel : +353.87.2530286
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Green Idea Factory 
  To: Global 'South' Sustainable Transport 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 10:35 AM
  Subject: [sustran] Skies turn grey in Ulan Bator


  There are lots of reasons besides increased automobile use for Ulan 
  Bator's descent into EGH (economic growth hell), but at bottom of 
  article they list measures they are studying to solve the problem... but 
  taking the auto- out of automobile does not seem to be one of them 
  (okay, maybe it is simply not mentioned here...)

  Anyone have more info?

   <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6376203.stm>

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  Green Idea Factory

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