8 mobility principles PH cities should adopt
ROBERT SIY
Big and small cities in the Philippines are facing similar challenges. Road congestion is worsening by the day, and local residents are spending more time waiting for rides, standing in queues or sitting in slow-moving vehicles. Pollution and traffic are issues affecting the lives of every urban resident.
Precious time is wasted. Our physical and mental health is affected. Opportunities are lost, all because mobility in our cities steadily deteriorated. Surely, this affects economic growth and the long-term potential of our country. When workers are spending four to six hours each day struggling through difficult commutes, they have much less energy to be productive and creative.
Traditional solutions failed. Congestion has not eased by expanding roads and building bridges or flyovers for cars. On busy roads, flyovers quickly become “parking lots” of slow-moving vehicles. Increasing road space for cars only attracts further car use and more traffic.
All over the world, city administrators have abandoned car-oriented approaches and have embraced people-oriented mobility solutions. Here are eight people-oriented mobility principles that every city can adopt:
1. Move people, not cars. In the past, the objective of transport planners and traffic enforcers was to maximize vehicle speeds on major corridors. This led to projects and policies that disadvantage public transport. For example, restricting UV Express vans from using EDSA, subjecting buses and jeepneys to number-coding, and reducing the width of sidewalks–so there will be more road space available for private cars. The goal instead should be to maximize people throughput—to enable the greatest number of people to travel efficiently and safely on our roads and transportation systems.
2. Promote walking and cycling. “Active transport” modes—walking and cycling–represent the most energy-efficient means of transportation, while delivering significant health benefits. A happy and vibrant city is one where people of all ages are able to walk or cycle safely to their destinations. Spending for proper sidewalks and bike lanes are also among the most socially progressive investments, delivering benefits to the entire community, particularly to the segment of the population that can’t afford to use public transport.
Reducing lanes for cars and using the space for public transport, wider sidewalks and new bike lanes (also known as “road diet”) enables the road to move higher volume of people, thereby making more productive use of a public asset. A 3.5-meter road lane for cars moves about 2,000 persons per hour, while the same space as a sidewalk can move 9,000 persons per hour and as a bike lane can move 7,500 persons per hour. Many of the world’s top cities are discovering that, ironically, reducing road space for cars actually relieves traffic congestion, improves road safety, and enhances livability of their communities.
3. Prioritize mass transit and high capacity vehicles. On congested urban roads, it makes sense to prioritize mass transit (light rail, subway, bus rapid transit, etc.) and high capacity vehicles (buses, minibuses, vans, etc.). In the words of Enrique Penalosa, “If, in a democracy, all citizens are equal before the law, then a bus with 100 passengers should have the right to 100 times more road space than a car carrying only one person.”
Because of severe congestion on many city roads, private cars and public transport are stuck. A good solution is to devote a road lane to public transport and high occupancy vehicles, allowing them to move much faster. Such road can move a larger number of people and encourage car users to shift to public transport.
4. Design for universal access. Transport infrastructure and services need to cater to all kinds of users, especially people with disabilities. Mobility is a basic human need. Therefore, no one should be deprived of mobility, as much as possible.
The best practice globally is universal access design, meaning transport facilities and services should be designed to accommodate people who use wheelchairs or strollers, small children, and those who can’t climb stairs or have other types of physical impairment. In this regard, we need to re-think the value of elevated crosswalks which usually involve climbing many flights of stairs, making them inaccessible to many among the population.
5. Shift to low emission vehicles. Cleaner air saves lives. Every city needs to protect the health of its citizens by adopting policies that reduce vehicle pollution. In the Philippines, transportation is the largest source of air pollution. Public transport vehicles—trucks, buses and jeepneys with old engines—are sadly the biggest polluters in the transport sector.
If not for the bad air quality in our metropolitan areas, the daily commute would be much more pleasant. More people would be out walking or participating in outdoor activities. More tourists would be visiting our cities and there would be fewer people with respiratory ailments and lifestyle diseases.
Emissions standards should be enforced strictly and progressively tightened. Local governments could also designate “zero emission or low emission zones”–where polluting vehicles would be banned—such as in tourist areas, city centers, and school campuses.
6. Make use of public transport more attractive than using a private vehicle. To reduce the motivation to use private cars, public transport needs to be high quality, meaning clean, safe, convenient, reliable, and fast vehicles. The Philippines has a lot of public transport vehicles, but they are predominantly low quality and inaccessible for people with disabilities.
The Public Utility Vehicle (PUV) Modernization Program is therefore a big step in the right direction. I would argue that it is the most important transport initiative of the Duterte administration, potentially benefitting over 40 million passengers daily. Additionally, if buses were given dedicated lanes to enable them to move faster than cars, we will see many more people abandoning car use and shifting to public transport.
7. Safety is paramount. In the Philippines, there are an estimated 32 deaths daily due to road crashes at huge cost to society. Globally, road crashes are the leading cause of death for persons between age of 15-29 years. Every injury or death damages families and communities irreparably.
And yet there is not much public awareness of, or priority given to, the issue of road safety. Across national and local governments, very few regular employees are devoted to the issue of road safety. The campaign for improved road safety should begin by giving it importance at the highest levels of government.
A few targeted measures can make an immediate difference: (a) assigning institutional responsibility for road safety and holding the agency head accountable for reducing the number of road fatalities and incidents; (b) building proper sidewalks along all major roads so that people, especially school children, do not have to walk on the road; and (c) reducing the speed limits in urban areas and re-designing streets so that cars move slower.
8. Introduce measures to reduce demand for using private motor vehicles. Travel demand management should be part of the basket of solutions to improve mobility and reduce congestion. One of the most effective measures is a “parking levy”, which assesses a daily “tax” on each non-residential parking space in the city center, regardless of whether the parking space is used or not. A parking levy enables owners of these non-residential parking spaces to compensate society for the additional congestion generated by cars attracted to come into the congested city center. In cities like Miami and Sydney, revenues from the parking levy help to finance public transport services.
Another measure is decongestion charging (or road pricing) whereby car users pay a fee in order to enter the city center. This measure has been successfully applied in major cities such as London, Singapore and Stockholm. In London, a large part of the revenues from the congestion charge, nearly GBP 3 billion collected to date, have been spent on expanding London’s public transport network.
Every city will need to chart its own path, but these eight principles provide a menu of actions for local officials that want to make a meaningful difference in the mobility of their urban residents. With the approaching elections, there is no better time than now for such leaders to show that they are concerned about “moving people, not cars” and that they will focus on improving the mobility of the vast majority who do not travel in private motor vehicles.
Robert Y. Siy is a development economist, city and regional planner, and public transport advocate. He can be reached at mobilitymatters.ph@yahoo.com or followed on Twitter @RobertRsiy
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