[sustran] [NewMobilityCafe] According to Penalosa, democracy is not a political process. It embodies itself in the urban development agenda.

[Eric Britton]

Enrique Penalosa to speak at seminar on urban development


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By our correspondent 
9/16/2008


Karachi

With a fast-growing population and increasing pace of urbanisation, cities
in Pakistan are facing mounting problems related to mobility and public
transport. Confronted with similar challenges, many cities around the world
are re-thinking 'traditional' approaches to urban transport by emphasising
different priorities and approaches.

The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) in collaboration with the
Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), a programme of the Clinton Foundation, and
SHEHRI-Citizens for a Better Environment (Shehri-CBE), has organised a
seminar on "Sustainable Urban Development & Mobility". The objective of this
seminar is to provide key stakeholders an opportunity to hear about a
different and more socially inclusive and efficient urban vision, which
would improve the quality of life and make our cities more competitive.

The main speaker will be Enrique Penalosa, a world renowned urban strategist
and former mayor of Bogota, Colombia. During his tenure as Mayor, the city
of 7 million underwent tremendous change and led to development of the (now)
world famous TransMillenio Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). Penalosa has
been featured in The New York Times, Herald Tribune, PBS Television, BBC and
many others and has advised cities throughout the world such as Cape Town,
Denver, Berkeley, Seattle, Melbourne, Sao Paulo amongst others. Penalosa
will speak on "Sustainable Urban Development and Transportation".

Penalosa argues that cities in developing countries - if they continue on
their current trajectory of development - will take another
century-and-a-half to reach the sophistication of cities in the West.

When elected mayor, Pensalosa took action against car owners who parked
their vehicles on green belts. He reduced the width of roads in the city
centre and, in turn, increased the width of sidewalks. He rejected a project
proposal from JICA to build a multibillion-dollar rapid mass-transit system
and instead spent a fraction of the amount in providing dedicated bus lanes.
He introduced TransMillenio, a bus rapid transit system based on the one
developed by Jamie Lerner in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. He stopped all
money being spent on roads for cars, and instead spent it on schools,
museums, developing public parks and nearly 300 km of pedestrian and cycle
promenades.

Penalosa is of the view that money spent on automobile infrastructure is
money wasted. Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, has allocated nearly
a quarter of a billion rupees for the feasibility study of an overhead
expressway along Lahore's Ferozepur Road. The CDA in Islamabad just launched
the Rs2.3 billion Zero Point Interchange Project and the CDGK is also
looking at at least two overhead automobile expressways. This is in the face
of the fact that a disproportionately small number of people actually own
and drive cars. The automobile elite have a throttle grip on our urban
development agenda.

According to Penalosa, democracy is not a political process. It embodies
itself in the urban development agenda. If you see billions of rupees being
spent on a road that doesn't have proper sidewalks, you don't have
democracy: you have an urban automobile elite telling you a man in a car is
more important than a man on a bicycle.