From what I’ve heard from our experts in Mumbai, the project has had several hiccups like lack of signage, signal systems not working properly, bus breakdowns, and motorcycles and bicycles entering the bus lanes. But overall these are problems that can be fixed with time and bus operations can be improved.
What seems to be a bigger problem than the hitches and hiccups of the system itself is the destructive roll that the media has played, unfairly skewing the coverage of the trial run to make the problem seem worse than it actually is.
In the video below, for example, you can see footage of cars, rickshaws and motorbikes snared in traffic alongside the bus lane. What you can also see, however, is that in every shot with a passing bus, the bus is jammed packed with people. It’s a clear indication that the system is popular among people who are using it.
When you watch the news footage though, you will notice that the journalist never interviews a single bus passenger to see what their satisfaction is with the system. All they show is disgruntled car owners who fume about what the bus rapid transit corridor has done to car traffic. Read the rest of this entry »
Transit with wireless is an incredibly attractive way to travel. And apparently AC Transit, a regional bus agency in the San Francisco Bay Area, agrees, providing wireless internet on all their buses crossing the San Francisco Bay.
Yesterday I had an action packed day of transit; I took BART from North Berkeley to Union City, then hopped on a bus with wireless that crosses the Dumbarton Bridge to Palo Alto, or so I thought. When I realized I was on the wrong bus, and figured out that there were no more buses coming, I had no other option but to take a cab. Read the rest of this entry »
China’s Green Beat, is a neat bilingual blog I stumbled upon the other day, written by John Romankiewicz, an American Fulbright scholar currently living in Beijing, and Zhao Xiangyu, a Chinese citizen from Heilongjiang, a province in the northern part of the country. Check out the above video for a comical take on serious challenge: motorization in the Chinese capital.
A year after its mangled implementation, Transantiago, the ambitious program to restructure Santiago’s sprawling and inefficient bus system, is still generating quite a bit of buzz. Last week, for example, The Economist published a piece on the political fallout from Transantiago, suggesting that the precipitous drop in President Michelle Bachelete’s approval ratings were caused by the system’s shortcomings.
Other media outlets throughout Chile have followed up with similar stories of their own. (See El Mercurioand Radio Cooperativa)
Recently I’ve heard many questions about the future of Santiago’s bus system: should it return to the partially de-regulated operations of the 1990s? Or maybe even go back to the totally deregulated transit of the early 1980s?
The answer to these questions is unequivocal: no.
Overall, the service during the 1980s and 1990s was extremely poor, resulting in unprecedented gridlock, high accident rates, increased air pollution, and long travel times. During this period, the upwardly mobile, whose incomes rose during the economic boom, turned their backs on mass transit, opting for the convenience of cars, which flooded the streets and only exacerbated the congestion and air pollution plaguing Santiago. Read the rest of this entry »
An unusual calm on Bogota’s streets. Photo by Pattoncito from Flickr.
On Thursday, February 7 Bogotá held its 8th annual car-free day during which 14% of the population left their private cars at home and walked, cycled, and took mass transit to get around Colombia’s capital city. The car-free day is a bold effort to give people the chance of experiencing how nice the city could be without the 1.2 million private vehicles that ply Bogota’s streets every day. Following Bogota’s lead the car-free movement is spreading throughout the world, but still, this Andean city is the only one of its size that actually enforces its efforts, slapping $118 fines on any vehicle breaking the ban.
The Colombian newspaper EL TIEMPO reported a 45% reduction in carbon monoxide, an improvement attribute to the absence of private cars. This reduction, while important, was overshadowed by a 42% increase in particulate matter. Particulate matter is inorganic particles caused by diesel engines, brake and tire friction, wood burning factories using heavy fuels and coal, and forms indirectly in the air from SOx and NOX. Particulate matter has serious effects on the human respiratory system, and is especially harmful to children, the elderly and people with breathing problems. It is also one of the leading causes of bronchitis and asthma. At typical concentrations, particulate matter has approximately the same impact on human health as carbon monoxide. However, per equal mass emitted, it has between a 10 times (if its from brakes and tire friction) and 1000 times (if its from diesel engines and SOx) greater impact on human health than carbon monoxide.
For Bogotá, the really important question is whether the particulate matter which increased during car-free day was from brakes and tires or from diesel engines. If it was from breaks and tires then it will be removed quickly from the atmosphere, and we could argue unequivocally that car-free day improved human health. However, if it’s from diesel engines and Sox - as it is believed to be in the case of Bogota - then the increase in particulate matter may have outweighed the benefits from reduced levels of carbon monoxide. Read the rest of this entry »
Following the lead of Tokyo, where the subway has implemented female-only cars so that women can avoid the unwanted gaze or grope of overly-aggressive men, Mexico City has now introduced buses reserved exclusively for women. “One time a man stuck his hand up my skirt. They grab your butt … It’s gross,” Lourdes Zendejas, a female bus-commuter told Reuters. The new buses are emblazoned with pink “women only” signs on the exterior to warred off any confused man who wants to hitch ride. According to Carlos Cervantes, the spokesman for Mexico City’s bus system, sexual harassment has been an ongoing problem for female passengers who have suffered a variety of indignities merely for having an extra X chromosome while riding the bus. “We were constantly receiving complaints of women being leered at, kissed or followed,” he told Reuters.
It’s a nice step, especially for making public transportation accessible to everyone in a city where over 60 percent of the population travels by some type of bus.
For more information in Spanish, check out this article in El Tiempo.
In this great ad from MTV a donkey named Lolo takes the bus. The caption says “If Lolo can save the planet, why can’t you? Leave the car and take public transit. Let’s stop global warming.”
The car industry’s total annual advertising expenditures for the US alone were $16.3 billion in 2006 according to media research firm TNS Media Intelligence. In the face of this barrage of automobile advertising, it’s nice to see some time, money, and creativity invested in well done TV spots promoting public transportation. I’d love to see more of this. If anybody has any more examples of this kind of messaging please post them here or send them to me at rthom[at]wri[dot]org.
Way to go MTV! Check out the campaign at mtvswitch.org.
Poznan’s currently car-free central square is threatened by increasing traffic congestion in the city. Photo by Lee Schipper.
Lee Schipper was recently invited to Poznań, Poland by the consulting firm Convoco. In this article, Lee and Sylwia Klatka (Convoco’s managing director and Poznań resident) report on the challenges the city faces in cleaning and greening its transport systems.
Poznań is one of the 10 largest cities in Poland, with the second highest per capita income in the country. The city sits on a major East-West highway connecting Berlin with Warsaw (and ultimately Moscow), and its modest population of 600,000 people is already choking on well over 200,000 cars. Lee’s invitation from the city was facilitated by Sylwia Klatka, the founder of ConVoco, a local company that works on transport and environment projects with cities around Europe. During his time in Poznań, Lee got to meet the Deputy Mayor, Mirosław Kruszyński, the head of the city Environmental Department, and key officials in city departments related to transport and infrastructure.
One of Granada’s clean and nice-looking bus stops. Photo by celikins from Flickr.
In October, I spent a few days in Granada, Spain, with my daughter, Lorna. A quick stop by the city’s Tourist Information office gave us the info we needed about the city’s bus system, the regional bus system, and the long-distance bus service. We would soon be heading to the Alpujarras region of the Sierra Nevada mountains for a couple of days hiking and then on to Madrid, so the different bus services would be key for getting around Spain.
One thing we noticed the first day we went to the Via Gran Colon in Granada’s city center was that the series of bus-stops arrayed along the street were clean, safe, and good-looking, each equipped with an electronic display indicating the arrival time of the next bus. What a brilliant move! With one look at the display, you could tell whether the bus was arriving soon or whether you had time to run a quick errand and make it back in time.
My daughter Lorna works at the Medical Center at the University of California, Los Angeles and commutes to work from her apartment in West Los Angeles by bus each day. She told me that an information system like this one would be a great addition for her local bus-stop. As a frequent bus rider too, I couldn’t agree more. After asking a local how Granada’s system worked, I learned that each bus was outfitted with a GPS system, indicating the exact location of the bus from which it was possible to predict its arrival time. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s wifi on this bus! Photo by 
Yesterday I had an action packed day of transit; I took 
After some early hiccups, 
Photo by 
Poznan’s currently car-free central square is threatened by increasing traffic congestion in the city. Photo by Lee Schipper.
What a brilliant move! With one look at the display, you could tell whether the bus was arriving soon or whether you had time to run a quick errand and make it back in time.
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