The future of the world's cities is not the car. Photo of Tokyo by Trey Ratcliff.

This post is part of a series analyzing the solutions highlighted in the report and toolkit, “Megacities on the Move.” The report, written by Forum for the Future in partnership with FIA Foundation, Vodafone, and EMBARQ, offers six sustainable mobility solutions for massive cities that include examples of solutions currently in practice and those in development. For a summary of the report and more information on the project, check out a previous post on TheCityFix.

Rates of vehicle ownership are increasing around the world. A recent report, the Latin American Green City Index, measured and assessed the environmental performance of select cites in South America. The report iterated a key challenge: while public transportation in Latin American is extensive and cities like Bogotá, Curitiba and Santiago boast some of the best systems in the world, rates of car ownership are still exploding. And the trend is not unique to Latin America. For example, in cities like Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta, the number of people riding motorcycles is very high and motorization is expected to increase with GDP. The study places per capita income between U.S. $3,000 and $5,000 as the threshold in the developing world for car ownership. Even as auto ownership parallels the rise in quality of life standards, there is a shift in the U.S., Europe and major cities around the world in the importance of owning and operating vehicles. Car ownership is expensive compared to mass transit; people see value in multitasking while commuting; and there are increasing options of temporary car usage such as options like Zipcar. (There are plans for Asia’s Car Club to expand beyond Japan to China and Korea.)

Establishing excellent mass transit and walkable, livable cities is another part of encouraging travel via public transit, walking and biking. And as Nicolae Duduta, Transport Research Analyst at EMBARQ (the producer of this blog) pointed out, “Europe has similar rates of car ownership as the U.S. but the car is used less often.” For example, a small portion of Europeans relative to Americans use their cars to get to work everyday. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tends to be a more accurate indicator of how far city residents are actually traveling to get places.

As we wrote, “It is possible for public transportation to thrive, even as there are more autos on the road” but it depends on “the cost and ease of car ownership and the quality and availability of substitute options.” In Europe, parts of Asia and even parts of the U.S., “auto ownership may be widespread [but] operating costs (specifically fuel prices, parking, and in some areas congestion pricing) are higher, parking is not as guaranteed and driving alternatives are more prevalent and competitive with driving.” These incentives for public transit and the availability of alternative options can actually reduce VMT. Households or people that own cars do not perceive driving as the only way of getting around but rather as one option among a menu of choices. People will likely choose the most appropriate and convenient mode for a given trip.

Exemplifying the importance of dense cities organized around transit that discourage sprawl, in the U.S., the modal share of individual car use for cities decreased ever so slightly from 2000 to 2009. But this change occurred only in older and denser cities.

But still, according to the “Megacities on the Move” report, vehicle ownership currently stands at one billion cars and this figure is expected to grow to two billion in the next few decades. Smart growth patterns along with policy are needed to create attractive alternatives to driving.

A Menu of Choices and Incentives Not To Drive

Allocation of road and parking space for public space and public transit alternatives are important. For example, bus rapid transit (BRT) uses existing road infrastructure for buses that run on dedicated lanes. This component of BRT makes the systems cheaper to implement, but also takes space away from individual vehicles and uses it for mass transit. If usage of BRT is high, this frees up more road space for cars.

Re-envisioning space allotted to cars in urban settings through PARK(ing) day. Photo by Allie Gerlach.

The annual Park(ing) Day seeks to inspire people in cities to reconsider the amount of public space allotted to individual vehicles. For a day parking spots are transformed into temporary parks for the public good.

Making driving more costly and difficult has also been effective in a number of cities. Quito, the capital city of Ecuador and a city of 2.1 million residents, has seen a rapid rise in car ownership but has also created incentives for residents not to drive. The city has a BRT system with exclusive lanes that transport nearly a half a million people. In addition to mass transit, Quito has a comprehensive policy to reduce congestion in the city. Parking is restricted in some urban areas, lanes have been converted to exclusive biking corridors, and the city has occasional car-free days.

Plus, in 2010 Quito became the first city in Ecuador to restrict the number of vehicles coming into the city during peak hours on weekdays, following the example of São Paulo, Brazil and Bogotá, Colombia. The policy is called Pico y Placa. (“Pico” for peak and “placa” for license plate number.) During rush hours, certain license plate numbers are restricted, which means car owners are not allowed to have their cars on the road one day a week. Traffic during peak times has fallen by as much as 30 percent, the ultimate goal being to remove as many as 80,000 private cars off Quito’s streets. The result of the program has also been car-sharing behavior as people combine trips with neighbors whose licenses are not restricted. (For more information on these policies and initiatives in other Latin American cities, check out the Latin American City Index [pdf]).

The city of Lyon in central France has managed to develop an integrated multi-modal transportation system, including subway, light rail, BRT, and bike sharing. Transports en Commun de Lyon (TCL), Lyon’s transportation agency, manages the entire public transportation system, and this helps improve transfers and coordinate schedules between different modes. Riders can use the same fare card to transfer from bus to light rail to subway. The city has also redesigned streets to make them more pedestrian friendly and expanded its transit network.

The streets of Lyon are not dominated by the car but incorporate multi-modal use. Photo by FaceMEPLS.

The issue is not car ownership itself but how often and how many miles residents travel, which can only be reduced through comprehensive planning, viable alternatives and policies that encourage the use of alternative modes of transit. Engineers, planners and designers have significant power to promote dense growth in existing cities along with sustainable transportation.

Write comments or tweet us @thecityfix with your ideas for future sustainability solutions in megacities.

Load carrying bikes in Varanasi, India. Photo by dirk huijssoon.

This post is part of a series analyzing the solutions highlighted in the report and toolkit, “Megacities on the Move.” The report, written by Forum for the Future in partnership with FIA Foundation, Vodafone, and EMBARQ, offers six sustainable mobility solutions for massive cities that include examples of solutions currently in practice and those in development.  For a summary of the report and more information on the project, check out a previous post on TheCityFix.

Mobility systems must work for everyone – the rich and the poor. Too often low income people and neighborhoods are isolated from good transportation, further hindering employment opportunities and access to goods and services.  The “Megacities on the Move” report suggests that “everyone in the mobility sector will have to design tailored mobility solutions that meet” the needs of low income people.

Aileen Carrigan, Transport and Urban Planning Associate with EMBARQ, the producer of this blog, says “It’s not that the poor need custom solutions or designs tailored to meet their needs, rather cities need mass transit systems that are accessible and affordable.” She breaks the issue into three parts:

• connecting the urban poor to existing mass transit systems – transit services need to serve slums and poor neighborhoods;
• setting affordable transit fares; and
• ensuring that public transport is accessible to people with disabilities, since in developing countries these users are likely to be the poorest.

“I think addressing these three needs is as important as thinking about custom technology for the poor,” Carrigan summarizes.

In addition to creating services that are accessible and affordable for the poor, it’s also important to include the poor in the planning process. To give businesses, planners, developers and people in academia the loudest voice in the process ignores the needs of marginalized and often vulnerable populations.

Accessibility in Terms of Proximity

The cities of Medellín in Colombia as well as Caracas in Venezuela have built cable cars to improve the connectivity of slums to the urban core. This elevated transit system provides a transit service to barrios clustered on steep hillsides inaccessible by cars or conventional mass transit.

This technology is not uncommon in the developing world, where slums are often clustered along a city’s edge or on precarious terrain. Often these informal settlements have impassable streets and nonexistent road infrastructure. The benefits of a car cable system are that they are low-emission transport systems, easily integrated into the cityscape and accessible to the disabled.

Opened in 2006, the Medellín Metrocable “was designed to reach some of the least developed suburban areas of Medellín…” This solution, highlighted in the “Megacities on the Move” report, has practical applications for hard-to-reach and dense urban settings, but it is not a solution for the poor specifically, but rather for a specific geography that happens to have slums.  Yet these cars have improved quality of life and mobility in Medellín. The system has reduced motorization, particularly of motorcycles, the vehicle most residents in these slums use to maneuver along the crowded  roads. This has reduced tailpipe emissions and improved street safety.

According to a resident quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article, the Caracas cable car located in the city’s “poorest and most violent barrios” has reduced the commuting time of some from two hours to 40 minutes.

In New York City, considered the U.S. city with the best and most affordable public transit, a recent study by the Pratt Center revealed that the city’s lowest paid workers have the longest commutes because high housing costs have forced residents to live farther away from the city’s subway-rich core. The Subway is the primary and most efficient mode of transit for New Yorkers to get around the city. (32 percent use the subway and 14 percent use the bus, according to Wikipedia.) Additionally, low income workers with service and manual jobs tend to commute to sites dispersed around the region far from the subway. New York’s solution has been to implement BRT and new bus service routes that reduce the isolation of certain city neighborhoods.  For more on the report, check out a recent post on TheCityFix.

Free to Use: Walking and Biking

Transportation needs to be affordable. Unlimited monthly passes or time-based rather than distance-based fares help encourage low income users to use the most efficient mode of transit rather than simply the cheapest. Distance-based fares can penalize the poorest transit users, who tend to live in the townships or slums on the outskirts of town and have to travel long distances or make many transfers. The base transit fare and fare structure should be set so that the poorest, most transit dependent users are not penalized.

Additionally, walking and biking are free and healthful activities. As many U.S. studies note, the financial burden of owning a car is significant when compared to public transportation, biking or walking. Carrigan says, “Biking and walking are the healthiest and most cost effective modes for short trips (many or even most motorized trips in cities are less than three miles, which can easily be covered on bike or foot). And bike sharing systems encourage using a bicycle for the shortest trips by offering free rentals for up to 30 minutes.”

Bicycles can be used for utilitarian purposes as well,  as many load-carrying bikes, when affordable, enable people to be be mobile and do business more cheaply.  Walking and biking infrastructure that is well-designed, useful and encourages vulnerable users to walk, bike and use mass transit can be the path to affordable mobility.

Participatory Research to Involve Low Income Populations

Community-based participatory research is a ground-up approach premised on community participation and the translation of research findings into action for social change. Resident input is used to orient research in the design phase and to garner feedback from a broad community. The process itself is not only about empowering residents (because it recognizes local knowledge and assets in a community), but it also provides an opportunity for under-privileged populations to voice input on issues of concern that may be overlooked in a top-down planning process.  This type of research involves residents in all aspects of the design and implementation of research projects. Unfortunately, this approach to research is far more common in the public health field, which tends to focus more explicitly on behavior analysis.

Another project, RioOnWatch, was developed by a nonprofit in Rio de Janeiro to give voice to the residents of Rio’s favelas (slums) as the city prepares for the 2016 Olympics. RioOnWatch is the English-language version and favela.info is the Portugese version of the blog that focuses on interactions between the government and local populations. It provides information on how the decisions made by government and corporations for the mega-sporting event will impact communities around Rio in the period before and after the Olympics.  RioOnWatch points out that breaking ground for much of the necessary infrastructure for the Olympic Games will displace thousands of people and those people need to have a voice in how this construction will impact their communities.

Although new technology will be valuable in addressing the future needs of low income populations, simple solutions like building transit or linkages to mass transit in low-income communities, making sure transit is designed to be universally accessible to the disabled, promoting walking and biking, and using processes like participatory planning can ensure that the poor have voice and value in transit systems.

Write comments or tweet us @thecityfix with your ideas for future sustainability solutions in megacities.

The success of Bogota's TransMilenio bus rapid transit system is largely based on the concentrated development that has occurred around bus corridors. Photo by Javier Guillot.

This post is part of a series analyzing the solutions highlighted in the report and toolkit, “Megacities on the Move.” The report, written by London-based Forum for the Future in partnership with FIA Foundation, Vodafone, and EMBARQ, offers six sustainable mobility solutions for massive cities that include examples of solutions currently in practice and those in development.  The first of these is “Integrate, Integrate Integrate.”  For a summary of the report and more information on the project, check out a previous post on TheCityFix.

A truly integrative system of transportation in cities looks first at people and quality of life. In planning for the future, as population grows and environmental issues become more acute, integration is a key means of moving towards sustainability in the world’s largest cities. Specifically, the report states, “transport, urban planning, business, public services, energy and food supply” are sectors that should “no longer be considered in isolation.” Instead these sectors should be considered together to establish integrated systems where people have choice, flexibility and seamless connectivity to provide long-term mobility solutions.

“Megacities on the Move” looks at integration by analyzing how urban transportation systems impact and can improve a range of issues from air pollution to congestion to road safety to public health to social justice. Without developing, implementing and operating transport in concert with other sectors, mobility systems will not address the environmental, accessibility and quality of life issues that impact cities.

Dario Hidalgo, Senior Transport Engineer at EMBARQ, the producer of this blog, says, “Integration brings big synergies. If a given intervention, such as the introduction of a high capacity bus rapid transit corridor is coupled with provisions for denser land use and disincentives for individual car travel, the impacts are much bigger than such policies or systems in isolation.”  For example, “hybrid buses without any priority would reduce emissions, but will not reduce travel time; denser land use and congestion pricing without transit will not be sustainable.” When well-integrated, “transportation can reduce travel time, pollutant emissions, road injuries and deaths, and will increase physical activity, ultimately making cities more livable, economically competitive and fun,” says Hidalgo.  There are a myriad of benefits of a well-integrated transportation system. Including other sectors in the planning, implementation and funding process ensures that transit and city services meet a broad range of human and environmental needs.

For example, the “avoid-shift-improve” framework for approaching climate change in the transportation sector relies on integrative tactics.  Cities can avoid unnecessary vehicle travel through measures like transit-oriented development and telecommuting; shift to more efficient and safer modes, like walking, cycling and mass transit; and finally, improve vehicles, facilities and operations in various ways, such as increasing fuel efficiency or incorporating LEED standards. This process by its very nature involves long-term, integrated solutions and strong partnerships.

Link Land Use and Urban Planning

Transit-oriented development (TOD) incorporates diverse issues and systems into a simple solution. This approach locates people, jobs and services in areas within walking distance – about a half mile – of public transportation. TOD incorporates zoning and planning regulations with transit, concentrating growth near transportation hubs. Good TOD practice includes mixed-income housing in these areas and creates a sense of place through pedestrian and biking infrastructure as well as “traffic calming” measures to control vehicle speeds.  Transit planners, government leaders, land use planners, developers, residents and the business community must work together to build an integrated system in order for TOD to be effective. Beyond providing accessibility to transportation and services, TOD can improve road safety by reducing the number of vehicles on the road, encouraging walkers and bikers to use the streets.

Fundamentally, the principles of TOD promote integration of housing, employment and services to reduce the need to travel beyond walking distance.  Orientation around transit assets then allows the remaining longer trips to occur using personal vehicles.

Many transport and urban planning experts have argued for the need to consider suburban retrofitting as a serious future solution to unsustainable urban sprawl.  This involves identifying incremental, low-cost changes to the land-use and transportation systems in existing communities to better facilitate transit access, cycling and walking.

TransMilenio: An Integrated Mass Transit System
Located in Bogota, Colombia, TransMilenio is a bus rapid transit system has been effective in its ability to tackle a number of urbanization issues through the development of an effective mass transit system. Since its construction in 2000, the system has reduced motorization and improved road safety by developing policy and services with the growth of BRT in the area. For example, before TransMilenio, 95 percent of road space was used for cars that transported only 17 percent of the population. With the BRT system, non-motorized travel has increased as Bogota has worked to improve and create public spaces, new pedestrian zones, and 300 kilometers of cycle paths called (“ciclo-rutas”). Additionally, the system was developed along with other policies like restriction of private vehicles during peak commuting hours and measures like higher car-parking rates, and compulsory car-free dates – called “dia sin carro.”

The system has improved street safety and reduced accidents by 81 percent, improving quality of life in Bogota and enhancing the attractiveness of the city in ways far broader than mobility. For more on TransMilenio, go here.

Biking and Walking: Low Carbon Modes of Transportation for All

“Megacities on the Move” mentions solar powered electric bicycles that can be stored as seats in buses as an approach to linking multiple modes of transport. When ridden, these bikes store energy; they can be also stored at bus stops to generate energy via solar cells. This approach links bike use and mass transit and could potentially increase usage of both forms of transportation by making the two systems more convenient and reliable for users.

Biking and walking allow people to get from one place to another efficiently and cheaply but again, these modes only work when integrated with dense land use. Simple measures such as buses that store bikes, safe bike lanes, bike parking at job sites and along the street can increase the modal share of biking by encouraging new riders and those who do ride to use their bikes more often. New technologies for bike share systems such as mobile phone applications that track bike locations at storage stations and provide information on docking locations provide convenience and reliability. And universal fare card systems like integrated (or smart) fare systems, something India is now looking to as a way to pay for diverse modes of transit in cities will make connectivity among different modes of transit easier and simpler for users.

Even though “Megacities on the Move” focuses on design and infrastructure changes that will be needed in thirty years, the concept of walkability and bikability is unlikely to change significantly.  Policy and infrastructure that no longer ignore the intersection of land use and transportation planning, improved accessibility for walking and cycling, as well as technologies that better connect riders with public transit all have room to incorporate the possibilities of future transit technologies and information technology.

Write comments or tweet us @thecityfix with your ideas for future sustainability solutions in megacities.

Originally posted on EMBARQ.org

“Cities need to start planning now to radically re-engineer their infrastructure to cope with much larger populations than they currently support,” concludes a new report released last week by Forum for the Future, a U.K.-based sustainable development organization.

“Megacities on the Move,” a collaboration between Vodafone, FIA Foundation for the Automobile and Society and EMBARQ (the producer of this blog), aims to provoke thought around these overarching questions:

How will people travel in the cities of the future?

How will billions of city-dwellers access what they need without putting intolerable strains on the planet?

How can we plan now for more sustainable ways of life in a radically different world?

The report responds to major trends of urbanization and population growth: By 2040 two in three people will live in cities, and the world’s urban population will grow from 3.5 billion to 5.6 billion. The number of “megacities” – urban areas with more than 10 million people – will also continue to explode, mainly in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Based on feedback from interviews, workshops and peer reviews, the report outlines six possible solutions for sustainable urban mobility, or, more specifically, to help city-dwellers access the people, good  services and information they need. The report also offers four different scenarios, based on energy use and governance, of how the world might look in 2040. (In addition to their written descriptions, the scenarios are portrayed as short video animations, bringing the concepts to life.) Finally, the report offers a general outline of how to lead a workshop in your city to identify challenges, opportunities, and potential solutions to prepare for a rapidly urbanizing world. The information is meant to serve as a guide to help city governments, urban planners and transport providers think about how to move towards a more sustainable future.

THE SOLUTIONS

The report offers six main recommendations:

1. Integrate, integrate, integrate. Cities need to consider transport, urban planning, business, public services, energy and food supply as part of the same integrated system. They should offer people choice and easy connections.

2. Make the poor a priority. Urban mobility systems must ensure that goods, services and job opportunities are open to all.

3. Go beyond the car. Cities need to be designed for people, not cars, and promote alternative forms of transport.

4. Switch on to IT networks. Information technology can create more efficient vehicles, better integrated transport systems, and can offer online and telepresence solutions which avoid the need for travel altogether.

5. Refuel our vehicles. Climate change and rising prices mean we need to focus on energy efficiency and shift the way we power our vehicles from petrol to renewable, low-carbon fuel sources.

6. Change people’s behavior. Infrastructure and technology are not enough, we need to create new social norms that encourage more sustainable, low-carbon lifestyles.

Many of the specific examples related to each recommendation are technology-based innovations, such as stackable electric cars, lifelike “telepresence” screens, and “collision-free” robot cars.

“These are all interesting options,” says Clayton Lane, EMBARQ’s acting director and chief operating officer. “Some are new and untested, others are a good start but still incomplete, and none of them are appropriate for all situations, but nonetheless, they offer interesting ideas to get us thinking about how the future might look.”

Without a doubt, the report delivers a clear message to create a world where all cities think more carefully about how to integrate urban planning, walking and cycling, mass transit and technology to improve the quality of life for its citizens.

“It’s difficult to predict how technology will progress, so it’s important to focus on people first,” says Dario Hidalgo, EMBARQ’s senior transport engineer. “The most important goal should be to change human behavior, so that we avoid unnecessary car use and shift to the most efficient modes, such as walking, cycling and mass transit.”

THE SCENARIOS

The report provides four possible scenarios for the future of cities, described as follows:

1. Planned-opolis. In a world of fossil fuels and expensive energy, the only solution is tightly planned and controlled urban transport.

2. Sprawl-ville. The city is dominated by fossil fuel-powered cars. The elite still gets around, but most urban dwellers face poor transport infrastructure.

3. Renew-abad. The world has turned to alternative energy and high-tech, clean, well-planned transport helps everyone get around.

4. Communi-city. The world has turned to alternative energy, and transport is highly personalised, with a huge variety of transport modes competing for road space.

“The scenarios provide a glimpse into what the future may look like in 2040, but it’s important to realize that there are many other possibilities, if you take into consideration other dimensions besides energy and governance,” Lane says. “Certainly, within the framework of the report, we would hope for ‘Renew-abad’ as the ideal scenario, and ‘Sprawl-ville’ as the worst-case scenario.”

THE WORKSHOPS

In Mumbai and Istanbul, EMBARQ helped organized and facilitate two-day “futures workshops” to identify key challenges and opportunities in the local context. The report offers some guidelines for how other cities and organizations can host their own workshops to develop long-term solutions for sustainable urban mobility, in response to the four possible scenarios.

In Istanbul, participants of a workshop said that raising awareness about climate change and the need for sustainable mobility was the most important next step to get people to change their behavior, so they came up with a strategy that included multi-stakeholder partnerships, pilot demonstration projects, educational programming, capacity-building and training. “It was a thought-provoking exercise that made us realize there is an urgent need for change,” says Sibel Bulay, director for the Center for Sustainable Transport in Turkey (SUM-Türkiye), a member of the EMBARQ Network.

As Bulay noted in the report:

“Continuing with business as usual made Istanbul in 2040 a dismal place with severe limitations on energy use. But there are interesting, more positive visions. Could Turkey become a big player in the energy markets by investment in alternatives? How could this also create an awareness of sustainable living among the citizens of Istanbul? We could build a very liveable city with a great sense of community.”

Another workshop held in Mumbai revealed similar opportunities for change. “Many of the scenario responses highlighted the need for immediate action to shift to less energy intensive transport modes,” said Madhav Pai, the director of the Center for Sustainable Transport in India (CST-India), who helped organized Mumbai’s workshop participants created a high-level action plan to fulfill their aspirations for a “localized, livable city” that’s “run for everyone.” These solutions included localized urban planning, with a focus on things like mixed-use development and flexible working environments that allowed people to be productive in their own neighborhoods.

Says Lane: “No matter what the future holds, we hope for a world where all people who live in cities have access to healthy and sustainable environments, thanks to unified and strong governance institutions, well-planned transport systems, mixed use development, and low-carbon technology.”

Look for posts this week on TheCityFix that go more in depth on the report’s six major recommendations: integrate, make the poor a priority, go beyond the car, switch to IT networks, refuel our vehicles and change peoples’ behavior.