MOBILIZE Speaker Series: Sameer Sharma, Secretary for Smart Cities, India
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a splash two years ago when he announced a plan to tackle his nation’s expected rapid urbanization. 100 smart cities would bloom across the world’s second most populous country, with the first 20 serving as “lighthouses” that would inspire the estimated 4,000 cities that are home to one-third of the population – a share that is expected to climb to over 40% by 2030.
Enshrined in a flagship program called the Smart Cities Mission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launched a city challenge with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies. In an effort to change entrenched corruption at the municipal level, cities would compete against each other to deliver the best proposals for a share of a whopping US$15 billion allocated by parliament.
As the ministry’s Secretary for Smart Cities, Sameer Sharma is at the nerve center of this massive undertaking. ITDP spoke with him about how India has refined the smart city concept.
ITDP: The theme of the recent MOBILIZE Santiago conference was “just and inclusive cities become the new normal.” How do Indian cities measure up to this ideal?
Sameer Sharma: India’s Smart Cities Challenge invited cities to propose developments that transform existing areas, including slums, into better-planned ones, or explore the potential for new development of greenfield sites outside city boundaries to accommodate a growing urban population. Apart from setting the core objective of improving basic hard and soft infrastructure and introducing smart solutions to Indian cities, the Smart Cities Mission set out a broader ambition to “improve quality of life, create employment and enhance income for all, especially the poor and the disadvantaged, leading to inclusive cities. ”
Contrary to the assumption that smart cities project would only be taken up in affluent areas, most cities have chosen neighbourhoods with substantial slum areas, dense and ill-provisioned inner city zones, and railway stations. For example, slum redevelopment forms a major component of the Ahmedabad plan. The redevelopment proposal for Wadaj slum includes housing for 8,000 slum dwellers and development of a community centre, schools, aanganwadis [mother and child care center], and complete infrastructure improvement including open spaces in the area. 12 out of the 20 lighthouse cities have cumulatively proposed affordable housing projects offering around 55,000 housing units.
ITDP: What do you see as the role that the national government should play in helping cities achieve these goals?
Sameer Sharma: The London School of Economics studied India’s Smart City Challenge and found that it was perceived as being instrumental in promoting a degree of agency and flexibility for city governments and encouraging them to take initiative while operating within an established federal framework. Many respondents felt that the competitive component of the Smart Cities Challenge allowed cities considerable space to develop their proposals. This greater flexibility was also reinforced by the encouragement to identify financing mechanisms independent from state or national sources.
The Smart Cities Mission was perceived as a localized program that gave city governments the space to shape their city’s proposals without much intervention from the central government. This can be attributed to the center’s capacity building initiatives, and the competitive format itself that generated enthusiasm and involvement at the municipal level. On the whole, the central government’s role in the competition phase appeared to be limited to competition guidelines and capacity building exercises through which it shared best practices, ideas and modes of financing projects. Overall, the Smart Cities Challenge signaled a shift in the balance of power between city, state, and central government.
How do you define smart cities? What are the key things that make a city smart?
A smart city has a different connotation in India than in, say, Europe. Even in India, a smart city means different things to different people and the conceptualization of a smart city varies from city to city, state to state, and region to region, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, and resources and aspirations of the city residents. No single definition can capture the diverse conceptualizations of city residents, especially in the unique Indian culture containing dynamic, diverse, and contextual rules in use. A survey by the Center for Study of Science, Technology & Policy found that there are nearly four-dozen ways of defining a smart city. Therefore, the Indian Smart City Mission did not start with a definition of a smart city but invited cities, through a competition, to define their idea of “smartness” and the pathway to achieve it.
As a result, drawing on the Smart City Challenge proposals, the following definition has been derived: The Indian Smart Cities Mission adapted and redefined the global discourse around ‘Smart Cities’ to create its own unique take on a ‘Smart City’, one that features but is not centered exclusively on technology and includes a strong emphasis on area-based development, citizen preferences, and basic infrastructure and services.
Two trial runs were organized by the Chennai Smart City Ltd. to test the proposed design for the pedestrian plaza in T.Nagar. The 700m stretch was bustling with activity and shoppers during both trial runs – a hit amongst the public.
The Coimbatore Smart Streets Exhibition was organized by the Coimbatore Corporation and Coimbatore Smart City Ltd. as a community engagement program, to inform the citizens of the designs of the 6 Model Roads and gather their feedback.
What cities around the world are you most interested in today? Who is doing innovative work in your field?
Several cities are doing remarkable work in the field of ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’ urban development. I am impressed with Copenhagen on walkability, Adelaide for placemaking, integrated command and control centers in New York and Berlin, how Oakland has tackled liveability, Bilbao’s strategies for urban renewal, and Barcelona’s overall urban transformation.
Is the challenge approach fueling innovation within Indian Cities?
An important innovation in the competition process was that it allowed state governments to select cities to participate, while municipal governments had to demonstrate enthusiasm in order to be successful. A second innovative development of the Smart Cities Challenge was that it sidestepped the issue of forcing state governments to devolve funding by allowing convergence of funding from other schemes. By requiring agency and alignment from both city and state, the Smart Cities Challenge encouraged cooperation and led to increased municipal initiative while allowing the continued role of the state government.
This interview is the part of the MOBILIZE Santiago Speaker Series. In this series, we will feature interviews with speakers and researchers from VREF’s Future Urban Transport where they will discuss their work in sustainable transport and reflecting on MOBILIZE Santiago’s theme: Just and Inclusive Cities Become the New Normal. To learn more about MOBILIZE Santiago and next year’s summit in Dar es Salaam, visit mobilizesummit.org.
MOBILIZE Speaker Series: Marielle Franco Councilwoman, Rio de Janeiro
Marielle giving her keynote address at MOBILIZE Santiago
Brazil is in a state of political upheaval and economic crisis, and just one year after the Olympics, the situation is not much better in Rio de Janeiro. The state government is bankrupt and a new conservative mayor is pushing back on the city’s progressive gains. However, there is a powerful voice in the chambers of city council, one with a biography different from the deep pockets and private school education of your typical Carioca politician.
Marielle Franco was born and raised in Maré, a complex of favelas on a tidal flat near Rio’s international airport. She became a mother at age 18 and raised the child on her own, managing a scholarship to a prestigious university. From a job as a preschool teacher, she got drawn into politics and ten years ago began working for the upstart leftist Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL in Portuguese). Last year, she won a city council seat – one of just six women on the 51 member council – and represents the voice, and daily lived experience, of the city’s black and brown women. For example, she has pushed for Rio buses to stop anywhere along a route so that women have a shorter, and safer, walk home at night.
ITDP: The theme of MOBILIZE Santiago was “just and inclusive cities become the new normal.” To what extent does Rio de Janeiro reach this ideal?
Marielle Franco: Rio de Janeiro is not a fair, democratic or egalitarian city and unfortunately, with regard to mobility, it remains an unequal city as well. There is an investment in some [richer] areas, for example, Center and South Zone, to the detriment of a part of the West Zone, speaking specifically of the neighborhoods of Santa Cruz and Cosmos, for example.
Marielle and staff from ITDP Brazil on the MOBILIZE Santiago cycling tour
What did you learn from Santiago’s experience here at MOBILIZE?
I’m impressed with Santiago. It’s a city where you can experience urbanity on foot and experience a good integration of modes, especially the subway. It was always surprising to look at the Andes from a subway station as well! MOBILIZE was also a great opportunity to talk to people who have been involved in urban intervention projects, actions, planning and research.
How does the experience of being born and raised in Maré give you a different perspective from most people who work for the city?
From lived experience. In the day-to-day of those who need to take long commutes, a large part of the everyday occurs on buses and in the subway. The waiting hours, the difficulty to get information on the best route to take and the experience of taking the wrong route and having to make unnecessary transfers happened often. Until I went to university, I did not know the city even though I was born and always lived in Rio. Access to opportunities expands when you expand your knowledge and explore the world. Otherwise, if you do not have these experiences of how to get to the hospital, for example, or to the movies, or university, if you only stay in one part of town, you take transit less and have less experience with the city. This is not only my experience- hundreds of thousands of women do this every day, struggling to get around the city. This makes me more qualified to demand action from the city and to change public policy based on those experiences.
Rio has built a lot of transport over the last five years, specifically BRT. How do you assess the impact of these megaprojects on the lives of low-income communities and residents in the city?
For a moment of great investment in urban projects and after such major events, the expectations were for better results. But what do we see today? The choices made have not been discussed with the population as they should, and despite the promise of increased circulation, I think unfortunately what has remained as an [Olympic] legacy is a greater violation of social rights, and not a more democratic circulation by the city.
TransOlímpica BRT Corridor in Rio next to a 6 lane highway
What would you change about the way Rio goes about urban planning in order to improve the lives of low-income people in Rio?
To start, I think the guidelines for greater access and rights to the city are already in a master plan that is not followed. I think the challenge is to think from the demands that already exist, to rethink favela priorities – sanitation, for example, and other fundamental rights. This, of course, is part of integrated planning. With what is provided in the master plan, we must build dialogue with the population, which is after all who uses and who seeks the services. It is fundamental to think, for example, “is it really a priority to expand line four of the subway to the” Recreio dos Bandeirantes neighborhood? “This is a proposal that has been reinforced by the municipal transportation secretary and the deputy mayor. It is time to look at the whole of the city, and with this logic, benefit a larger population. Investments should focus on another part of the west, which is not Recreio. It is a question of how to start from a place of the demands we have- the demands of favelas for basic rights.
How are Brazilian cities functioning within the current political climate and in the midst of the economic crisis?
I think Brazilian cities are undergoing a reorientation. The crisis is also a creative opportunity. If you have difficulty then you also need to reorganize. For example, look at the self-organizing of motorcycle taxi drivers or of social movements themselves. The current political situation interferes directly in the lives of all. Unfortunately, the experience of living in public spaces and circulating around the city is impaired, but I think we can make a qualitative leap thinking about the alternatives. That is if there is a dialogue between civil society and public power, if there is planning, if we talk about financing. I hope that in the crisis we can think about bettering the coming years by building a more accessible city and reducing travel time, guaranteeing the right to the city in its completeness.
This interview is the part of the MOBILIZE Santiago Speaker Series. In this series, we will feature interviews with speakers and researchers from VREF’s Future Urban Transport where they will discuss their work in sustainable transport and reflecting on MOBILIZE Santiago’s theme: Just and Inclusive Cities Become the New Normal. To learn more about MOBILIZE Santiago and next year’s summit in Dar es Salaam, visit mobilizesummit.org.
Child Friendly Cities are Friendly Cities for Everyone
According to the Department of Transport Statistics, more than 18,500 children (under 14 years old) die of traffic accidents in China every year – 2.5 times the number in Europe and 2.6 times in U.S.A. Among many others, poor travel conditions is a key component leading to these tragedies. While many cities around the world have started to address issues of safety in transport, the first in China is the city of Changsha, located in the south-central region of the country. Due to Changsha’s awareness of the importance of creating better transport infrastructure for children and ITDP China’s advocacy, the Changsha Urban Planning Bureau included a Child Friendly City (CFC) initiative into the Changsha Long-term Development Plan 2050, and began to launch a series of transit improvement projects last year. Now, with ITDP’s assistance, the City of Changsha is not only the first to address the issue, it is the first in the nation to officially be equipped with leading CFC measures. Many other Chinese cities are expected to follow Changsha’s footsteps to implement innovative actions and become child friendly.
Poor walking conditions for people, especially children in Changsha (2016)
Since the last International Children’s Day in June 2016, ITDP China has been working for the Changsha CFC project with Changsha Urban Planning Bureau, Shenzhen New Land Tool (SZNLT), and many other local design institutes. ITDP China provided technical support including preliminary training for government officials and local design institutes, and the professional review for 10 pilot demonstration school proposals. The proposals included 186 implementation items, including 121 short-term items with a 19.085 million Yuan investment and 65 long-term items with a 108 million Yuan investment. These improvements consist of walking spaces, crossings, traffic organization, transport infrastructure, and public spaces around schools, aiming to establish a better environment for children’s studying, living, and playing.
The Changsha CFC School Area Urban Planning and Design Guide, mostly created by ITDP China and SZNLT, was issued by the Changsha Urban Planning Bureau late last year to provide design guidelines at the city level for any newly-developed or regenerated school development.
Changsha CFC Publications (Guidelines, Booklets, APP)
ITDP China has also assisted the Changsha Urban Planning Bureau and local design institutes to host a series of CFC communication activities, including classes open to the public in the Changsha Urban Planning Exhibition Hall and presentations to the Urban Planning Bureau, the Education Bureau, local design institutes, etc., to advocate for children’s rights. As a result, adequate resource commitments and budget analysis for children from the city government was approved creating a lot of media and public buzz. One of the most exciting results from the campaign has been the public participation, particularly from the children, during the design process.
Children participation and communication activities
As Changsha Urban Planning Bureau said, by International Children’s Day 2017 (June), Changsha city will implement improvements to a wider area around the schools, including implementing a refuge island, parking demand management, traffic organization for peak hours, sign integration, and public space upgrades. These improvements were implemented as promised, showcased in the images below.
Safe sidewalks around schools with bollards or fences（Left: Before 2016, Right: After 2017)
Changsha’s contribution to CFC, including this project, which won the 2017 China’s CFC Community Service Projects Award issued by the China Child-friendly Community Work Committee in April, has inspired a lot of Chinese cities’ awareness of CFC. ITDP China was invited for a second time to participate in the Shenzhen CFC development on demonstration projects in communities, schools, hospitals, and libraries. More technical support like transport environment design, public space proposals, and international best practices will be provided. ITDP aims to promote more CFC demonstration projects in other Chinese cities, and cooperate with national institutes to formulate a national CFC guideline. This way, ITDP can continue to help create cities where all people can travel safely because when cities are designed with children at the focus, they are safe, sustainable environments for everyone.
Ongoing Shenzhen CFC Development
MOBILIZE Santiago: Just & Inclusive Cities Become the New Normal
This year, the MOBILIZE Summit in Santiago, Chile was a call to action on our theme of “just and inclusive cities become the new normal”. This vision of mobility and community demands for transport policy advantages to be experienced more equitably throughout neighborhoods in our cities. We must consider how people really travel, and how goods are delivered. Just and inclusive cities promise broader distribution of resources and therefore, justice.
Santiago won the 2017 Sustainable Transport Award, the criteria for hosting MOBILIZE, by making improvements to walking conditions in the downtown area, enhancing access with transit-priority streets, and adding new kilometers of cycling lanes. In a region where much of the infrastructure has been car-oriented, Santiago is in the process of reprioritizing to improve access to the city. Walking is how humans naturally get around, but walking infrastructure continues to be neglected at crisis levels internationally due to the continued emphasis on moving cars as fast as possible. Inequality in city design produces concentrations of wealth and poverty, and two populations that experience the city very differently. Making difficult trade-offs over issues such as parking and urban freight delivery in how street space is used is part of the challenge. Santiago is confronting a history of class divisions, showing how much progress can be made when city leadership along with a coalition of supporters gives budget and policy priority to low-carbon, inclusive modes.
The MOBILIZE Summit brought together researchers, practitioners, civil society groups, private sector stakeholders, international financial institutions and philanthropies to see first-hand how Santiago developed more sustainable mobility projects. It also gave participants a chance to share ideas about the challenges Santiago and other cities still face around the theme of inclusivity.
Accelerating the implementation of sustainable transport is the best available solution to the dire forecasts of global climate change, the challenges of social inequality and the urgency cities face in coping with rapid urbanization. Santiago initiated several efforts gearing up for and following up from the MOBILIZE Summit:
- César Rodríguez, Secretary of Planning in the Municipality of Santiago, announced that the city will support a project that decks approximately three kilometers of the Central Highway, a sunken multi-lane thoroughfare, to create an at-grade public park next to downtown Santiago.
- A new bidding process to operate Transantiago buses is coming. The process which is handled by the Ministry of Transportation includes half of the routes and buses of Santiago. The new firms are expected to be announced by March 2018.
- A new Metro Line was announced just before the event. The line will run east-west covering 25 kilometers and considering 21 stations.
- Mayor Felipe Alessandri announced two weeks later that three blocks of Bandera Street in the heart of downtown Santiago will be devoted to pedestrians and cyclists.
Cities can not be places that only the privileged get to enjoy, but the poor must endure. This, we know from history, is unsustainable and has led to political upheaval. The decision about whether a street is used primarily by private cars, heavy trucks or shared demands is a decision made by politicians, not technical experts. It is possible for cities to be places where individuals can pursue their own goals and also benefit from inclusive, compact urban design that fosters social cohesion. For the sake of our society, our economies, and our environments, we must keep involving more perspectives outside of our typical transport bubbles to make just, equitable cities the new normal.
Michael Kodransky
Director of Global & U.S. Initiatives & Head of MOBILIZE
ITDP
Protected: All-Door Boarding Demo in Boston Blazes Path For Needed Bus Improvements in U.S. Cities
How Mexico City Became A Leader in Parking Reform
This post is available in Spanish on ITDP Mexico’s website here.
On July 11, Miguel Ángel Mancera, Mayor of Mexico City announced the “limitation of parking spaces in the city construction code”. This new norm changes minimum parking requirements to maximum depending on the land use of the construction. This puts Mexico City, the largest city in North America, far ahead of American cities in this commitment improving land use, prioritizing people over cars.
As our cities grow, street space and real estate are becoming ever more valuable commodities. However, outdated regulations still require developers to build huge amounts of parking for residential and commercial buildings, regardless of factors such as car ownership, proximity to transit, and market demand. This has a whole host of negative consequences, including incentivizing driving, creating congestion, and reducing the space available for more important purposes, such as housing, transit, and public space. In the past week, there have been several great pieces written on the importance of this change, particularly in how it related to affordable housing, a growing need in nearly every major city.
Massive parking garages in Mexico City huge amounts of city space at the expense of other uses, such as housing.
Surface parking lots in Mexico City are built not because of demand, but outdated regulations that take valuable street space away from people.
For housing, the limit is 3 parking spaces per unit no matter its size, and for offices bigger than 100 square meters, the limit is 1 parking space per every 30 square meters. It also considers mandatory space for bicycle parking and the creation of a Fund to Improve Mass Transit that the developers must pay as they approach the maximums in the Central area of Mexico City. More details for this new regulation can be found here (in Spanish).
This major policy change is a result of ITDP Mexico’s advocacy over the last 10 years, when we began working with government agencies to develop alternatives to the private car, as well as mechanisms to reduce its use. To achieve this, the rational management of parking was key. So in 2014, with the support of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (SEDUVI), the research study “Less parking, more city” (“Menos cajones, más ciudad”) was born providing enough evidence to show the need of a change of paradigm. This study evolved into a proposal to modify the Construction Code that ITDP delivered to Mexico City’s Government in 2015.
The full report from ITDP Mexico, in English, that resulted in this major policy reform.
Less Parking, More City gathered evidence of unsustainable trends for the city such as more square meters are being built for parking spaces than for housing. In other words, we are constructing buildings to allocate cars, while we are sending people to live in the periphery of the city, far away from their jobs, their families, and their everyday lives. This clearly goes against our aim of the inclusive and equitable cities.
Another finding of the study is that more than 40% of everything built in Mexico City is parking spaces, above any other land use including housing. In average a parking space requires between 27 m2 and 150,000 mexican pesos (about 8,500 USD) of direct constructions costs (a conservative estimate). In the 251 big real estate projects analyzed between 2009 and 2013, more than 250,000 parking spaces were constructed, with an estimated cost of 37,000 Million pesos. With that money 18 lines of Bus Rapid Transit (Metrobús in Mexico City) lines could have been built to move more than 3 million users per day.
On the other side, statistically, the demand per parking space is lower than that previously mandated by minimum parking requirements. When comparing the quantity of parking spaces in the projects, we noted that in the great majority of cases, builders try to get as close as possible to the minimum required. 67.7% of the cases studied devoted less than 10% of parking spaces above the bare minimum required.
Besides this, it is important to note that due to the size and dimensions of the land and projects, it is very difficult for developers to make exactly the bare minimum quantity required, so it usually actually turns out to be greater than this. For example, a development has a minimum of 90 parking spaces allowed, but logistically the project needs at least 3 stories for parking with a capacity for 40 parking spaces on each, so it makes economical sense for the developer to just build the 120 parking spaces.
Once this kind of evidence was gathered and the best international practices were studied, the cooperation between agencies and individuals among a diversity of areas has been necessary for the implementation of this proposal. It is important to highlight that this collaborative dynamic could function as a replicable model for the implementation of positive public policies in our cities. This collaboration was aided with a contest to rethink parking lots; an idea from the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), with the support of strategic allies coming from private companies, civil society organizations, and a multidisciplinary jury of prestigious members: architects, urban planners, economists and public policy experts. During the award ceremony, in February of this year, the City’s Mayor announced the need to reform the current Car Parking Norm, as part of his mobility and development government strategy for a more people-centered City.
A change of policy of this importance is not the work of a single individual or institution. ITDP Mexico supported the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, and the Ministry of Mobility in the process of technical discussion with the different important guilds that are essential in the on-the-ground implications of this, such as the Real Estate Association (ADI). At the same time, agreements were made with the National Association of Supermarkets, Convenience and Departments Stores and also with the National Chamber of the Industry of Development and Promotion of Housing with the best of intentions to reach win-win agreements. The Legislative Assembly also recognized the need to reform the policy, and the role of civil society was incredibly important. Bicitekas, WRI, editorial house Arquine and, of course, IMCO, were all key to creating this more powerful, cross-cutting and lasting public policy.
Next steps
To reduce the need to build parking spaces is a fundamental step in the right direction, and opens up the opportunity for further work and strategies. ITDP Mexico will continue to work with the city and our partners to ensure this success continues, with these next steps:
- Education to the city’s residents on the advantages of this new norm, and support for behavioral changes around transport to maximize this impact.
- Follow up of the direct impacts of the policy to measure variables such as enforcement, reduction in traffic, quantity of square meters dedicated to new uses, such as more and improved public spaces.
- Continue and accelerate the options of sustainable urban mobility, specifically mass transit.
- Empower and extend the program of parking meters EcoParq, a natural and necessary ally of this change.
- Find mechanisms to allow for more supply of housing at accessible prices in the central areas of the City, ensuring that developers take full advantage of this goals of this policy.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Wins 2018 Sustainable Transport Award
Dar es Salaam is the first African City to win the STA
Moscow, Russia will receive an Honorable Mention
Dar es Salaam, a city of five million, is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, a major economic hub in East Africa and a major port city on the Indian Ocean. Over the last year, Dar has launched a series of transformative improvements to transit, cycling and walking, the most important of which is the Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, or DART. These efforts have made it the first African city to win the prestigious Sustainable Transport Award in its 13-year history.
DART is a high-quality, high-capacity BRT system incorporating best practice design and features, is the first true BRT system in East Africa. The first phase of the network was supported by the World Bank, and opened May 16, 2016. It spans 21 km of trunk route, and serves 160,000 passengers per day on average with the current fleet of 140 buses. By mid-next year (2018), when the first phase becomes fully operational with over 300 buses, the system is projected to carry an estimated 400,000 passengers per day. DART has reduced commute times by more than half for residents, who previously faced upwards of four hours stuck in traffic every day. At stations with passing lanes, some of the existing bus fleet can provide express service to key destinations, saving even more time.
Serving the key axis of Morogoro Road and running through the city center, DART is more than a public transit system, it has brought improvements for pedestrians and cyclists as well. The project includes cycle paths, sidewalks, and improved pedestrian safety with well-designed, at-grade pedestrian crossings also complying with universal accessibility principles.
The project is being implemented in six phases, which will cover the entire city with high quality BRT service, and the accompanying cycling and walking infrastructure. DART’s second phase, to be completed over the next year, is supported by the African Development Bank, and the planned third and fourth phases will be supported by the World Bank (P150937).
“The Sustainable Transport Award has always been about transformation, the committee is looking to call attention to political courage and regional best practices, especially in places that are often overlooked,” said Michael Kodransky, Chair of the Sustainable Transport Award Committee. “This project is transformative for Dar, and it offers a source of inspiration for other African cities, where new transport systems are being planned. We’re thrilled to promote over the next year the great work that Dar has done, and convene experts from all over the world to see first-hand what they’ve accomplished.”
Moscow, Russia will receive the honorable mention for an impressive new train line, reorganization of bus transport, and street redesigns to improve conditions for pedestrians and transit users. “Dar has been selected as having the potential to accelerate sustainable transport projects in booming Sub-Saharan Africa, but the work that Moscow has done is likewise incredible, and we plan to continue engaging with them in any way we can,” said Kodransky. “In particular, the committee was impressed by the rail and bus transit expansions as well as street improvements with high quality public spaces.” Both cities will be honored at an award ceremony in Washington, DC in January 2018 during the Transport Research Board annual meeting.
“DART is a great example of the progress being made in the East Africa region, and the success of this system will hopefully inspire replication,” said Arturo Ardila-Gomez, a member of the Sustainable Transport Award Committee, and Global Lead for Urban Mobility & Lead Transport Economist at the World Bank. “The committee is proud to give this well-deserved recognition to Dar, which has taken a big step in improving the quality of life for its citizens.”
“The first phase of the BRT is already proving to be transformational for Dar, both socially and economically,” added Bella Bird, World Bank Country Director for Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Somalia. “Increased transit speeds, improved pedestrian access, safe, reliable transit has the potential to significantly enhance urban life here. It is wonderful to see the travel time savings given back to commuters of about 16 days of their life per year, which were previously lost in traffic jams. We look forward to celebrating the achievement of this award with the city”.
Yichang BRT, Yichang, China
Metrobus, Mexico City, Mexico
Other STA winning cities include Seoul, South Korea; Paris, France; Guangzhou, China; San Francisco, USA; Mexico City, Mexico; and Yichang, China.
Dar es Salaam will be the site of MOBILIZE 2018, ITDP’s annual Sustainable Transport Summit organized in partnership with the Volvo Research and Education Foundations. The event will showcase best practices and lessons in sustainable mobility to an international group of city practitioners and researchers, spotlighting this emerging city as a learning lab. For more information, visit mobilizesummit.org.
The New & Improved TOD Standard
ITDP thanks our partners, the Ford Foundation, for their support of the new TOD Standard as an important resource to create equitable, transit centered cities around the world.
The TOD Standard stands for the rights of all to access the city: to walk and cycle safely, to easily and affordably reach the most distant destination through rapid and frequent transit, and to live a good life free of dependence on cars. It stands for access to opportunity, education, services, and all the resources available via no- or low-cost mobility options.
At the Ford Foundation, many decades of work on urban poverty reduction and a focus on social justice have taught us that the combined cost of housing and transport is by far the heaviest burden on poor urban households’ finances and time budgets. These costs are too often the main barrier to a true share in human development and well-being in prosperous cities for low-income and marginalized communities. We know we will not make meaningful progress on urban poverty without tackling the spatial inequities built in to our land use, housing, and transport systems that are exacerbating inequality and deepening poverty for the most vulnerable.
This new version of the TOD Standard gives us a stepping stone to defining urban development that integrates not just land use and transport but people, activities, and opportunities. It raises the bar for buildings and infrastructure to proactively meet the needs of all, regardless of age, ability, demographics or income, at all scales of development. It promotes inclusionary housing, as well as the provision of safe streets, local parks, playgrounds, primary schools, and health facilities for all neighborhoods, not just the wealthiest. It specifically acknowledges informal and substandard housing upgrading as fully fledged TOD projects worthy of investment and attention. It addresses the displacement of people through redevelopment as contrary to a balanced and inclusive development policy and incompatible with the highest TOD recognition.
The TOD Standard can help governments devise their plans, policies, regulations, legislation, and investment priorities to promote access for all as a basic common good, a source of freedom and dignity, and an important pillar to create Just Cities. This standard is also an instrument of inclusive and equitable civic engagement, calling on governments to set high standards for engaging the public in planning, regulating, decision making, and allocating resources.
The core principles and objectives enshrined in this standard have seen increasing recognition and adoption since ITDP started up in this field in 2010 with the Principles of Transport in Urban Life and the Our Cities Ourselves campaign. International, multilateral, national, and municipal institutions have been embracing the concept of inclusive transit-oriented development. High-level decision makers and practitioners support the idea, though there is still a long road ahead to achieve a global shift away from inequitable sprawl to more equitable and inclusive forms of urbanization. Wide and rapid adoption of the TOD Standard as urban planning and policy principles and benchmarks will have direct and immense potential benefits over time and across the globe. As we expect implementation to scale up rapidly in the next few years, it is important that unfair forms of redevelopment do not magnify unequal opportunity and outcomes. Inclusionary objectives need to be embedded in policies and in planning and design processes to actively protect and bring along people and social groups who might otherwise be excluded, marginalized, or not afforded the same full privileges as others.
The Ford Foundation has been a supporter of ITDP’s efforts to develop frameworks and metrics to measure access and inclusion in cities. The TOD Standard is the result, and this new version will help citizens in all capacities find the right tools for creating inclusive transit-oriented communities. Now we all collectively need to work to get there.
Amy Kenyon
Program Officer, Equitable Development
Ford Foundation
Download The TOD Standard here and visit todstandard.org for more information.
TOD Standard
The TOD Standard is a powerful tool to help shape and assess urban development. It focuses on maximizing the benefits of public transit and non-motorized mobility while placing the emphasis firmly back on the users: people.
The Standard outlines eight core principles of urban design and land use, each supported by specific performance objectives and easily measurable indicators, or metrics. Together, they promote safe, balanced and vibrant neighborhoods around stations; short and well-connected pedestrian and cycling networks; densities that ensure strong customer bases for local services and public transport; and minimal car traffic and parking interference.
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is an answer to the unsustainable, car-dependant, and transit-poor urban sprawl that has characterized the growth of cities around the world in the last century. It also contrasts with transit-adjacent development that fails to foster the strong walking and cycling environment needed to complement and actively support the use of transit.
The Standard is addressed to a broad range of technical and non-technical audiences including policy makers, planners, city officials, developers, architects, urban designers, landscape designers, civil engineers, civil society organizations, and the interested public. By providing a way to quickly evaluate the planning and design components that are key to successful TOD, the Standard fills a critical gap in the instruments available in the urgent task of providing the world’s rising urban population with healthy living places.
* Version 3.0 was updated in June 2017, replacing versions 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1
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