[sustran] Re: On the politics of transportation -- and breaking gridlock

[Zvi Leve]

This reminds me of a 'round-table' session on 'transportation planning 
in the developing world' that I attended some years ago. The discussion 
was about 'what kind of models were most appropriate for these areas'. 
The panel basically broke down into two groups: a chinese and chilean 
representative who emphasized the importance of having good data and 
good skills, and an african who pleaded for something more practical 
when those two elements are missing.

The african representative emphasized that there may be only a very 
brief 'window of opportunity' when the political will is in place, and 
they don't have the time to wait years collecting data. In this 
situation mediocre results may be the best that one can hope for. On the 
other hand, ideally they would be able to choose interventions which 
could be built on in the future. Also, building local institutional 
capacity should be part of this effort as well. Throwing money at 
high-paid international consultants is not a 'sustainable' solution, but 
the donor agencies probably share some responsibility for this as well. 
For example, it is quite common that transportation planning software 
will be bought as part of a project budget which is provided by an 
international aid agency. On the other hand, these international donor 
agencies will most likely not provide funds for maintaining the on-going 
support and training of the software installation, so there will not be 
any local capacity built up in the future!

Best regards,

Zvi

Carlos F. Pardo wrote:
> Joao's email is interesting.
>
> If I can use the black hat for a moment, I'd say that Joao is right but 
> not 100%. Yes, political will is one of the great requirements of 
> successful improvements in urban transport for a city. However, I'm not 
> sure if it's the real first step, rather than local technical knowledge. 
> For example, sometimes (seldom, but sometimes) you'll see a city where 
> there is all the political will to improve the transport situation, but 
> the technical expertise is not there and, in the rush to have something 
> done to "improve" (and for the political figure to show that he or she 
> has done something), you get pretty mediocre results which may end up 
> worsening the situation.
>
> The question is how to arrive at that political will. Some of us working 
> on this have found that direct contact with policymakers with visual 
> products (photos, videos) and key stats are useful to make politicians 
> change their minds, at least in principle. High-ranking figures and 
> institutions that present this information (e.g. the "Peñalosa effect") 
> are also very (very very very!) effective. But then again, you need to 
> also find a way to give the expertise to the locals. Otherwise, 80% of 
> the budget will go to expensive consultants.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Carlos F. Pardo
> Coordinador de Proyecto- Project Coordinator
> GTZ - Proyecto de Transporte Sostenible (SUTP, SUTP-LAC)
> Cl 93A # 14-17 of 708
> Bogotá D.C., Colombia
> Tel/fax:  +57 (1) 236 2309  Mobile: +57 (3) 15 296 0662
> carlos.pardo at sutp.org   www.sutp.org 
>
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