7 July 2012
This is not a new article. Some of you may even have read it before but I
thought it makes excellent points and a re-read would only refresh our
minds.
John Whiteworth is the editor of "World Transport Policy and Practice".
Thanks,
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Sujit
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*....reduce our car use dramatically and then use our influence with the
World Bank, the US and Japanese governments and all lending banks to stop
peddling the disastrous and failed model of western motorisation in
developing countries. It did not work for us - and now it is killing
millions of them.*
*
*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/mar/26/comment.guardiansociety...
Car wars
Traffic accidents are killing millions in the developing world - but there
is a solution from which the west should learn
- John Whitelegg
- The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>, Wednesday 26
March 2003
There may be plenty of transport problems in Britain, but the world's
transport crisis has reached such catastrophic proportions that road
traffic accidents now kill more people each year than malaria.
By 2030, it is predicted, 2.5 million people will be killed on the roads of
developing countries each year and 60 million people will be injured. Even
now, 3,000 people are killed and 30,000 seriously injured on the world's
roads every day.
Air pollution from traffic claims 400,000 lives each year, mostly in
developing countries, and some 1.5 billion people are exposed every day to
levels of pollution well in excess of World Health Organisation recommended
levels. Particulate pollution and levels of cancer-causing pollutants have
already damaged the health of hundreds of millions of children. This will
follow them through to later life and directly affect their economic
potential and the health budgets of already strained national
administrations.
More and more research finds that the problems of the world's poor are
multiplied by the car. The deaths and injuries take place mainly in
developing countries and mainly to pedestrians, cyclists, bus users and
children. The poor suffer disproportionately; they experience the worst air
pollution and are deprived of education, health, water and sanitation
programmes because the needs of the car now soak up so much national
income. Road transport absorbs massive public investments for building and
maintenance.
In short, the car has become an instrument of oppression in developing
countries as national budgets are hijacked to cope with the demands of car
users.
The inexorable rise of the car and the lorry in these countries produces
problems totally out of scale with the numbers of people owning cars. Most
of the air pollution in Asian cities comes from traffic, yet only a very
small proportion of the population owns a car. In Calcutta, more than 1,000
pedestrians are killed each year, and air pollution is 10 times worse than
the worst conditions in any European city. In Nairobi, 4,000 pedestrians
are killed each year. And in both cities car ownership and use is growing
at more than 20%a year, with little effort made to protect those not in
cars.
Advances in vehicle, engine and fuel technology are of little relevance in
Asian and African cities, where the growth of car and lorry numbers is
dramatic and where highly polluting diesel and two-stroke engine vehicles
are the norm.
Yet one city in the developing world has broken the vicious circle of
transport growth, poverty, pollution and inequality and has turned
transport policy upside down to benefit the poor and reward the pedestrian.
In Bogota, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa, the mayor from 1998-2001, held a
referendum and reallocated transport budgets to improve the quality of life
for the poorest. The results were staggering. The city embarked on an
intensive programme of building cycling and pedestrian-only routes,
including a car-free route, 17km long, connecting some of the poorest parts
of the city with the facilities they need to access, including jobs. Parks
were built on derelict land, canals cleaned up and car-free days
implemented. In October 2000, the citizens of Bogota voted in favour of
excluding cars from the city in the morning and afternoon peaks from 2005.
Penalosa introduced a car numberplate system that required 40% of the cars
to be off the roads during peak hours on two days a week, and this produced
a reduction in pollution. More than 80 miles of main roads are now closed
for seven hours every Sunday and, each week, up to 2m people come out to
enjoy the clean air, the freedom and the safe environment. On one weekday
in 2002, a car-free day was set up and 7m people went to work without a
car. In a subsequent poll, 82% supported the concept.
Bogota's approach is based on creating an equal and vibrant city where no
one need fear the oppression that pervades so many other developing
countries' transport systems. Penalosa wanted a reliable and free-moving
bus system that was affordable and that used road space on the surface. An
underground or metro, he reasoned, was simply too expensive for a poor
country and, in any case, was supported only by rich people because it
keeps intact as much road space as possible. Now the buses carry more than
half a million people every day, are reliable and affordable, and give the
poorest groups in Bogota as much accessibility to jobs and facilities as
the rich have. The bus system also covers its cost and makes a profit while
every metro in the world swallows up huge subsidies, which are further
losses from health education and sanitation programmes.
Traditional transport policies simply do not work for the poor - whether in
Colombia or Britain. Western countries can learn from experiences such as
this and we should stop sending our transport consultants to developing
countries. We need the radical approach pioneered in Colombia, with its
emphasis on equality, democracy, openness and citizen participation -
especially of women, the elderly, children and those who walk, cycle and
travel on buses.
Britain has so far failed to do this, but there is still time to encourage
a people-centred approach in developing countries. It can only work,
however, if we "put our money where our mouth is" in Britain and reduce our
car use dramatically and then use our influence with the World Bank, the US
and Japanese governments and all lending banks to stop peddling the
disastrous and failed model of western motorisation in developing
countries. It did not work for us - and now it is killing millions of them.
*· **John Whitelegg, a research leader at the Stockholm Environment
Institute, University of York, co-edited the Earthscan Reader in World
Transport Policy and Practice (£19.95).*
- © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
All rights reserved.
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*Parisar*
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Sujit Patwardhan
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su...@parisar.org <suji...@gmail.com>
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