He, however, does not want to dub this committee as a review committee and asserted that the work on the Ahmedabad project is maintaining its normal pace.First phase of the project from Shivranjani char rasta to RTO circle is nearing completion. He said that the AMC would go by the recommendations of the three member committee.

The committee has Shivanand Swami of CEPT, Shreya Gadepalli of ITDP and Deputy Municipal Commissioner D Thara as its members.

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AMC in learning mode after Delhi BRTS problems

Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam has set up a three-member committee to study the problems that arose in Delhi and analyse them to ensure that they do not recur in Ahmedabad. The committee comprises Deputy Municipal Commissioner D Thara, Prof H M Shivanand Swamy of CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and Shreya [Gadepalli] of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, New Delhi.

No deadline has been fixed for submitting the report, Gautam told reporters on Tuesday, adding that this would not cause any delay in implementation of the project. With no major design changes expected after the committee’s report, he said, the deadline of August 15, 2008, would not be affected.

The team will study two aspects — operational and design. Gautam was in New Delhi last week where he observed the problems with the system. He said the nature of the project was not exactly the same in Delhi and here, and therefore Ahmedabad should not face the same problem. “While there is no alternative route along BRT in Delhi, Ahmedabad offers an alternative route also and this would make it possible to keep the BRT route less congested,” he said.

All efforts are being made for timely launch of the project. On Tuesday, half a dozen firms submitted their bids to supply and operate buses on the corridor. They are Pavan Bindra, Mateshwari, Cargo Motors, Pankaj Gandhi and Orix Auto Infrastructure Service. The AMC requires as many as 200 buses for the project. But they would not be procured in one go, Gautam said.

“We will ask them to supply a certain number of buses after considering the viability of running the service… we will provide them with a depot for repairs and other purposes,” he said.

Gautam denied that the frequency of buses on the dedicated corridor would be impacted if the viability factor was given much importance.

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After BRT fiasco in Delhi, AMC treads cautiously on corridor

The mayor of a global metropolis, elected to his first term in 2001, set out to reduce driving and promote greener modes of transportation in his city. Congestion pricing turned out to be unfeasible, because influential political forces in the suburbs believed, rightly or wrongly, that charging people to drive into the urban core was regressive. Undaunted, the mayor found other means to achieve his transportation agenda.

The mayor is Bertrand Delanoë, and the city is Paris, where private auto use has dropped 20 percent in a few short years.

As Mayor Bloomberg and the team at DOT chart a way forward without London-style congestion charging, it’s worth noting that for all the differences between New York and Paris, Delanoë also confronted a vocal car culture while winning huge victories for pedestrians, bikes, and transit. To get a better sense of how New York can apply the lessons of Paris, Streetsblog spoke to Luc Nadal and Aimée Gauthier of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy about the hurdles faced by Delanoë and his deputy mayor for transportation, Denis Baupin.

To begin with, congestion pricing was considered completely untenable from a political point of view. Paris proper is not much larger than the proposed congestion zone in New York, and like Manhattan it is increasingly seen as the domain of the prosperous. Levying a fee perceived mainly to affect the working-class suburbs “would be very difficult to sell politically,” said Nadal. “Mayor Delanoë put that solution aside from the beginning.”

Delanoë and Baupin decided instead to rethink how the public right-of-way was divvied up on Paris streets. In 2002, they launched Quartiers Verts ("Green Neighborhoods"), an initiative to improve pedestrian space and reduce traffic in residential areas. The administration anticipated especially strong opposition to the parking policies in the plan—higher rates, a reduction in the amount of on-street parking, and the elimination of free parking altogether. To counteract the expected outcry, the city tied those reforms to the introduction of residential parking permits, which are now available for a nominal yearly fee. With RPP still fresh in New Yorkers’ minds following the congestion pricing debate, could permits be an effective carrot in a similar overhaul of parking policy here?

Delanoë’s next major initiative—Espaces Civilisés ("Civilized Spaces")—took aim at Paris’s most car-friendly boulevards. The first such project, on Boulevard de Magenta, trimmed a six-lane road down to two traffic lanes and two bus lanes, with the remainder going to sidewalks and street trees. This substantial redistribution of space did not happen overnight. Launched in 2002, Espaces Civilisés yielded its first finished boulevard in 2005. About half a dozen such transformations have been completed so far, with plans for another on the way.

Separate bus and bike lanes on Boulevard Rochechouart, one of Paris’s new “civilized spaces.”

As DOT embarks on a roughly similar project for 34th Street, Paris offers some insight about what to expect from the public and the press. “There’s been widespread satisfaction on the part of the public at large, and the local communities,” said Nadal. “However, there’s been a lot of media activity around the congestion that some of these projects have caused during construction and after.” The media fixation on slower traffic flows was picked up by Delanoë’s political opposition, though Nadal notes it didn’t find much traction. “They tried to use it as best they could,” he said, but Delanoë was re-elected to a second six-year term last fall, garnering 58 percent of the vote.

The construction of physically separated lanes for buses and bikes also set off concerns about business deliveries. The great majority of new bus lanes are curbside, so the city identified places to reserve for delivery parking, Nadal said. A new type of permit was issued for store owners, contractors, and other businesses who need short-term parking for trucks and vans. Vehicles with the delivery permit can park in the special slots for up to 30 minutes at no charge.

A delivery zone set off from a separated bus lane. At four meters wide, the lanes are designed to allow buses to pass bicycles and half-parked delivery vehicles.

The Quartiers Verts and Espaces Civilisés initiatives helped generate a 50 percent increase in bicycle modeshare, but the boost wasn’t visible enough to justify the expense of the bike infrastructure. Then came Vélib, the city’s ambitious bikeshare system. Part of the motivation behind Vélib, said Gauthier, was to make better use of existing bikeways. Providing public access to more than 10,000 bikes that anyone can ride for a pittance has doubled the number of bike trips made on Paris streets. Bicycle modeshare now stands at about three percent.

This transformative leap has come at a minimal perceived cost to the city, thanks to a deal with JCDecaux, the outdoor advertising giant. “The Vélib program was a really innovative way of packaging a deal so it didn’t cost a lot of money,” said Gauthier. “They worked with Decaux to implement the whole system. Total investment and operation costs are covered by Decaux. In return they get the right to do public advertising. That way it doesn’t feel like it’s taxpayer expense.” While Decaux retains the revenue from billboards, bus shelters, and other advertising in public spaces, the city pockets the fares paid by Vélib customers, estimated to exceed 30 million euros per year (even though the first 30 minutes of bike rental are free). For more details on the Vélib contract, fee structure, and other aspects of the Paris mobility plan, see the 2007 edition [PDF] of ITDP’s magazine, Sustainable Transport.

The Vélib station on Rue Louis Blanc. Most stations have replaced on-street parking spaces, adding up to thousands of fewer spaces for cars by the time of full implementation.

“Vélib has been a smashing success politically and in the media,” said Nadal. After seeing Vélib in action, Paris’s inner-ring suburbs—the rough equivalent of New York’s outer boroughs—clamored for their own piece of it. Already, a few municipalities have partially implemented some form of bikeshare. The Paris experience suggests that, in New York, launching an intensive pilot program with stations clustered in a dense network in one part of the city—the band between 14th and Houston, say—could set the stage for an incremental but steady buy-in from other neighborhoods.

The expansion of Vélib has not come without challenges. For one, Paris’s suburbs have their own contracts with outdoor advertising firms. To integrate with the Paris system, each would have to reach an agreement with JCDecaux, raising legal questions of unfair competition. Putting aside the vagaries of French anti-trust law, the pertinent issue for New York is that Paris and its metro region must also cope with problems of disjointed jurisdiction and bureaucratic silos. Nowhere is this more instructive than in the case of the Mobilien, the BRT-esque system launched by Delanoë and Baupin.

Paris has built dedicated busways for the Mobilien. Expanding enhanced bus service region-wide will require complex negotiations between the regional transportation authority and different municipalities.

Featuring dedicated bus corridors, signal priority, and raised stations, the Mobilien required the city to make significant changes to the infrastructure of Paris streets, including the conversion of on-street parking to bus right-of-way. At first, of course, there was an outcry. In the neighborhood of Montparnasse on the Left Bank, the locals held a funeral procession for the neighborhood and flew flags that read, “Le Mort de Montparnasse” ("The Death of Montparnasse"). The owner of the famous Café Select worried that the loss of parking space would kill his business. Now most of his employees have a reliable bus to get them to work, and it’s nicer to sit at a sidewalk café on a street that isn’t choked with traffic. “We’ve come to love it,” he said.

Taking the Mobilien across city limits, however, is proving trickier than winning over public opinion. The bus network is planned by a regional authority that negotiates routes with each municipality. “Decisionmaking can be protracted and political,” said Nadal, especially since some suburbs are much more car-oriented than Paris. In last year’s local elections, candidates debated whether to streamline this process by creating a new municipal jurisdiction that would include the first ring of suburbs. By comparison, some of the inter-agency cooperation that would most benefit New York—like having the MTA agree to let DOT’s BRT routes cross East River bridges—looks like a walk in the park.

Along with expanding Vélib, the Mobilien, and a new network of tramways ringing the city, Delanoë plans to use his second term to launch a system of car-sharing, or, to use the French term, “autopartage.” Renting a public car will cost significantly more than a Vélib bike, though regular use would add up to much less, of course, than maintaining a car of one’s own. While the network of car-sharing stations—located mostly in existing garages—is intended to actually reduce car ownership, the administration has cannily pitched it as proof that Delanoë is not out to get motorists. “He can say that he is not anti-car, but for a rational use of cars when there’s really a need,” said Nadal.

Appeasing and outfoxing the auto lobby in one fell swoop—that’s the kind of deft maneuver Delanoë has relied on more than any innate Parisian antipathy to the car. Something to keep in mind the next time someone says they can do it Paris but never in New York.

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How Paris is Beating Traffic Without Congestion Pricing

With spring colors and fragrance in full bloom at the New York Botanical Garden Tuesday morning, TSTC along with Transportation Alternatives, the Straphangers Campaign, and the Pratt Center for Community Development hosted a symposium on bus rapid transit to showcase how this transit option has transformed major cities around the world and to preview New York’s plans for BRT throughout the five boroughs.

Walter Hook and Oscar Edmundo Diaz, both of the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, discussed BRT systems in nearly two dozen cities around the world (both presentations are available on TSTC’s website). Hook’s presentation spanned multiple systems and highlighted some technical “dos and don’ts” for BRT providers (such as the advantages of median bus lanes, the need for multiple-door buses, how to fit BRT into narrow streets, etc.). His presentation drew on the broad and detailed knowledge of ITDP, which consults governments around the world in planning BRT systems and produces an 850-page BRT Planning Guide.

Diaz, a native of Colombia and a specialist in urban transport systems, focused on what many consider the world’s most successful BRT system, the TransMilenio of Bogota, Colombia. TransMilenio can carry up to 42,000 passengers per hour per direction and travels an average 18.1 mph, more than twice as fast as the average bus in NYC. It is top-of-the-line BRT, with pre-boarding fare collection, level boarding at platforms, and enclosed stations — a worthy transit system for a city of 7 million. Of course, the quickest way to get a sense of TransMilenio is through pictures:

Clockwise from top left: TransMilenio in dense urban areas, level boarding between bus and station platform, fare collection at turnstiles (not on the bus), interior of a TransMilenio bus.

Diaz emphasized how a well-built system can dramatically improve the lives of commuters and residents who lack transit access, and as a result, economic and social opportunity. While 21% of TransMilenio riders own cars, the system is also accessible to low-income commuters, mothers with children in tow, the handicapped, and the elderly. In surveys, the #1 reason TransMilenio riders said they liked the system was because it allowed them to spend more time with their families.

NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and NYC Transit President Howard Roberts jointly presented on NYC’s first BRT route, which will launch June 29 along the Pelham Parkway/Fordham Road corridor in the Bronx (MTR initially covered that story here). The agency heads also detailed some of the other projects in the first phase of the city’s BRT program. These included physically separated median bus lanes on Hylan Blvd. in Staten Island, a physically separated busway on 34th Street in Manhattan, and creating/extending dual bus lanes on Fifth and Madison Avenues between 23rd and 59th Streets in Manhattan. (Streetsblog has detailed coverage of the NYC initiatives here.)

A response panel of local voices discussed the potential of BRT from several different angles. Councilmember Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan, who authored a report on BRT in September 2007, saw BRT as a way to bring transit to communities quickly and at low cost. Elena Conte, representing COMMUTE!, called attention to how the lengthy and difficult commutes of low- and moderate-income residents reduce their quality of life (most NYC residents with commutes of an hour or longer make less than $35,000 a year). Straphangers Campaign staff attorney Gene Russianoff referred to an early vision of city planners to make buses a more robust transit option, underscoring the until-now neglected potential of advanced bus networks for NYC. Lisa Alvarado Sorin of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce emphasized that limited transit access hurt existing businesses and discouraged businesses from moving to the Bronx. Jeff Zupan of the Regional Plan Association said that advocates needed to keep fighting for transit funding in the wake of congestion pricing’s defeat, in order that new transit programs like BRT thrive and expand.

Indeed, several panelists referred to the huge financial hole in the MTA’s 2009-2013 Capital Plan (the gap has been estimated at anywhere between $13 to $17 billion dollars). While the MTA’s current 2005-2009 capital plan includes $21.9 million for BRT, this hardly seems enough even for the first phase of the city BRT program. The first phase was to be funded using $112 million of the $354 million NYC would have received from the federal government if congestion pricing had passed. NYCDOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan said that her agency was now applying for other federal grants.

Despite these gloomy financial realities, the day ended with a pleasant surprise - two Bx12 Select buses, which had been parked outside the venue, took attendees to the nearest subway stations. The sky-blue Select buses must have piqued the curiosity of onlookers as they made their way down the road. It’ll take hard work to ensure that NYCDOT and the MTA have the funding to make these buses a common sight.

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Buses Bloom in the Bronx (and Beyond)

In what she half-jokingly called “probably the first-ever co-presentation” between their two agencies, Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan stood with New York City Transit President Howard Roberts earlier this week to unveil the city’s current Bus Rapid Transit program in its entirety—including a plan that would “redefine the public realm” on Manhattan’s 34th St. by redesigning it as the city’s first “transitway.”

At a forum co-hosted by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Transportation Alternatives, the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Straphangers Campaign, over 100 people gathered at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx Tuesday morning, just a few blocks from where the city is poised to launch its first BRT project on Fordham Road, to hear international experts explain how other programs work, and don’t work, around the world. Walter Hook, executive director of New York’s Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, profiled elements of BRT models in cities like Jakarta, Indonesia and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where his organization has served a consultatory role. Oscar Edmundo Diaz, also with ITDP and once a senior advisor to former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, detailed the workings of the wildly successful TransMilenio, which Hook described as state-of-the-art in Bus Rapid Transit.

Outlining New York’s plans, Sadik-Khan previewed big changes for some of the city’s major corridors.

The block between 5th and 6th Aves. would be reserved for buses and people, with cars traveling away from the CBD on either side

• 34th Street, Manhattan: DOT will repave and restripe for five lanes between Third and Ninth Avenues by the end of this year, with painted bus lanes on the north and south sides and three auto lanes in the center. Service hours will also be extended. Phase 2 calls for a 34th Street Transitway, closing the street to cars between Fifth and Sixth and installing pedestrian plazas. On either side of that block, there would be two lanes for cars heading in one direction—toward the rivers—while on the other half of the street, buses would have two extra-wide lanes separated from traffic. In other words, buses would constitute the only through traffic on 34th Street. According to Sadik-Khan, 34th Street BRT will eventually tie in to new East River ferry service (details to be announced next week). Here’s the 34th St. slideshow.
• Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island: BRT will run from Richmond Avenue across the Verrazano Bridge. The route will include a reversible center-lane protected busway with raised boarding stations. We hope to have more on this soon.
• Fifth and Madison Avenues, Manhattan: On Fifth, dual bus lanes will be installed from 23rd to 59th Street, while dual lanes on Madison will be extended from 42nd Street to 23rd.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has pledged a unit dedicated to bus lane enforcement, Sadik-Khan said. But she added that the city needs Albany to approve bus-mounted cameras as well. Though the program lost $112 million in funding with the defeat of congestion pricing, Sadik-Khan said the city has applied for federal funds to expedite BRT build-out. While the timetable for some projects is still undetermined, Bx12 Select Bus Service will launch in June as planned, and Phase 1 of 34th Street will be completed this year.

Sadik-Khan and Roberts acknowledged the gap between New York BRT and other world-class systems, where six-door, articulated, level-boarding buses travel in buffered lanes, taking on up to 42,000 passengers per direction per hour. For one thing, Roberts said the MTA has yet to find a manufacturer that can produce a bus that both meets modern BRT standards and can stand up to the city’s demanding transit schedule (this bus wasn’t mentioned). So for now, the city is moving ahead with components it can put into place relatively quickly: pre-board payment, signal prioritization, more buses, fewer stops, and painted (mostly curbside) lanes.

“We’re not Curitiba and we’re not Bogotá,” said Sadik-Khan, “but we’re getting there.”

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A Transit Miracle on 34th Street

Imagine it’s four o’clock in the morning and you or your wife goes into labour, but there is no transport to help you reach the hospital. Or you suffer from a chronic illness that requires you to make frequent trips to a distant hospital, but you have no way to get there and you keep missing your treatments, making the illness even more resistant to medication. Or you fall off your bike and break your leg and, again, no transport – you have to wait until someone can help you, and that might take a few days.

Namibia in Southwest Africa faces enormous healthcare challenges, especially among its largely rural population. Its national HIV/AIDS infection rate stands at around 20 percent, and maternal mortality rates have doubled in recent years. The need for locally managed medical transport is more pressing than ever.

In a recent assessment of the link between transport and healthcare, the Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia (BEN Namibia) found that people living with HIV/AIDS are hit hard by the lack of transport. Patients either miss their treatment because no transport is available, or spend most of their income (up to US$8 per month) on paying for lifts in private vehicles, leaving little money to pay for the food that is an essential part of their treatment. The situation worsens in an emergency, when rural dwellers may pay up to US$66 to reach the nearest hospital.

In order to change this picture, in October 2006, BEN Namibia launched a bicycle ambulance manufacturing plant in Namibia’s capital, Windhoek. Bicycle ambulances are ‘stretchers on wheels’ that attach to normal bicycles and tow a sick person or pregnant woman to a hospital or clinic where no other transport is available. In other African countries where bicycle ambulances are in use, there have been marked declines in infant and maternal mortality rates.

BEN Namibia has distributed 54 ambulances, and more are planned for 2008. The ambulances are delivered to community-based organisations in the rural North of the country. Healthcare volunteers receive training in use, maintenance and reporting on the performance of the ambulance. A management discussion also helps partners address issues like storage, access and covering costs of maintenance. Volunteers report that the ambulances have been very useful for their work, enabling them to take clients to hospitals, clinics, or even to the nearest road where they can take a lift if the health facility is too far.

The bicycle ambulance is not intended to replace motorised ambulances, but to fill a gap where no services are provided. Indeed, for most of Namibia, there is no public emergency ambulance system, and people often die because they can not afford to pay for private transport. Until Government is able to develop adequate policies and procedures on emergency medical transport, it seems that bicycle ambulances will have a role to play.

Individuals can support the delivery of more bicycle ambulances. BEN Namibia’s US partner, ITDP, can issue tax receipts for all US donations. For every US$480 raised, an ambulance can be delivered to a Namibian community, along with tools, training and ongoing field support.

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African bicycle ambulances are making a difference

“Serious problems remain and need to be addressed,” the group said in a release. “New York’s subways, buses and commuter rail are in desperate need of many billions of dollars in operating and repair funds. And we are drowning in traffic congestion, which undermines our economy, our health and the quality of our lives.”

The nonprofit group Transportation Alternatives faulted the State Legislature for allowing “$354 million in federal transit aid to turn to dust,” by refusing an open vote, and urged the city to go ahead with measures “within their power” to curb traffic congestion.

“If you have a child with asthma or if you are late to work because your bus is stuck in traffic, today’s inaction was a cruel endorsement of the status quo,” Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement. “But we cannot let this setback jeopardize New York City’s move towards greener streets. Our leaders have a responsibility to take on these challenges head-on.”

Reforming parking regulations, expanding sidewalks, designating pedestrian priority zones, and encouraging bicycle riding are some of the moves the mayor’s office and the City Council could implement without state approval, according to Transportation Alternatives.

The city could boost transit, biking, and walking by more than 20 percent by carving wider sidewalks, protected bus lanes and bike lanes from existing streets, the group said. To boost bicycle riding the city could model a program on Paris’ Velib bicycle share, which generates 200,000 new bicycle trips per day and is funded through advertising contracts.

Most importantly, the city should increase parking charges. Over 60 percent of Manhattan-bound drivers do not pay to park, according to Transportation Alternatives. Increasing parking charges would not only reduce congestion, but it would provide revenue “to reapportion streets to favor those who use it most efficiently: bus riders, car-poolers, pedestrians and bicyclists.”

Walter Hook, the director of the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy, also called the State Legislature’s move “short-sighted,” but said many of the reduction targets that would have been achieved through congestion pricing can be met by other means.

“If I were asked by the mayor’s people what they should do,” Mr. Hook told The Observer, “I would tell them to change the parking system and implement a bus rapid transit system to give buses priority access to the streets.

“Some of the innovative parking proposals could also be [blocked] by the State Legislature, but I think the city could do a lot of things like increase charges for parking spaces, remove some of the existing spaces, [and] change zoning to prevent construction of new spaces.”

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Activists Break from Huddle After Congestion Pricing Defeat

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced the decision after a survey of Democratic Assembly members in a private conference. The decision means the city will forfeit $354 million in federal funding for trying to kick-start the plan.

Much of the opposition came from outlying areas of both Brooklyn and Queens, areas not readily accessible to the city’s mass transit system.

Meanwhile, many residents of Brooklyn neighborhoods closer to Manhattan feared that their streets would become “park and rides” as people driving in would park there, then take the subways to avoid paying the proposed $8 fee to drive into Downtown and Midtown Manhattan during business hours.

Councilman Vincent Gentile, a Democrat who represents Bay Ridge, said, “I am pleased that the State Assembly has opted to pass on this hastily conceived, half-baked plan. New York’s congestion issues are real, but taxing motorists further was never the way to go. MTA has a serious credibility gap, and any projects that promise ‘future’ improvements fail to pass the smell test by their very nature.” State Sen. Carl Kruger, who represents southern Brooklyn, was probably the lead voice in the state Senate opposed to the mayor’s plan.

He said, “To say the plan is `dead’ is a misnomer, because it shouldn’t have been born in the first place.” In this day of recession and job cutbacks, he said, introducing what amounts to another tax on middle class New Yorkers (the $8 fee) would be intolerable. Furthermore, he said, “three-quarters of the MTA’s budget goes to the LIRR and MetroNorth [rather than to the city’s bus and subway system].

“If the city wants to raise money for mass transit outside the box, they could support the `millionaires’ tax,’ which would be a tax on people making more than million dollars a year in salary. The Assembly’s majority supported it, but the mayor opposes it,” he said.

Not everyone, of course, shared this opinion on the death of congestion pricing. Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for non-auto transportation, said that the MTA will now have a harder time getting funding for its projects because it will have to seek additional sources of funding.

Commenting on Mayor Bloomberg’s statement that legislators who will complain in the future about transit improvements not getting done will have no one to blame but themselves, Norvell said, “That’s pretty close to the mark.” Norvell added that between a third and a half of the organization’s membership comes from Brooklyn.

Kate Contino, a spokesperson for another advocacy group, the Straphangers Campaign, said that without congestion pricing, waits between trains and buses will become greater, traffic jams will get worse, and the trains and buses themselves will become more crowded.

A Sunset Park resident, she said that Gowanus Expressway resembles “a giant traffic jam” during rush hours.

Aaron Brashear, co-founder of the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, said that many of the elements of the mayor’s congestion pricing plan were good, but “many people in our neighborhood [also called South Park Slope] turned against it when the mayor tied it to residential permit parking.”

Residential permit parking (RPP), designed to quell Downtown Brooklynites’ fears that their neighborhoods would become “park and rides,” was “completely elitist” as presented by City Hall, Brashear added. Since the areas near Downtown Brooklyn would presumably be presented with the opportunity to institute RPP first, he said, areas such as Fort Greene and Greenwood Heights would suffer “blowback” – cars streaming into their neighborhoods to avoid the RPP restrictions that would have existed nearby.

In general, congestion pricing aimed to cut traffic and pollution by forcing more commuters onto mass transit. It would have charged most drivers $8 to drive below 60th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Truckers would have paid $21.

The Legislature faced a Monday deadline to act on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal, which was already endorsed by Democratic Gov. David Paterson, the Republican-led Senate and the City Council. Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser did not immediately comment.

The plan ran into strenuous objections from legislators from outer boroughs and New York City suburbs who said it would unfairly target commuters and their constituents.

“The conference has decided that they are not prepared to do congestion pricing,” Silver said. “Many members just don’t believe in the concept. Many think this proposal is flawed. It will not be on the floor of the Assembly,” he said.

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Congestion Pricing Hits Dead End in Albany

Two United States-based civil engineers are recommending that Government move urgently to urbanise Portmore and institute pedestrian precincts in sections of Kingston in order to lessen traffic congestion.

Associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Connecticut, Dr Norman Garrick, speaking recently at a Jamaica Chamber of Commerce seminar on development and approval processes, argued that urbanising Portmore will help reduce traffic through Kingston as a significant portion of Kingston’s workforce resides in the sprawling St Catherine community.

Traffic in the Corporate Area has grown tremendously in the last five decades. This growth has been simultaneous with the increase in population. Portmore’s growth has been phenomenal with the population growing 100 times its size since 1970.

Garrick says Kingston’s traffic woes stem from poor development strategies that have failed to integrate commerce and residential activity, resulting in long travel hours from home to work. Urbanising Portmore, he reasons, will provide residents with the facilities and services that would otherwise only be available in Kingston.

From his observation, land usage in the Corporate Area is poor and contributes greatly to congestion. “In Kingston, you have to get into a car to do almost everything,” he points out, adding that Jamaica has been following the pattern of development of the US where commercial and residential land usage are separated.

“The basic assumption was that everybody was going to have a car and would be able to drive everywhere,” he says.

Centralised neighbourhoods

He is suggesting that Government plans more neighbourhood centres when pursuing development to allow people to access services with ease.

“Papine is a good example. You can shop there and kids can go to school there. But a lot of Kingston is not like that, so basically you have to get into your car to do everything,” Garrick says.

But there are other trends, he points out, that are adding to the problem of congestion. He says the development of mega high-speed highways is encouraging housing development directly beside the roadway, counteracting efforts to reduce congestion.

A crowded highway

“Along Highway 2000, little schemes will start to develop and, over time, many persons are going to live there. With no schools and services in these schemes, people will have to go out. So, over time, the highway is going to get very very crowded,” Garrick warns.

Jamaican planners, he continues, have also patterned the US trend of constructing high- speed roads within the city. The move, he says, only encourages people to get around only by driving.

It’s a point that Enrique Penalosa of the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy in New York shares. He says people should be given an option of walking, riding or driving on roadways. He is criticising Government for its lack of attention to pedestrians by building roadways without sidewalks and for failing to maintain those that exist. He argues that the widening of roads, as an option to reduce congestion, only heightens the problem.

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Poor road development practices drive congestion

Governor Fauzi Bowo said Thursday the administration would ban all other motorists from using the seven busway corridors.

“Motorists will not be allowed to use busway lanes because the lanes were originally designed only for busway buses,” he said at City Hall.

The ruling is expected to please busway passengers, who have seen a drop in service since the introduction of the mixed-traffic arrangement, a policy that allowed regular motorists to use busway lanes, about five months ago.

The administration and the Jakarta Police agreed in November to introduce the mixed-traffic arrangement during peak travel hours on several busway corridors.
The policy was rolled out in response to complaints from road users on worsening congestion in the city.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono even joined the protests, urging the governor to open the busway lanes to motorists to help ease traffic congestion.

Lack of monitoring, however, turned what was to be a limited opening of some busway lanes into a basic free-for-all, with cars taking over almost every busway corridor, resulting in longer busway travel times and frequent delays on most corridors.

The number of busway passengers has plunged 14 percent to about 180,000 people a day since the mixed-traffic arrangement was implemented.

However, Jakarta Police support the mixed-traffic arrangement, which they see as necessary for dealing with traffic congestion.

Last week, the police’s traffic director, Sr. Comr. Djoko Susilo, said the police preferred that motorists be allowed to use busway lanes.

“The law on traffic and public transportation gives the police discretion to give out tickets and manage the traffic based on actual circumstances,” he said during a meeting between the police and the City Council last Friday.

“So, we automatically discard the administration’s traffic ordinance that rules on busway lanes’ exclusivity because, legally, the law is higher than the ordinance.”

In preparation for Monday’s policy change, public order officers have since Thursday been deployed at busway corridors to guide regular motorists out of the lanes.

The officers are stationed at main points along the corridors, including intersections on Jl. Mampang Prapatan, South Jakarta.

They are using portable metal fences to prevent drivers from entering the lanes.

Public order officers are monitoring parts of Corridor 6 linking Ragunan, South Jakarta, to Kuningan, Central Jakarta, as well as four spots along Corridor 5, which links Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta to Ancol in North Jakarta, on Jl. Jatinegara Timur, East Jakarta