[sustran] Women Bus Drivers in the Philippines

[Roselle Leah K. Rivera]

"bus companies which hire them will be
 exempted from the number coding scheme...."

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/215216/nation/13-lady-bus-drivers-graduate-from-training


.....and given the context of the bigger picture of unemployment and underemployment in many developing countries like the Philippines, women who are  electrical engineers and  registered nurses..  get to work as drivers of public transportation instead!


http://www.gmanews.tv/story/213530/nation/mmda-to-deploy-1st-batch-of-female-bus-drivers-in-march


  ROSELLE LEAH K RIVERA Faculty Department of Women and Development Studies College of Social Work and Community Development University of the Philippines Diliman
 Quezon City PHILIPPINES



--- On Thu, 3/24/11, Todd Edelman <edelman at greenidea.eu> wrote:

From: Todd Edelman <edelman at greenidea.eu>
Subject: [sustran] Seville: "Great is the enemy of good"
To: WorldCityBike at yahoogroups.com, "'Sustran List'" <Sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
Date: Thursday, March 24, 2011, 6:03 PM

*Seville: "Great is the enemy of good"*

Please see 
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/2011/03/seville-great-is-enemy-of-good.html 
to make comments and see photo and links.

The People for Bikes website has a nice,
 short article about the recent 
very rapid increase in cycling mode share in Seville, Andalusia (Spain), 
location of the Velo-city cycling conference which ends tomorrow. The 
separated cycling infrastructure - Seville was awarded the UN Habitat 
Best Practice Award for it's creation - was cited as the main reason for 
this. I am curious about this excerpt:

/"Great is the enemy of good." The city's infrastructure emphasizes 
network connectivity, not perfection. It's far from the polished 
bikeways of Northern Europe, but the protected bikeways of Seville are 
safe, convenient and get you where you need to go without interruption. /

First of all, I am happy to find out that most bike space was taken from 
car space.

But I don't understand how bike space taken from pedestrian space can be 
compensated elsewhere. After all, it's not like carbon and e.g. trees -- 
and how do pedestrians move in these
 spaces after losing space? Of 
course it is just political.

What is the lack of "perfection"? I would guess that the writer from 
People for Bikes was referring to what a Catalonian mobility consultant 
told me about: The two-way paths such as the one in the photo above - 
and this seems to be the most common design - which are narrow (two 
wider cargo/child-carrying bikes passing would need to veer into other 
space if available and of course if people are allowed to/want to ride 
side-by-side it is dangerous and/or illegal and one would constantly 
need to accelerate in front of or drop behind their travel partner.)

Certainly this lack of perfection - and conditions are certainly not 
perfect in many Northern European towns or even the best of them - is 
less important if unwarranted by the great but still low 7% mode share - 
but what if demand increases further? Will there be enough pressure to, 
for
 example, make double lanes single and a counterpart added to the 
other side of the street? The example photo in the linked article has a 
two-way on a one-way street which looks a 3- or 4-lane motorized traffic 
canal with parking removed on one side for the bike stuff.

And regarding "without interruption" I would like to see an example of 
major crossroads. Hopefully some colleagues and others who are there can 
fill us in.

Last but certainly not least, do the citizens of Seville deserve less 
than people in Amsterdam, Copenhagen etc. ? Certainly not, and regarding 
budgets and politics the very important question that needs to be made 
is if infrastructure for motor vehicles is just as far from perfection 
there.

 From what I have read and heard there are other great things which help 
make Seville great. It is certainly always a bit nicer to cycle in the 
sunshine with a good meal (e.g. wine and
 rice pudding) at the end of 
your journey.

-- 

Todd Edelman
Green Idea Factory,
a member of the OPENbike team

Mobile: ++49(0)162 814 4081

edelman at greenidea.eu
www.greenidea.eu
todd at openbike.se
www.openbike.se

Skype: toddedelman

Urbanstr. 45
10967 Berlin
Germany

***

OPENbike - Share the Perfect Fit!

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