[sustran] [NewMobilityCafe] Ex-Bogota Mayor presents his concept of a developed city

[Eric Britton]

Ex-Bogota Mayor presents his concept of a developed city


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Wednesday, September 17, 2008
By our correspondent - http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=136333 

Karachi

What makes a difference between a developed city and a backward city is not
the quality of expressways, highways or flyovers but that of pedestrian
streets, bicycle tracks, public parks, water fronts and bus ways for mass
transit, says Enrique Penalosa, a world renowned urban strategist and former
mayor of Bogota, Colombia.

Penalosa said this during his presentation in a seminar on organised
"Sustainable Urban Development & Mobility" which was organised by the City
District Government Karachi (CDGK) in collaboration with the Clinton Climate
Initiative (CCI), a programme of the Clinton Foundation, and SHEHRI-CBE at a
local hotel on Tuesday. 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.

Penalosa who was the main speaker at the seminar discussed in detail the
vision of a developed city and gave several practical examples from the west
and parts of Asia on how that vision can be materialised.

Public parks, pedestrian streets, bicycle tracks and water fronts are
crucial for a city to be developed, he said. These are the things that
please people that make them happier and improve the quality of their lives,
he added.

What makes a difference between a developed city and a backward city is not
the quality of highways or elevated expressways but the quality of public
places, pedestrian streets, and bicycle tracks linked with busways.

"A developed city is one where rich uses public transport. A good city is a
city for the poor, elderly and children," said Penalosa. He adds, "20th
century would be remembered as a disaster in urban history since giving the
cities to cars is the biggest mistake we ever made." He further said that
the developed cities in Europe realised that building roads for cars was a
big mistake. It was not what they wanted therefore, they built pedestrian
streets stretching up to hundreds of kilometres.

Giving an example of some developed cities, he said most of the advanced
cities have demolished their highways and expressways. In Boston a highway
built at a cost of US $24 billion was demolished to construct a waterfront
and pedestrian and bicycle tracks at both sides of it. He also gave an
example of an expressway in Seoul that was built with a cost of US $7
billion and that too had to be demolished to finally convert into a
beautiful waterfront with wide pedestrian tracks on either side. He also
mentioned of a 23 km bicycle path in Columbia that is used by thousands of
people.

He also proposed for 1000 km pedestrian network in Karachi and said it would
improve people's life and they would be happy. "It would save them some 30
per cent of their income and people would love to use bicycles to get to bus
stands, he said. "In fact New York and London too would love to build
bicycle tracks but it is too late for them. However, for Karachi it is not
very late and they can think about it now," he added.

He proposed to build side ways for pedestrians as wide as possible
especially in the areas near schools. "Cars parked everywhere when there is
no space for pedestrians is not what you call development;" he criticised.
"This is not a democratic thinking," he added. There is huge lack of
political will and it is telling the poor that the people in cars are more
important than those on feet or bicycles," he commented.

Building pedestrian streets, bicycle tracks and side ways for the citizens
coupled with a good public transport system that provide mass transit will
discourage the use of cars. "Building high velocity roads and elevated
expressways won't solve the problems of Karachi," he said. "Rapid Bus
Transit (RBT) is the only solution and is perfectly possible in Karachi," he
proposed. Exclusive busways are needed for mass transit, RBT is more
flexible than subways and it can be built with low cost, he said.

A good public transport is one with low cost and high frequency, the main
problem of public transport in Karachi is 'the income of bus owners/drivers
depend on per passenger. This is why these buses have created all this mess
as they run behind each and every single passenger, pick and drop them where
they want. Under RBT the owner is paid on the basis of per kilometre
therefore the driver doesn't bother whether the bus operates empty or full
and they do not stop everywhere for passengers thus abide by their timing
and run at a decent speed. As a result of that the quality of public
transport service improves.

Penalosa further said that TransMillenio has earned great success not only
in the West but also in Asia. This is the only possibility for Karachi as
this system can carry 50,000 passengers per hour per kilometre per
direction. "There can be modern stations where people will pay for their
tickets at the station so that they can get into and off the bus in seconds
and on one ticket they can change two to three buses," he elaborated.
"Similarly there should be feeder buses to carry people to RBT stations," he
continued. He said that in Karachi the government might have to demolish
some buildings to construct busways and pedestrians' sideways but it is
worth it.

Replying to a question he said, this was perfectly possible in Karachi and
the problem was not of technology or finance. In fact there were managerial
problems and lack of political will.

Following the presentation by Penalosa, Oscar Diaz, Sr Director, Institute
for Transport and Development Policy (ITDP) delivered a talk on "Issues and
Challenges of Public Transport and Mobility in Developing Countries". He
also proposed ways to reduce use of cars from the road. "There should be car
free days, additional taxes on gasoline and licenced plates for vehicles
that will help reduce the number of cars from the roads in peak hours," he
said.

Talking to journalists, Director General Mass Transit Malik Zaheer Ul Islam
said that they had already adopted RBT for Karachi and were working on the
project on priority basis. The work on first three corridors of RBT is
likely to begin this December, however, according to Penalosa a lot of
planning and work needs to be done before the launching of RBT or it can
meet the same fate as it did in Delhi India and thus result in a failure if
launched without proper planning. 





	

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