Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

Promoting sustainable and equitable transportation worldwide

[WEBINAR] BRT Planning 501: Integration


Tuesday, October 30, 2018
9am EST | 4pm EAT
::: RSVP :::

 

About the Webinar

This is the fifth installment of the BRT Planning Guide webinar series. A key component of BRT planning and design is the provision of convenient and secure access for pedestrians and cyclists. This webinar will explore the fundamentals of designing non-motorized transport access, including pedestrian crossings, sidewalks, universal access, cycle tracks, and cycle parking, drawing on case studies from BRT systems around the world.

RSVP for the Webinar

About the Presenter

Chris Kost | Program Director, ITDP Africa

Chris Kost is the Program Director of ITDP Africa and leads ITDP’s initiatives in Kenya, Uganda, and other African countries. At ITDP, Chris focuses on transport projects in Africa and in the past, in India as well. In Cape Town, Accra, and Johannesburg, he assessed the impacts of proposed BRT systems on greenhouse gas emissions. Chris has been involved in a number of TOD projects, including the Local Area Plan for Ahmedabad’s Central Business District, an updated TOD policy for BRT corridors in Pimpri Chinchwad, TOD planning efforts for Chennai’s metro and suburban rail networks, and TOD elements in Nashik’s new Development Plan. Before ITDP, Chris worked for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (now Transform) in Oakland; the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, also in Oakland; the City of Berkeley’s Planning Department; Meyer, Mohadddes Associates, Los Angeles; and Delin Consult in Accra. Chris received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in environmental policy from the Earth Systems Program at Stanford University.

Which Comes First, Pilot or Policy?

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Kigali, the capital and largest city of Rwanda, has become known as a best practice for urbanism and sustainable transport in Africa. The city of one million, in the mountainous center of the small, landlocked nation, has made major, transformational changes over the past decade. Regulated moto taxis and a city bus system were improved further with the 2016 Smart Kigali initiative, and there are car-free Sundays twice every month. Street improvement measures include everything from beautification to quality footpaths and fully pedestrianized areas of the city center.

Alphonse Nkurunziza at the MOBILIZE summit in Dar es Salaam

Alphonse Nkurunziza, former City of Kigali Chief Engineer, recently took part in a meeting of African City leaders as part of the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative gathering at ITDP’s MOBILIZE Summit in Dar es Salaam. In speaking with city officials from Lagos, Kampala, and Kitwe eager to replicate Kigali’s successes, Nkurunziza advised them to take action and make the needed changes in their cities. “You have to begin. You don’t need to wait for a policy document. You just have to begin, and people will appreciate what you are doing,” he said. “This is how we did the transition of the CBD. We had to close 500 meters, only pedestrian, that was quite tough … but it worked! People are admiring it. People love it.”

Despite having the major benefit of strong political will, both from the city and national governments, Kigali has chosen to rapidly transform areas of the city with demonstration projects, allowing the reality on the ground to dictate policy, rather than the other way around. This approach has major advantages, particularly when it comes to public support.

Community funded footpath in Kitwe

Kitwe, Zambia mayor Christopher Kang’ombe has also found success with a pilot of sorts. Frustrated with the lack of progress on footpaths, Kang’ombe mobilized businesses to pay directly for footpaths, which are added meter by meter as funds are raised. He hopes that by demonstrating how popular these paths are, the national government will integrate them into road planning, and fund pedestrian and cycling infrastructure more comprehensively. “The level of political competition in most countries has led to a bit of change in the way politicians view development. At first, we used think, ‘oh, if I move these vendors from the street, I’ll lose an election’. You’re forgetting that the majority will like what you do. It’s a game of numbers, real numbers. So in terms of political will, the politicians are changing now. We’re now looking at what would be good for the city from the perspective of long term.”

Transforming blocks, neighborhoods, and cities from car-oriented to people-centered is at the core of ITDP’s decades of work in cities around the world. One of the first, most basic challenges to improving cities is that everyone, no matter where they live, is suspicious of change. There is no getting around the fact that transport and development projects are political processes, and public support matters. Pilot projects are an incredibly useful tool, not only to evaluate feasibility, time, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to implementation of a full-scale project, but also simply to show residents how much the project will improve their commute, street, block, or neighborhood. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a well-executed pilot is worth 1,000 feasibility studies.

Yet this approach is not without risk. Pilots are, by nature, first tries at something new. Any problems, no matter how minor, can be used to derail the project completely, giving credit to adversaries who are usually ready to pounce. Also, even if the pilot is successful, it sets expectations for a larger project, and cities have to be ready to move forward while the momentum is on their side. Ideally, this would be solved by having a policy framework in place to enable tweaks, and a speedy rollout.

Traffic in Lagos, Nigeria

Olajide Oduyoye, the Head of Transport Safety and Traffic Management for the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), is well aware of the political obstacles standing in the way of much-needed transport improvements to the Nigerian megacity, and sees the value of getting something to happen on the ground. “Political leaders are under extreme pressure to satisfy all these different needs. As political persons, they are more likely to look at things that people would appreciate in the very short term. Most politicians want to leave a mark, to prove that they have not wasted their time in office, and in order to continue in power.”

Oduyoye cautions, however, that an isolated pilot could backfire, using the example of a cycling project in a high-crime area of Lagos. “There may be financial support available that may also influence the decision to install a pilot before other larger changes are made that would make the project viable. However, there is that conflict where you have political support, you have financial support, but you’re coming up with a pilot scheme to make the economics work. If you’re going to an area where there is a safety perception issue for you not to want to ride the bike, then the business will fail. And if it fails as a pilot, how do you make this change?”

Jennifer Musisi speaking at the MOBILIZE summit in Dar es Salaam

Jennifer Musisi, Executive Director of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Uganda, also raised concerns that de-emphasizing the policy process leads to decisions being made based on the needs of the private sector, rather than the majority of the population. “These ‘stakeholders’ as we call them in Uganda, are demanding that the government should do something. And then us as the technical people are saying, ‘we don’t think we should go that way’, but their voices are sometimes so loud, that government then says ‘ok, its causing them a financial problem, so it’s now a policy to accommodate their need.’ Its people really just looking at their own small world and proposing that government come up with a solution to the problems of their small world. But us as the technical policy makers – how does this one group fit into the six other groups that I’m looking at?”

No matter which is first, it’s clear that both policy guidance and on-the-ground demonstrations are necessary for new, transformational projects to flourish. Nkurunziza acknowledges that, particularly when it comes to national replication, more policy guidance is needed. “In Rwanda, we have six secondary cities that also are complementing Kigali. The other cities have to grow, have to understand how do they now come in a more sustainable manner. We need the support of experts in creating policies. Right now we’re doing everything piecemeal, we don’t have an NMT policy, we need to make that.”

China Tackles Climate Change with Electric Buses

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In 2009, Shenzhen, China, a city of 12 million that links Hong Kong with mainland China, was selected as the first of 13 pilot cities for demonstration and promotion of new energy vehicles in China. This includes not only electric cars, but also electric buses. By the end of 2017, a total of 16,359 electric buses had been implemented, making the city’s entire bus fleet completely electric. This made Shenzhen the first city in not only China, but the entire globe, to realize the full electrification of its public transport.

In the following years, bus electrification brought some clear benefits to Shenzhen. Compared with the former diesel buses, Shenzhen’s e-buses have greatly reduced dependence on fossil fuels and lessened environmental pollution. Fuel consumption in the public transport industry has been reduced by more than 95%. Based on the operating mileage in Shenzhen in 2016, electric buses consume 72.9% less energy than diesel buses, with a daily average operating mileage of 174.4 km, and energy consumption 106.3 kWh/100 km. According to the Shenzhen Municipal Transportation Commission, the resulting energy savings amount to 366,000 tons of coal saved annually, substituted by 345,000 tons of alternative fuel.

There are also major reductions in CO2 emissions. On average per year, electric buses emit 67.02 kg of CO2 per 100 km, compared to diesel vehicles which emit 129.91 kg, corresponding to a reduction rate of about 48%. According to the statistics from the Shenzhen Municipal Transportation Commission, the 2017 data shows a total reduction of CO2 emissions of 1.353 million tons. Furthermore, the annual emission of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, non-methane hydrocarbons and particulate matter was reduced by 431.6 tons.

The performance of these buses relative to diesel has been improving. In 2016, the average daily operating mileage of electric buses and hybrid buses in Shenzhen were 174.4 km and 163.0 km, respectively, representing 76.2% and 71.2% of the operating distance of a traditional diesel bus, which averages at 228.8 km. However, the average daily mileage of electric buses has increased year by year, with an increase of 40.6% in 2016 compared to 2012.

The World’s Largest Vehicle Market

The 2018 Annual Report of China’s Motor Vehicle Environmental Management, published by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, shows China as the world’s largest motor vehicle market, in both production and sales, for nine consecutive years. Motor vehicle emissions are now a major source of pollution in China, contributing heavily to CO2 emissions. The increasing development of new energy vehicles offers a possible way forward.

New energy vehicles include pure electric vehicles, extended-range electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles, among others. Companies are offering different types of electric buses to meet market demand, and the industry has developed rapidly, with the production and sales volume of new energy vehicles increasing 101 times increase in the last five years.

Different e-buses offered by bus manufacturers.

 

China Electric Bus Sales — 2011–2017

 

In recent years, China’s electric vehicle industry has developed rapidly, with the production and sales volume of new energy vehicles increasing 101 times increase in the last five years. Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/04/china-100-electric-bus-sales-just-89546-2017/

Government support for new energy buses has been strong. In 2015, the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued a stipulation that the proportion of new energy buses to be added and replaced in Chinese cities must be divided proportionally:  80% in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong and Hainan; 65% in Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Fujian; 30% in other provinces (regions and cities). At the same time, national and local governments have introduced a series of subsidy incentives and tax reductions to encourage and promote the development of new energy vehicles.

National and local governments have introduced a series of subsidy incentives and tax reductions to encourage and promote the development of new energy vehicles. Notes: 1. The subsidy for large- and medium-sized fuel cell bus is 500,000 yuan. 2. The subsidy standards are jointly formulated by the Ministry of industry, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of finance, the Ministry of science and technology and the Energy Bureau.

The “Zero Emissions” Question

It’s clear that China sees rapid development of new energy vehicles as a way to continue its pace of rapid development while reducing emissions. However, this has been accompanied by questions about whether this approach is really as effective as promised. Terms such as “zero emissions” to describe new energy vehicles have been criticized as misleading. Many have pointed out that new energy vehicles transfer pollution from roads to power plants, rather than being fully “zero emissions”. Advocates counter that it would be the case with renewable energy, but there has not been comparable progress in decarbonizing the grid. In 2016 in China, coal-generated power accounted for 72% of all power sources.

In order to calculate the environmental impact of new energy vehicles, the conventional method is to calculate the standard carbon dioxide production by multiplying the power consumption per 100 kilometers by the carbon emission factor. However, there are many different types of new energy vehicles, each with a different method of measuring vehicle emissions, as well as different power consumption based on the location. Therefore, the results of the calculations would be quite varied.

According to the Study on Demonstration Promotion and Business Model of New Energy Buses issued by the China Electric Vehicle 100 People’s Congress, a 12-meter-long, Category 4 emissions bus with a fuel consumption of 38L/100km emits 1103 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Based on the average standard and composition of the national power grid, an electric bus that consumes 120 kWh of electricity per 100 km emits 943 grams of CO2 per km, and a plug-in hybrid bus emits 870 grams. After electrification, CO2 emissions decreased 15-20% as compared to diesel vehicles, which has made a marked difference in reducing carbon emissions.

CO2 Emissions per Kilometer (g)

After electrification, CO2 emissions decreased 15-20% as compared to diesel vehicles, which has made a marked difference in reducing carbon emissions. Source: Study on Demonstration Promotion and Business Model of New Energy Buses

Regarding the emission of gaseous pollutants that cause smog, such as CO, VOC, NOx, and PM, the Study on Demonstration Promotion and Business Model of New Energy Buses stated that during their life cycle, the annual emissions of diesel vehicles average 1146 kg. In comparison, electric vehicles emit only 279 kg annually, amounting to a 75% reduction in emissions, while plug-in hybrid vehicles emit 895 kg annually, amounting to a 22% reduction.

The annual emissions of diesel vehicles average 1146 kg. In comparison, electric vehicles emit only 279 kg annually, amounting to a 75% reduction in emissions, while plug-in hybrid vehicles emit 895 kg annually, amounting to a 22% reduction. Source: Study on Demonstration Promotion and Business Model of New Energy Buses

Long Term, it’s About Power

Although China is still mainly based on coal-generated electricity, the continuous development of wind energy, nuclear energy, and other energy sources, as well as the control of emissions from coal-fired power plants, would help mitigate the problem of “pollution transfer”. Coal-generated power accounted for 80% of all power sources in 2010, dropping to 78% in 2013 and 72% in 2016. According to data from the China Power Federation, 1.0-1.2 grams of pollutant emissions (particulate matter, sulfide, nitrogen oxides, etc.) and 810 grams of carbon were produced per kilowatt hour of electricity in 2015-2016. Wang Hewu, deputy director of the US-China Clean Vehicles Consortium, believes that they are 70% to 80% lower than the 2010 pollutant emissions. In addition, according to BP’s Energy Outlook 2035 report, by 2035, thermal power generation will continue to decline both in China and globally, and the proportion of clean energy will gradually increase.

Primary Energy Used for Power Generation
Source: BP’s Energy Outlook 2035

At present, there are a large number of peak-to-valley differences in China’s daily electricity demand. Analysis shows that electricity demand may fluctuate by up to 1 billion degrees each day. As electric buses run during the day and charge at night, they can help provide a solution towards stabilizing these fluctuations, and 40 million electric vehicles can be charged using these differences in electricity demand. Therefore, the development of new energy vehicles will also help to improve the overall utilization efficiency of electricity, avoid the construction of pumped storage power stations, and save social costs.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Communications, the total number of public buses in China has increased from 509,600 in 2013 to 651,200 in 2017. The biggest change has been the proportion of traditional fuel buses, which has decreased from 62.7% of all buses in 2013, to just 29.7% in 2017. In accordance, the number of new energy buses has increased from less than 0.33% of the total in 2013, to 39.5% in 2017.

The proportion of new energy buses was extremely low in 2013, which provides a good opportunity to compare the impact of growth of China’s new energy bus fleet in the following years on the environment. Using CO2 vehicle emissions in 2013 as a baseline, by 2017, about 8.56 million tons of CO2 were reduced due to the increase in new energy buses.

Given the current trend of decreasing numbers of diesel and gasoline vehicles, if supposed that by 2021, all diesel and gasoline vehicles are replaced by new energy vehicles, CO2 emissions will be reduced by 33.08 million tons.

Notes: The data for 2013, 2014, and 2015 standards are calculated based on the sales volume of new energy in the year. CO2 emissions (kg/km) for different types of vehicles is as follows: diesel, 1.103; pure electric, 0.943; hybrid, 0.871; gasoline, 1.07; gas, 0.943. CO2 emissions for 2013, 2014, and 2015 were calculated using the average value for electric and hybrid power. Total emissions of different vehicles are based on vehicle consumption. Considering the improvement of thermal power generation technology, the reduction of pollution emissions and the increased proportion of clean electricity, the weight of power consumption of E bus to the environmental pollution decreases by 0.1 every year from 2016. According to the technical path of China’s new energy vehicle development, it is assumed that the proportion of hybrid vehicles will remain unchanged after 2017.

Progress is Impressive, yet Challenges Remain

Despite the encouraging progress of new energy vehicles, there are still serious issues to be addressed. China’s current subsidy policy has increasingly supported batteries with high energy densities, raising the minimum density threshold for non-fast-charging electric buses from 85 kWh/kg to 115 kWh/kg. However, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries is limited, with a theoretical upper limit of 170 mAh/g, but an actual density of only 110 mAh/g currently. Ternary lithium batteries have a much higher density capacity; however, they carry certain safety hazards, so they are seldom used in public transportation. It is clear that electric buses must adopt new technical means to increase battery energy density.

In addition, some enterprises have taken advantage of loopholes in the subsidy policy to defraud subsidized funds by means of false production and products that do not conform to requirements, leading to the “false” development of electric vehicles and the massive loss of state subsidized funds. Therefore, in order to promote the healthy and stable development of China’s new energy automobile industry, the relevant state departments will improve subsidy standards and mechanisms, subsidy allocation, and establish a supervision system with local governments taking the main responsibility. Determining how to develop effective policies and reduce loopholes will require further careful consideration.

It’s clear that new energy vehicles are not a perfect product. Their development, and the technology for electric buses, is ongoing. However, it is clear that there are real benefits to be had in CO2 reduction, especially when compared to private cars, but even as compared to gas or diesel powered buses.  China’s commitment to improvement and electrification of its bus fleet is commendable, and should serve as a model for other nations with high transport emissions. As Miao Wei of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said during the National People’s Congress in 2018, “As technology continues to progress and charging facilities continue to improve, new energy vehicles will show rapid growth in the future.”

ITDP Resources for Global Climate Action

From September 12th-14th, ITDP joined the Global Climate Action Summit to encourage leaders to take bold actions in transport as a lever to mitigate against climate change. For 30 years, ITDP has worked for sustainable, equitable solutions to combat climate change and promote active transport and healthy urban environments.

Check out some of our resources below, and follow us @ITDP_HQ for updates on our work.

  • 3 Revolutions in Urban Transportation: Automation, electrification, and sharing are three big changes on the horizon for transportation and have the potential to help or hinder us in obtaining our climate goals. This paper looks ahead to 2050 to see how the world could fulfill its climate commitments in the context of these three changes. The findings show that the only way to achieve our climate goals is by pursuing both sharing strategies grounded in transit and compact land use, and electrification strategies. Neither strategy by itself will get us there.
  • The TOD Standard: Transportation emissions are on the rise, due to increasing sprawl and efficient transportation. To reduce emissions, we must move towards more compact cities, that are developed around transportation. Our TOD Standard and Infographic are designed to help city leaders understand and prioritize the building blocks for developing sustainable, transit-oriented cities.
  • A Global High Shift Cycling Scenario: Cycling, rather than driving, can help dramatically reduce transportation emissions. This report shows that by shifting from 7% mode share in cycling globally to a more reasonable 23%, we can save 300 megatonnes of CO2e and 25 trillion USD by 2050. To do that, cities should develop a strategy for increasing cycling mode share by lowering barriers to cycling and creating safer cycling environments. Here are some tools to help cities improve their cycle mode share:
  • People Near Transit: Improving Accessibility and Rapid Transit Coverage in Large Cities: To reduce emissions, we must ensure that mass rapid transit is accessible to all, and is the norm for transportation rather than single passenger vehicles. Essentially cities need to maximize the number of people near transit. This report outlines a simple metric, “People Near Transit”, which can be used to access the quality of the coverage of rapid transit for a city’s population. PNT can be used by cities to set targets and measure their progress in creating inclusive transit-oriented development.
  • Best Practice in National Support for Urban Transportation Paper Series
    Cities can play an important role to mitigate climate change by investing in more sustainable urban transportation systems. Some nations have done better than others to invest in sustainable transport in their cities, offering lessons for the future. Part 1 of this series provides a comparative analysis of rapid transit infrastructure in nine countries that are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and Part 2: Growing Rapid Transit Infrastructure: Funding, Financing, examines the conditions that allowed for rapid growth in rapid transit per resident. The series concludes with recommendations related to cities’ ability to invest more in improved urban transport when they have control of funding, technical capacity, and legal authority, as seen in this infographic.

[WEBINAR] Urban Mobility in Brazil: Measures for Adaptation to Climate Change

Thursday, September 13, 2018
10am EST | 11am BRT

 

About the Webinar

Building on a study conducted by ITDP Brazil in partnership with the Ministry of Cities, this webinar will discuss how urban mobility systems in Brazil face vulnerability to climate change. Clarisse Cunha Linke, Country Director of ITDP Brazil, will discuss climate change trends and projections for increased average temperature and precipitation, and extreme weather events in Brazil. She will also review the Urban Mobility Vulnerability Index and provide guidelines for adaptive measures to reduce the effects of climate change on urban mobility in Brazilian cities.

 

Webinar Recording

 

Presentation Slides

Urban Mobility in Brazil: Measures for Adaptation to Climate Change

 

About the Presenter

Clarisse Cunha Linke | Country Director, ITDP Brazil

Clarisse Cunha Linke is a Brazilian who has been involved in planning and implementing social policies and programs since 2001, with experience in Brazil, Mozambique and Namibia. She holds a Masters in Social Policy, NGOs, and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she received the “Titmuss Examination Prize” in 2005.

From 2006-2011, she was a Director at the Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia (BEN Namibia), where she played a key role in the expansion of BEN Namibia’s activities, helping it develop the biggest community-based enterprise bicycle distribution network in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010, she was awarded by Ashoka Changemakers in the “Women, Tools and Technology” Challenge.

Clarisse joined ITDP Brazil in 2012. She also teaches “NGO Management” at the Institute of Economics in the Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UFRJ). She is a Board Member of the Sustainable Low Carbon Transport Network (SLoCaT), the Transporte Ativo Association and Casa Fluminense. Clarisse is also a member of the Municipal Council of Transport of Rio de Janeiro and a member of the Council of Urban Development of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro.

In Dar es Salaam, African City Leaders Reflect on MOBILIZE

“Yesterday, I was in a session on street design … it’s the things that you see every day but you don’t think about,” said Jennifer Semakula Musisi, Executive Director of the Kampala Capital City Authority, “It takes longer to use a pedestrian bridge than it does to use a crossing on the road. I’m like, ah yeah it actually does! And here I am planning for at least six foot bridges. We’re in the process of procuring it right now.”

Musisi is one of a dozen or so representatives from African cities that attended MOBILIZE, ITDP’s annual, invite-only summit that brings together transport and development practitioners alongside world-class researchers to celebrate best practices and accelerate implementation of sustainable transport projects. Musisi, representing Uganda’s capital city, is one of five African city leaders who attended MOBILIZE as a fellow for the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI). She was joined by Olajide Oduyoye, Head of Transport Safety and Traffic Management from the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) in Nigeria; Christopher Kang’ombe, the Mayor of Kitwe, Zambia; Amadou Saidou Ba, president of the Conseil Exécutif des Transports Urbains de Dakar (CETUD), in Senegal, and Alphonse Nkurunziza, former Director General for Infrastructure and Urban Development for Kigali, Rwanda.

Jennifer Musisi speaks to participants during a coffee break.

MOBILIZE Dar es Salaam hosted 230 participants from 61 cities in 31 nations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, North America and South America, representing government, academia, NGOs, and the private sector to share best (and worst) practices in transport and development, such as the street design session that had an impact on Musisi. “Now I’m thinking, I hope people are not going to try to just run across the road! And it raises the issue of access for the disabled, for the old people, people not in good health … what happens?”

Oduyoye also found the experience eye-opening, as he approaches the daunting task of transforming Africa’s largest city. “For Lagos, the opportunity is vast and it is wide, because we’re starting from point zero in a way. What we’ve learned so far is that it’s a lot bigger than we thought.” He also commented that some of the sessions touched on issues he was aware of, but hadn’t fully realized their importance, such as designing streets and programs that encourage the participation of women. “The program this morning talked about how women are not as likely to bicycle as men. In my culture, I can tell you, this is very important. If we’re trying to get people riding, and we get women to bicycle, the men will follow suit.”

Alphonse Nkurunziza of Kigali chats with MOBILIZE participants in between sessions.

In Kitwe and Kigali, the challenges are different from those of the megacity of Lagos. Both mid-sized cities are already applying best practices, and enjoy strong support and encouragement from their national governments in furthering these goals. “In Kigali, we are around 1.4 million people, and that’s why we’ve started the sustainable mobility initiatives, so that we can deal with the issue of car ownership, mobility, and growth,” said Nkurunziza, who found the MOBILIZE experience helpful as he ponders the next phase of Kigali’s growth, “After being exposed to all this, it’s clear to me that we need to plan transportation along with land use. How do we make the trips shorter so you can use cycling and walking modes? Mixed-use developments really have to be given the attention.”

Kitwe Mayor Kang’ombe speaks at MOBILIZE Dar es Salaam.

Kang’ombe, who has made major progress with community-funded walkways in Kitwe, was interested to see the political changes that he’s experienced in Zambia reflected in many presentations at MOBILIZE. “In terms of political will, the politicians are changing now, looking at what would be good for the city from the perspective of long term. We now know that the political will is there. We know what we need to do in order for Zambia to develop.”

“I’m impressed with what we’ve seen here,” said Saidou Ba, in reference to a presentation on parking reform, “in Dakar, there is no space for people. Any space we have in the city is taken by vendors, or for parking. But to change this, it’s clear to me now that it all really has to be enforced by the local government, and the city may not enforce new parking rules if they benefit from it. So this has to change.”

These types of conversations are exactly what makes MOBILIZE unique. The summit gives transport professionals and researchers from around the world an opportunity to experience the STA winning city as a learning lab with lessons on how to get world class projects implemented. Interaction between researchers and practitioners foster greater global resource allocation toward the goals of making streets, transport systems, and cities the best possible places for people. In the case of these African city leaders, the location in the most rapidly-growing African city offered a rare opportunity for them to share best practices with each other, and recognize all the ways that urbanization has transformed Africa.

Olajide H. Oduyoye of Lagos’ LAMATA listens to a presentation in the plenary tent at MOBILIZE.

“Transportation is not something that’s been very popular in Africa, so to speak, until a few years ago, it was considered a ‘European and American’ thing,” said Oduyoye, “Now, well its gathering momentum on a high scale. Now is the time when you want to get young people involved, because once you capture them, they can go and educate their parents who may have political power. So, you can change these things.”

Dar es Salaam hosted the MOBILIZE summit after winning the Sustainable Transport Award for implementing the first true BRT in East Africa. Each year, the winning city and honorable mentions are honored at a ceremony in Washington, DC in January.  The winning city hosts MOBILIZE later on that year. Fortaleza, Brazil, has won the 2019 STA, and will be the host of MOBILIZE 2019.

“It’s a very good balance between practitioners and researchers,” said Musisi, “people who have studied and come up with solutions, and the people that are actually implementing it. That reality check helps everybody.”

MOBILIZE Speaker Series: Fernando de Mello Franco

In May 2014 at 7:00 pm, São Paulo recorded the worst traffic backup in its history: 344 kilometers, covering fully 40% of the roadways monitored by the city’s traffic agency in South America’s biggest city. The next month, then mayor Fernando Haddad heralded the city’s new strategic master plan, which called for limits on parking inside new developments and prioritizing transit over cars, as the most advanced in Brazil. The master plan made its way successfully through São Paulo’s city council in part due to the hard work of Fernando de Mello Franco, an architect and urban planner who served as Haddad’s Secretary of Urban Development from 2013 to 2016. During his time, he was responsible for coordinating the city’s regulatory framework revision of urban policy, which set TOD strategies as one of the main axes. With a change in mayoral administration in 2017, Franco moved on to serve as director of the Institute of Urbanism and Studies for the Metropolis (URBEM), a Brazilian NGO focused on structuring urban projects with social impact, and working privately as a consultant and researcher.

ITDP: The theme of MOBILIZE is Making Space for Mobility in Booming Cities. What is your city doing to address mobility in the face of rapid urbanization? What are the challenges in accelerating these solutions?

Fernando de Mello Franco: First off, Latin America is one of the most urbanized regions in the world, but with a stable and even declining population in some places. The scenario of exponential growth is not the scenario in Latin America, much less São Paulo. We went through this 50-60 years ago and are in a different situation today. The question here is not what to do but what was the impact of this exponential growth and what was the positive and negative legacy that this growth left in a region with little capacity for investment. What investments can make up for lost time? That’s a question totally different from Africa and Asia.

We have a cyclical movement between progressive and non-progressive governments – at the moment we have the center-right returning to power in Brazil after a series of progressive mobility policies in favor of the public and against four wheels, for the collective over the individual, the active over the car. We improved public space, repaved sidewalks, installed bike lanes, and opened public spaces for leisure time on the weekends.

What we did from 2013-2016 was a reaction to the social movements energized by the Movimento Passe Livre [Free Transit Pass Movement, which sparked nationwide protests in 2013]. The right to the city is not just housing but also the possibility to access urban goods and services and the possibility of access is directly related to mobility. Free transport would have been an opportunity for everyone to access all the opportunities in the city: jobs, goods, services, a boyfriend across town. It was an update to the agenda of the right to the city in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

ITDP: What impact would you like to have in your role in the coming years to address the issue of mobility and rapid urbanization?

Fernando de Mello Franco: I am no longer working in the public sector. So now we are trying to structure from research and projects that relate urban development to mobility. I’m currently working on a special project: looking for mobility alternatives in areas that are being used for social housing but are disconnected from the transit network. We can guarantee social housing if we connect building to mobility alternatives. In the coming months we hope to answer the following: How can the private sector respond to the need for low-income housing to have 100% universal access to public transport? That demands a lot of capital, investment, and time. What are the alternatives that permit us to prioritize transport for low-income people in parallel with state investments?

 

ITDP: What city projects, anywhere in the world, are most interesting to you right now?

Fernando de Mello Franco: I am more and more concerned not with specific urban projects but rather with projects that integrate different sectors and knowledge bases. That’s the only way we can respond to the complex problems of metropolises. We need to connect the dots. For example, I worked for a city that won the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge with a project to contain informal sprawl by strengthening family agriculture.

The transformation of Medellín under Sergio Fajardo was a seminal moment for a series of urbanism questions. Medellín’s flagship were integrated projects that brought this vision of integrating public policies.

 

ITDP: What are you most excited about seeing or learning at MOBILIZE?

Fernando de Mello Franco: To the extent that MOBILIZE is going to bring together experiences from the entire world, that creates a special opportunity. Latin America can also bring a series of contributions to emerging countries as a region that is still underdeveloped but has already passed through urbanization. These regions in transformation are more interesting than New York City, Copenhagen, or London where the problems are less severe.

 

ITDP: São Paulo has legendary traffic congestion. How did you address that issue from a land use perspective during your tenure?

Fernando de Mello Franco: Zoning laws are generally focused on private lots – on this lot we can construct x – but we took a series of actions to impact the use of public space, not necessarily by creating plazas but by improving streets and sidewalks. São Paulo has one of the lowest rates of public space compared to other large cities – half of European and North American cities.

Public space and streets are terrain in dispute. We tried to mitigate this dispute that always privileged those who take up a lot of space and move very few people. Today there is an awareness that the street is much more and improving sidewalks is a top political priority. It’s now part of the national mobility plan that a few cities are implementing, São Paulo chief among them. We also established a fee on ridehailing apps – not a tax on the bill but for their use of public space, which was rather innovative.

We see the impact of all this on urban development. Today, the price per square meter of land near mobility corridors is going up. The real estate market wants to be near these corridors. The strategic master plan inverted the paradigm: instead of demanding a minimum number of parking spaces in garages – 30% of square footage built in the last few years was for cars – it established a ceiling, in order to advance the new mobility paradigm. People prefer to live near these corridors because if they move around the city, they do so by active mobility and transport.

 

ITDP: You managed to change parking regulations and implement a TOD policy along transit corridors in São Paulo. How long did this process take? What are some lessons from that experience?

Fernando de Mello Franco: We entered in 2013 and managed to approve the master plan relatively quickly in 2014. ITDP Brasil published a study recently that showed the impact of these policies on mobility, which already shows a new trend to build along mobility corridors although the numbers are a bit distorted by the economic crisis. But the number of apartments with one or no parking spaces grew significantly. Through the strategic master plan, we are reducing the rate of built area for garage spaces. It’s not a very reliable statistical universe, but nevertheless a positive signal that nearly four years after implementation, there is perceptible success.

China’s Metro Boom Continues to Drive Rapid Transit Growth

Xiamen’s first metro line | Source: Xinhuanet.com

Transit growth in Asia, particularly in China, has continued, and even accelerated in the past few years. This growth is not new, of course, Chinese cities have been adding transit rapidly over the past several decades. As of 2017, this shows no signs of slowing.

ITDP looked at bus rapid transit (BRT), light rail transit (LRT), and Metro growth in 373 urban areas around the world, and found that metro growth in Chinese cities is the largest single contributor to new kilometers of transit in the world. However, LRT development was more robust in Asia than any other continent for the first time in 2017, and BRT is growing strongly in Argentina. The 2017, there was a total of 897 km of rapid transit infrastructure built, with Metro accounting for 707 km (79%). LRT followed with 135 km built in 2017, a 2.4% increase over 2016. BRT accounts for the remaining 55 km, with the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina accounting for 50% of global BRT construction in 2017.

Construction of rapid transit infrastructure has increased tremendously since the beginning of the new millennium. The opening of BRT and metro rail systems has been at a faster pace, thus contributing more to the rapid transit growth for the past two decades. The LRT concept gained a wider recognition in the 1980’s before declining in the 1990’s, and then slowly growing in the last 15 years.

Comparing the rapid transit growth on yearly basis, there was an overall 18% decrease in the kilometers of infrastructure added in 2017 compared to 2016. This, however, still represents the 5th highest year of growth on record in the 37 years included in the dataset.

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this. One is that China, a country dealing with worsening air pollution and traffic congestion, as well as increasing wealth, has embraced rapid transit as an urban mobility solution, and continues to show that commitment in their infrastructure investments. The Chinese government is putting a major effort into promoting a sustainable transportation system, and attempting to address climate change. This data highlights that how China has transformed its public transportation sector dramatically over the last few decades and continues to be on the top in terms of contributing to the global rapid transit growth.

To understand if transit growth is keeping pace with urban population growth, the Rapid Transit to Resident Ratio (RTR) was used as a metric to compare the length of the rapid transit lines (including LRT, BRT and Metro) with the country’s urban population (cities with population over 500,000). China’s RTR has risen steeply over the last 20 years, mainly due to massive continual investment in metro infrastructure. In 2017, 422 km of metro is from newly built and extended metro lines in just 12 cities in mainland China. Guangzhou, a city in Southern China, had the greatest metro growth, with 84 km added in 2017.

The RTR numbers indicate a sharp increase after the millennium, which points out that urban population is proportionally increasing with  rapid transit investment. But it should be noted that China is the one that has heavily invested on rapid transit infrastructures and with their urban population growth decreasing significantly it appears that the global increase in RTR could be mostly attributed to China.

Although Taiwan has only three rapid transit systems operating in four cities, it saw the highest RTR growth in 2017, due to the opening of the 51 km Metro in the city of Taoyuan.

Kaohsiun Tram, Taiwan | Source: www. urbanrail.net

Since 2009, Asian countries have contributed the highest to the global rapid transit growth, mostly through robust metro development. Four cities in China: Xiamen, Guiyan, Shijiazhuang, Yinchuan, and three cities in India: Hyderabad, Kochi and Lucknow opened their 1st metro lines in 2017, bringing the total number of cities with metro to 178.

In 2017, Asia had more robust LRT development than on any other continent. Notably, LRT lines opened for the first time in Shenzhen, China; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and in Izmit and Izmir, Turkey. Outside of Asia, LRT lines opened in Granada, Spain; Luxembourg city, and Aarhus, Denmark, bringing the total to 397 cities with LRT.

We can expect this trend to continue. At the end of 2017, China’s central government announced a policy to relax the minimum population requirements for local governments to pursue metro projects from 3 million residents to 1.5 million. As a result, smaller cities can build metro systems, with China expected to have around 6400 km of rapid transit infrastructure by 2020.

The Challenge of Planning and Implementing TOD in Metropolitan USA

Metro West development site south of the Vienna Metro station. Photo: Hiroaki Suzuki

by Hiroaki Suzuki, Former World Bank Lead Urban Specialist

After retirement, my wife and I started to look for a place to downsize and to reduce our carbon footprint. We visited a TOD site, adjacent to Vienna station of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Metro Orange Line, called Metro West (MW), located in the state of Virginia, USA. On the brochure of the developer, MW looked like an ideal place for us without depending too much on automobiles. The original plan of MW was approved by the Fairfax County Government in 2008. MW contains roughly 1200 resident units combined with retail uses and office spaces. It appears to meet most of ITDP’s TOD Standard criteria: Walk, Cycle, Connect, Transit, Mix, Densify, Compact, and Shift. We were attracted to MW because of its accessibility by transit to Washington D.C’s downtown, two international airports, suburban town features with various retails and restaurants, and good amenities such as the community center.

Several months later, we revisited the site and noticed that a huge block just in front of the metro station (see photos below), where the retail uses, restaurants, and office spaces were supposed to be constructed, remained vacant and undeveloped. We asked the developer when this block would be completed and learned from them that the block would be developed by another developer and that the timing of its completion was uncertain.

Aerial view of the Metro West site with undeveloped lots. Source: Google Earth

I did a quick Google search and found that the mix land use plan of this site was facing a big challenge. The Fairfax County Government approved the developer’s plan to develop MW as mix land use town center but at the public hearing meeting held several years later, the developer of the retail spaces and office spaces announced a possible scale down of the development, due to lukewarm regional economy. It seems that MW did not attract enough demand for their office spaces as reflected in the low occupancy rate of the office buildings in the Fairfax County.  In addition, MW is competing with other full-fledged suburban town centers already developed, such as Reston Town Center of the WMATA’s Silver Line and Mosaic District of the same Orange line, both within 5-15 miles from MW.

In the absence of adequate office space demand, the day time population of MW is not large enough to justify full scale development of retails and restaurants. It seems that the developer has not yet submitted the plan modification to the Fairfax County Government, which would be most probably rejected by the Fairfax County Government.  So, the full development of MW is in limbo, 10 years after the construction started.

The difficult path of MW development highlights two interlinked important factors which affect TOD implementation, the timeline and the condition of the regional economy- particularly that of the real estate market. Any TOD development cycle easily takes a long time, often 20 to 30 years from its planning to implementation. Over this long period, the market condition assumed in the original plan evolves, sometimes not in the direction of the developer’s forecast. The factor which makes the developer’s job more challenging is that several similar suburban town projects are planned and implemented within 10 to 15 miles distance.

The challenge of MW reminds me of the importance of planning TOD, not only at station level, but also at the corridor level. Thanks to good guidelines of TOD such as ITDP’s TOD Standard, many cities started to adapt them in their TOD projects. It is important for them to understand that mixed use and density are the elements of TOD which are affected by not only specific site conditions but also that of the regional economy.

As a Japanese urban development expert, I wonder how Japanese transit agencies, developers and local governments would tackle a challenge similar to MW. First, it seems that the Japanese counterparts have much longer planning vision and master plans often developed in a collaborative manner by these stakeholders. However, they cannot escape from the unpredictable market development, not anticipated in the original plan. Second, if they faced the same challenge, I imagine that they would take a more proactive and strategic approach to create demand. They would revisit the original plan to find a way to increase demand for the day time population and transit use. Some of the measures would be to develop magnet facilities such as a satellite university campus or an outpatient hospital visitor center.  Third, they would more efficiently use the huge parking space and bus terminal by constructing three to four story buildings with bus terminals located on the underground or first floor and the above said magnet facilities and other retails and restaurants housed on the floors above. The construction cost of this multiple purpose complex can be jointly born by, the transit agency or the local government (whoever owns the land for the bus terminal) using the land of bus terminal as equity and the developer (the developer can construct more residential units thanks to the efficient use of the land) and other investors such as a university or hospital. Fourth, they would consider extending metro catchment areas by offering more frequent commuter feeder services, probably an adoption of a auto-drive bus system, as many condos are being developed adjacent to MW. Finally, at the later stage when the initial stage would be successfully implemented and more demand would arise, they would construct the facilities serving both the population of Vienna West and Vienna East, over the connecting bridge of the metro line and the Route 66, like the one built in the busiest JR Yamanote Line in Tokyo.

Viewers enjoying blooming cherry tree at Gakushuinshita station, Tokyo. Pictured the background: dense urban fabric and train infrastructure.
Shinjuku “Busta” Bus Terminal Station constructed over JR Yamanote LineSource: UPON
Night view of the Takashimaya Building looking over the Shinjuku Rail Station and the “Busta” Bus Terminal Station. Source: Zengame from Flickr.

US federal, state, and local governments, transit agencies, and developers may not have enough incentive to adopt these projects, which require complex stakeholder collaboration and innovative but complex engineering and financing solutions because of the availability of ample lands and spaces, however, the lack of proactive and innovative approaches has made the USA’s capital area the most congested metropole in the country and forced people to commute long hours by car, as far as Winchester, located almost 76 miles away from Washington DC. Metro West initiated with a collaborative and innovative concept could provide wonderful solutions for air pollution, green gas emissions, and housing affordability, if all the stakeholders review the original plan with fresh eyes.

[WEBINAR] Planning Bikeshare for Everyone

Tuesday, July 31, 2018
11am EST

Webinar Recording


YouTube Link

 

Webinar Presentation Slides

Planning Bikeshare for Everyone

 

About the Webinar

Cities on every continent offer bikeshare to residents and visitors alike, and the shared mode continues to spread to cities large and small, university campuses, employment centers, and even residential developments. Highly successful systems—like in Mexico City and throughout China—have helped to promote cycling as a viable and valued transport option. This webinar highlights findings and recommendations from ITDP’s 2018 Bikeshare Planning Guide, with the goal of designing and implementing bikeshare systems that are equitable, sustainable, financially sound, and operate within a diverse transportation network.

 

About the Presenter

Dana Yanocha | Senior Research Associate, ITDP

Dana Yanocha’s work includes research and analysis of trends in sustainable transportation and development. Dana is passionate about identifying connections between the social, economic, and environmental spheres of sustainable development, with a particular interest in providing guidance to cities to strengthen transportation networks, leverage emerging technology and innovations, and improve overall accessibility. Prior to joining ITDP in 2017, Dana worked for the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development in Chicago, and for Resources for the Future, an environmental economics think tank in Washington, DC. She holds an MA in Sustainable Urban Development from DePaul University and a BA in International Politics from Penn State University.