[sustran] Re: A very short list of very bad practices

[Karthik Rao-Cavale]

Increased capacity may or may not improve accessibility, and improved
accessibility in general may or may not improve the social outcomes.

What I tried to show is that the relationship between road capacity and
accessibility is wholly context-dependent and cannot be generalized. The
difference is not merely between urban and rural settings. Cities themselves
come in various shapes and sizes. For instance almost half of the urban
areas in India do not have a municipal corporation, and presumably do not
benefit from urban services that improve connectivity. It is by no means
clear that the relationship between road capacity and accessibility in these
towns is negatively sloped, i.e. that increasing motor vehicle capacity
decreases the accessibility level of goods and services.

Perhaps, if we were speaking only of big cities like Jakarta and Bangalore,
Eric's statement might hold true, but even so, I personally prefer to be
very cautious while making generalizations.

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Bina C.Balakrishnan <binacb at gmail.com>wrote:

> These are 2 entirely different things:
>
> What Eric is referring to is increasing the carrying capacity of URBAN
> roads, and thereby encouraging the use of personal modes of transport,
> resulting in greater congestion and delays and all the rest of it.
>
> What Kartik has referred to is improving ACCESSIBILITY in rural areas where
> this is either not available or is poor, to goods and essential services not
> available in the villages.
>
> Two very different issues, and simply not comparable.
>
> Bina Balakrishnan
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:09 PM, Karthik Rao-Cavale <krc12353 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Eric,
>>
>> Frankly, I disagree with your basic premise that "any project which
>> extends
>> the capacity of the infrastructure to carry yet more moving motor vehicles
>> is a definite Worst Practice strategy", and I am very uncomfortable with
>> generalizations such as "worst practice strategies" and "best practice
>> methods". I'd much rather evaluate every program in its own context rather
>> than uprooting it from its context and looking at it as a generic program.
>>
>> For instance, India's Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (Prime Minister's
>> Village Road Scheme) does exactly what you consider "a definite worst
>> practice strategy". It extends the capacity of infrastructure to carry
>> motor
>> vehicles. And yet, it has several benefits that cannot be disregarded.
>> Allowing easier vehicle access ensures that pregnant women can get to
>> maternity wards quickly (when a motor vehicle is available) and thereby
>> reduces maternal and infant mortality. If travel to the village is more
>> convenient, village teachers and doctors might not absent themselves as
>> frequently, so services may improve. The cost of goods bears a direct
>> relationship with the cost of transporting them, so a village road can
>> reduce the costs of essential commodities like foodgrains (which might
>> have
>> an impact on nutrition levels). A well-connected village finds it easier
>> to
>> market its products, so a village may earn more income if it has road
>> connectivity.
>>
>> Obviously, this is an extreme example of how road capacity might be
>> extremely beneficial. If one were to be speaking only of cities, and
>> further, only of cities in Europe and North America, your statement might
>> have greater validity. But even so, I prefer to be more cautious in
>> evaluating programs and projects outside of their context.
>>
>> karthik
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 5:03 AM, eric britton <eric.britton at ecoplan.org
>> >wrote:
>>
>> > I received a fair number of communications both on and off-line and I
>> find
>> > them interesting, challenging, and generally very encouraging.  But at
>> the
>> > same time I am made aware of the fact that I have most probably not
>> > communicated the basic goal behind this project, so let me see if I can
>> now
>> > clarify a bit.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > For starters, this is not a witch hunt.  It is not my interest to
>> castigate
>> > or humiliate any project or group behind it.  Life is complex and filled
>> > with all kinds of internal contradictions, and moreover the kinds of
>> > projects and policies that concern us here tend to be in process, in
>> > constant evolution and adaptation, until that is the day comes in which
>> > they
>> > close down forever.  That of course is the time to do a postmortem. But
>> in
>> > our particular case here is my guess that we will be sharing information
>> on
>> > projects in process, so let us make sure that we (that I) do not give up
>> on
>> > possible adaptations and improvements that may well be in process,
>> > hopefully.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > And if the usual ambitious goal of Best Practices surveys and
>> inventories
>> > is
>> > to get out there and capture quite a large number of attractive and
>> > instructive projects, it is not at all the case in our own modest Worst
>> > Practices mini project.  What I am looking for is one or two handfuls of
>> > outstanding from examples which we can learn.  Yesterday's article in
>> World
>> > Streets on the Los Angeles Interstate 405 road widening project is a
>> good
>> > case in point.  Let us take a minute to have a look at it together:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Exemplary Strong points: (Always a good place to start since our goal is
>> to
>> > see if we can have a balanced understanding of what is going on and what
>> > may
>> > have gone wrong.)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > .         Caltrans and the other players involved in this project are
>> > extremely good at what they do.
>> >
>> > .         Not only are they world level performers when it comes to
>> > creating
>> > the planning and engineering standards to make a project like this work,
>> > but
>> > they also, in partnership with other players, consistently manage to do
>> a
>> > fine job of bringing their projects in to standard and on time.
>> >
>> > .         For those of us familiar with driving in LA, we can testify on
>> an
>> > almost daily basis the manner in which the road crews get their job
>> done,
>> > often within minutes of the plan and clean up the mess so that the
>> traffic
>> > can start to roll.  ("The cones are up.")
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Exemplary weak points and commentary:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 1.  Oh dear. It is after all 2011 and if we have learned one thing about
>> > sustainable and on sustainable transportation over the last decades, it
>> is
>> > that any project which extends the capacity of the infrastructure to
>> carry
>> > yet more moving motor vehicles is a definite Worst Practice strategy.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 2.  The concept of creating HOV lanes in the place of what went before
>> is
>> > in
>> > theory an excellent one, but in practice is often watered down and
>> abused
>> > in
>> > a number of ways.  (Maybe somebody can explain to me in a convincing
>> manner
>> > why electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles should be allowed with a single
>> > passenger on to HOV, and while I am ready to listen and whether you can
>> > pull
>> > a rabbit out of a hat that I have ever seen, I most doubtful that you
>> will
>> > convince me or any other experienced independent observer.)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 3.  The articles' authors commentary concerning the limitations of
>> > carpooling as presently practiced in the region is, according to my best
>> > information, right on target.  Does this mean, however, that HOV lanes
>> are
>> > not part of the solution?  Not at all!  But what it does mean is that
>> the
>> > old ideas about how to do this need to be brought up to date.  So, if we
>> > were to think about it from this perspective, here we have a situation
>> in
>> > which there is what looks like a potentially excellent hardware solution
>> > (i.e., converting portions of the existing road infrastructure to HOV
>> > lanes)
>> > needs to have better complementarity in terms of software and
>> operations.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 4.  So, to summarize, they failed to do the whole job.  We have at the
>> base
>> > of this project a good idea, well executed on the hardware side -- other
>> > than the fact that the project team made the old and now well known
>> error
>> > of
>> > actually increasing infrastructure capacity for cars -- while for the
>> rest
>> > they simply fail to give attention to the most important part of all --
>> > i.e., how to get more people into fewer cars with improved mobility and
>> > improved quality of life.  Basically they were taking an old mobility
>> > approach to a problem/opportunity that required new mobility strategic
>> > thinking.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > That is my take on this as an example of the sort of thing that I would
>> > like
>> > to see in our modest shared Worst Practices inventory and commentary.  I
>> am
>> > sure that a number of you will come in and do more and better, at least
>> I
>> > hope so.  But my reason for sharing this with you this morning is that I
>> > wish to offer this is an example of the kind of project analysis and
>> > commentary that I believe can help us to better organize our ideas and
>> be
>> > better prepared for future initiatives and opportunities.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I look forward to hearing from you either personally or here with your
>> > views, objections, and eventually your ideas and suggestions on the
>> basic
>> > concept here namely , that of setting out to create a collaborative,
>> open,
>> > independent Worst Practices inventory and commentary.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Kind regards/Eric Britton
>> >
>> > --------------------------------------------------------
>> > To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit
>> > http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss
>> >
>> > ================================================================
>> > SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
>> > equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
>> > (the 'Global South').
>> >
>> --------------------------------------------------------
>> To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit
>> http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss
>>
>> ================================================================
>> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
>> equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
>> (the 'Global South').
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *Bina C. Balakrishnan*
> *Consultant -
> Sustainable Transportation Policy, Planning & Management
> India
> *
> *Cell:    +91 99536 94218 (Gurgaon)*
> *           +91 98339 00108  (Mumbai)
> *
> *
> e-mail: binacb at gmail.com
>            binac at rediffmail.com
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> skype: binacb*
>
>