Transport & Infrastructure

How adequate is our infrastructure? Focusing on Transport

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Benjamin Christy

                                                         

Going to school, going to work, going to the shops, going on holiday and going to the beach. What do all of these have in common? Transport of course. Transport is a system or means of conveying people or goods from place to place and not to mention it is a necessary, very much accepted and normal part of our daily lives. This sparked my thinking and my curiosity peaked. How much of our precious time on this earth are we irrevocably throwing away due to transportation issues such as congestion and overall inefficiency? More importantly, how much of this is due to the adequacy of our transportation infrastructure? These are the two questions that I asked myself and because I don’t know the answers or whether or not a solution to stop wasting away time can ever be reached, I need to research a little further. But first I think I need to define what I feel adequate transport is. I think that for transport to be adequate it not only needs to meet the public’s expectations but it needs to be efficient, convenient, widely available and well used. If these cannot be met then I am sure that I can classify the transport in question as inadequate. Now with that done, on I go with high hopes to find the truth behind transportation worldwide.

Why transport? What makes it adequate?

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In my city, Auckland, in New Zealand, public transport is inefficient, inconvenient and inaccessible. The problem is that our public transport takes ages to move people from one place to another. In some cases driving a car would be more efficient than trying to navigate a bus, a train, another train and a bus before reaching your destination in double the time it would have taken the less strong willed, who fall into the cycle of motor vehicle dependency. The thing is, the public will only utilise public transport if it is efficient. If it is not efficient it does not meet the expectations of the public and the public do not expect to take connection after connection to reach their destination. They expect efficiency and therefore with this system as inefficient as it is we can safely confirm that it must not be adequate.

Auckland: City of Snails

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Secondly, public transport is inconvenient and inaccessible which I will now demonstrate. I live 45 minutes drive from central Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. Using public transport, I would have to start a 6:15am and walk 1.7 km approximately 25 minutes to a bus stop. I would ride that bus then take the train into the central city. The journey would take me about two hours and that is my only option. Depart at 6:15am. Are you crazy? Of course at least I can take the two hour journey in reverse leaving only at 5:00pm and by 7:00pm I would be home. No one can tell me that public transport is convenient for me having only one option. Just as no one can tell me that public transport is accessible for me with a 25 minute walk to the nearest bus stop. However this is just me, right. I am in the minority. Well no, I am not. A study has found that four out of every five of the 26,000 dwellings identified to date are poorly served by public transport, and only around 5000 or 20 per cent are located close enough to public transport to provide a realistic alternative to the car (1). Hey, I am not a genius but I do not think it takes one to realise that this infrastructure is not in the slightest bit adequate. Worst of all this trend is set to continue with the majority of new priority housing being dislocated from the enormous investment the city is making in rail and other public transport (2) which reinforces private motor vehicle dependency (3). Not only does this show that the trend will continue, it also hints at the final, supposedly better chapter of transportation in Auckland. That being the solutions to the problems, which after this you should all be aware of.

Auckland: City of Snails

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The solution is simple, in Auckland we need a network without congestion and that is exactly what has been suggested. It comes in a plan adequately named The Congestion Free Network and it is in fact a set of four drawings that are at 5 year intervals. These drawings have combined many previous solutions and each important choice has a range of justifications. The agencies involved in the production of this plan asked themselves a question. What makes a congestion free network? This question is answered in the diagram below. Every one of these I feel is crucial to an effective transportation system especially for the future of my city, Auckland. Other plans such as the plan it supplants the Integrated Transport Programme are too ineffective and focus too heavily on road infrastructure, which aids in our motor vehicle dependency. Instead investing in the 'missing' public transport network before further expansion of the road network will almost certainly turn out to be much cheaper and more efficient for Auckland, as well as being more in sync with the times (4). This is in my view a far better solution than any one proposed before. Finally to quote my cities mayor, Len Brown, it is time to stop imagining how to improve Auckland’s transport system and other infrastructure and time to start acting (5). This is what we need. This is the future, the future that is congestion free Auckland. Both on the roads and on the rails we need better.

Auckland: City of Snails

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(6)  

                                                         

Belgians crave stability. They like to live in a detached house with some lush green space and of course it has to be in the neighbourhood they were raised in. This is partially because of their anti-urban mentality but also they like to be close to their family and have coffee with friends that they have known forever and ever. They take no notice of how far away work is because this lifestyle is a big part of the Belgian dream. In fact more than half of the 650,000 people employed in Brussels live outside city limits (7) and unfortunately it is this lifestyle that is a key contributor to the chaos that is traffic in Belgium. On weekday mornings, there are a combined 150-200 km of jams on 7,000 km of Belgian highways on average (8). Needless to say I think traffic jams are just a normal and very much accepted part of living in Belgium. Backing this up is an INRIX report, which has found that Brussels and Antwerp, the two largest cities in Belgium, are the two most congested cities in Europe and North America (9). Congestion is so bad that it is estimated that drivers in Brussels waste 83 hours a year in traffic (10). Imagine that. All that precious time which drivers waste. You could have spent that time doing something productive but instead you are bumper to bumper staring at the brake lights on the car in front of you willing it to move. It is such a wonder that in a heavily developed country like Belgium, the administrative centre of the European Union, traffic jams on this scale could occur. So how did Belgium get into such a pickle over it’s highly inadequate transportation system?

Belgium: The trials of a Belgium lifestyle

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Well, there are several reasons but I will cover just a few. Firstly, as I have explained, the Belgium lifestyle means that people commute from wherever they are living to work and that means into Brussels or Antwerp where the jobs are focused. Even some people who live near their jobs have meetings in other parts of the country. For a normal person that would mean sleeping at a hotel in that city to be on time but for a Belgian it is different. As Steven Logghe, head of a traffic information company, says “Belgians, prefer to wake up a little earlier and drive across the country.” (11). Impractical I know but it is this that is aiding in making the transport system in Belgium inadequate. Secondly, as you may have noticed the main form of transport in Belgium is in the car on the road. It is actually these roads, which mount unnecessary congestion even further. You would think that logically if you wanted to go from one small town on one side of the country to another small town then you would miss out on the congestion centers of Brussels and Antwerp. But no, the ring roads of Brussels and Antwerp are the center of a spider web of highways across the country. As such people travelling across the country have no option but to pass at least one or both cities, even if they don’t need to be there (12). This is highly inadequate if by driving anywhere the public are only going to cause more congestion even without wanting to. Roading infrastructure in Belgium is clearly inadequate with the amount of congestion Belgians face on a daily basis. One thing is for sure, Belgium definitely does not have adequate infrastructure to sustain it’s populous and with a growing population and an already heavily road based transport system it looks like congestion in Belgium is set to continue.

Belgium: The trials of a Belgium lifestyle

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Curitiba is the paradigm of sustainable urbanism (13) built around a world leading mass transportation system. It is Curitiba, the eighth most populous city in Brazil, that has sparked a game changing mass transportation system that over 29 million passengers ride daily in 163 cities around the globe (14). But hold on, before you jump out of your seats and insist that this is the way forward for transportation and that every country must install it, I must tell you what this actually is. In fact the mode of transport is not new but it is the application of it that is cutting edge. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a high quality, efficient mass transportation mode, which consists of stations, vehicles and busways combined into an integrated transit system with a strong brand (15). In short it is a network of buses on busways saving people time as well as saving the environment. Now, before we all groan and proclaim that buses have been around for years we need to explore in greater detail why this time buses are working and working well.

From Curitiba to the world: Where does the future of transport lie?

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Back to the beginning, where BRT started out as just a few buses travelling around Curitiba during its infancy. First the city started to have buses running in their own lanes, which means that the buses are not limited by the congestion of the car lanes, hence speeding up their service. After that came the accordion and double accordion buses which can carry in some cases up to 250 passengers. This is helpful because it means that delays because of full buses are not common with so much space for passengers. What they did next was to create express routes, which save time and finally the best innovation they came up with was the tube station. The tube station has rotating barriers that allow the passengers through once swiping their card or ticket. This means that everyone in the tube station has already paid and they do not have to wait for the bus driver to purchase a ticket or have it checked as they board. This saves time and I mean a lot of time. I am sure you have all been there before, behind 10 people who each need their ticket checked or to buy one in the first place it can take ages. With this form of ticketing in tube stations this allows for efficient boarding and disembarkation. In fact in combination with this ticketing system the tube stations are also on the same level as the buses, which automatically fold down a ramp onto the station platform. The station is at the same level as the bus so that passengers can get on and off in just 10 seconds (16). Just 10 seconds! How astonishing is that? I think that the combination of all these innovations has made for a more that adequate transportation system. In fact I can guarantee it is adequate because today, Curitiba is moving 2,700,000 passengers per day. That's more than the number of people that live in the city (17). That surely signifies that Bus Rapid Transit does not only meet the local public’s expectations but also the out of city public’s expectations so it must be adequate. Adequate in Curitiba but it is also adequate worldwide.

From Curitiba to the world: Where does the future of transport lie?

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Istanbul in Turkey is a very congested city and now has 52 kilometers with 42 stations and a full dedicated single continuous line (18). In Istanbul Bus Rapid Transit is working very well too. It now transports 750, 000 people in a day (19). The system in Istanbul is definitely working. It has not been around for nearly as long as the system in Curitiba and yet it is already carrying just under one third of the number of passengers that Curitiba’s system does and that is not it. The city of Istanbul is separated into part of Europe and part of Asia and a highly congested bridge links the two parts of the city. To cross this bridge with a car it would take one and a half hours (20) but with the BRT System it is only like fifteen minutes (21). An hour and fifteen minutes saved. I think for anyone that kind of saving would be beneficial and would soon add up. In fact people can say that they receive their February back (22) as it is estimated that people save 28 days over a year using the BRT system in Istanbul. Who wouldn’t want their February back? So say goodbye to hours in traffic and inadequate transport systems and welcome the new generation of Bus Rapid Transit. From Curitiba to the world, this is the future of transportation.

From Curitiba to the world: Where does the future of transport lie?

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1,2,3. Stephen Selwood, Infrastructure report: Delivering on our national aspirations, The New Zealand Herald, 19th August 2014 4,5. The Details, The Congestion Free Network 6. Quick Intro, The Congestion Free Network 7, 9, 10, 11, 12. Laurent Vermeersch, Five reasons Belgium has the worst traffic in Europe, The Guardian, 28th August 2014 8. Philip Blenkinsop, Congestion capital Brussels looks to unclog traffic arteries, Reuters, 27th April 2014 13, 16, 17. Cities in Focus Curitiba, Brazil, EMBARQ, 16th November 2010 12, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Bus Rapid Transit Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts of BRT, EMBARQ, 9th December 2013

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