Our friends over at Streetfilms just produced a nice video about Istanbul, featuring the city’s battle with cars, air pollution, and traffic and some bold efforts to make the city more inviting to pedestrians and cyclists.
Click the following links to learn more about cycling in Istanbul, it’s efforts to systematize its taxis, its new bus rapid transit system, and its history as a pedestrian city.
Photo by Murat Suyabatmaz.
Biking in cities doesn’t have to be hazardous to your health. But in Istanbul, you must be extra careful. Besides traffic and air pollution – the usually problems faced by urban cyclists – Istanbul riders have to deal with flooded cycle paths, barbecues, trees, bushes, and garbage bins in cycle areas, and lack of bicycle parking.
But even with these problems there’s still reason to be excited about biking in Istanbul. Recently, Gizem Altin, a Turkish cycling advocate, organized Istanbul’s first ever symposium on urban cycling. In attendance was a representative from the city government who announced that Istanbul could have 101 km of dedicated bike lanes right away without any major structural changes, if the mayor were to give his support. The city official also talked about the city’s master plan for building 670 km of bike lanes. But alas, there is no time frame for such a project, an indication that it might never be implemented.
In the meantime, cycling in Istanbul continues to be an extreme sport. After the leap, check out the photo essay on biking in Istanbul by Murat Suyabatmaz, a Turkish cycling advocate who also attended the bike symposium. Read the rest of this entry »
Click here to see photo.
It’s typical in Istanbul to be walking on an empty street, just enjoying the day, when out of the blue the shriek of a taxi’s horn shatters the peace and quite. It’s an annoying problem, these overzealous taxis that compete fiercely with one another for business, often swerving across multiple lanes of traffic just to pick up a rider.
However, soon pedestrians strolling the streets won’t have to deal with the unwanted and aggresive solicitations from taxis. That’s because the Istanbul Metropolitan Government has announced a new plan to centralize control of all taxis. The taxi’s will be placed under the control of a single company, which will equip them with GPS systems and relay a customer’s call to the taxi closest to that customer’s location. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is a fun videoclip about a situation that you would never like to be in: after having had lots of beans for lunch you naturally need a toilet and you attempt to go home to find one by braving Istanbul’s transport system!
I like the video a lot; the melody is nice, the lyrics are fun, and it provides a human touch to Istanbul’s traffic problems! The video truly represents what it’s like taking a taxi, standing in a bus like sardines in a tin, suffocating in a tram because the air conditioning doesn’t work (I myself have the opposite problem of freezing in tram with the AC blasting), and being snared in a traffic jam. If you’ve ever experienced (im)mobility in Istanbul, or, if you’ve been stuck in a taxi with a driver sucking down cigarettes, you’ll instantly sympathize with the guy in the video!
Check out what the singer “Yo” says and his message at the end!
Horses, like cars, are allowed in contemporary Istanbul. Photo “on the bosphorus bridge” by saragoldsmith on flickr.
Historically, Istanbul - once known as Constantinople - was a pedestrian city, a far cry from what it has become with its streets (and even its sidewalks!) clogged with cars. Animals, including horses (one of the main modes of transport back then) were not allowed within city borders in order to keep disease at bay and ensure food security. Keeping horses out was, in short, a way of regulating transportation in order to promote the health and well-being of Istanbul’s residents. The only person allowed to ride a horse in the city was the Sultan himself, and later on some of the higher-ups in his service.
In fact, the regulation was so effective and so important to the city that exceptions were rarely made. Ilhan Tekeli, an urban planner and historian at Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, told me the following story to highlight this point:
An old man made a sword for Sultan Mahmud, II. The Sultan was so impressed by the beauty and craft of this sword that he wanted to reward the man. He asked the man what his wish was and the old man replied: “I am an old man, there is no strength in my legs, I can hardly walk. Allow me to ride a horse from my house to my shop.”
So the Sultan ordered his men: “Build this man a new house next to his shop.”
This is how committed the Sultan was to to keeping the city pedestrian friendly. His solution to the dilemma is also an early example of the ideal scenario urban planners advocate: live close to your work!
Read the rest of this entry »
Istanbul has faced chronic traffic congestion for decades. Photo by adstream on flickr.
Istanbul is creating 6 new bus rapid transit lines according to The New Anatolian, an English language Turkish newspaper.
The director of Istanbul Electric Tram and Funicular Company (IETT), Mehmet Ozdemir, announced that the city will build 6 bus rapid transit (BRT) lines (including one already underway) and that construction should be finished by the end of 2008.
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a cost-effective rapid transit solution that acts like an above ground subway but with extra long articulated “accordion” buses instead of rail cars and physically separated lanes so that the buses don’t have to compete with traffic. Passengers pay at the station before they get on and the buses come frequently, just like in a subway.
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But unlike a subway, BRT is typically 1/10th of the cost, so cities can do much more with the money they have available and ideally make a bigger impact on congestion and pollution while managing the forces of motorization and urbanization. Take a look at some videos on BRT here and here.
Done well, these 6 new lines could put a huge dent in the congestion that plagues Istanbul’s streets.
Ferry-boats in the Bosphorous (left) by Kıvanç and traffic on one of Istanbul’s freeways (right) by Roderick Maclean on flickr
Aziz Nesin was a wonderful and prolific Turkish writer, humorist and social/political commentator. I just read a 1992 interview with him where the talks about transportation in Istanbul, the old ferryboats and trams, their specific traditions and his dislike of the motor-car.
He talks about the old Istanbul ferry-boats, where the passengers knew each other and formed a special community. Every passenger had a seat. “Don’t sit there,” someone would say, “That’s Mr. Hasan’s seat.”
“But today’s Thursday,” the other would answer, “Mr. Hasan doesn’t go down to town today.”
And then there was the extraordinary world of the trams…
Aziz Nesin says when they first started making cars in Turkey he thought “What are they making cars for, who’s going to buy them?” He himself continued to use buses throughout his life despite his success and fame. Eventually he resigned to a farmhouse outside of Istanbul to live in the school/home he founded for homeless children.
Here is a joke from that interview, which I thought was pretty great:
A man jumps into a taxi, he’s in a great hurry, but the road’s jammed with traffic. “Hey!” he shouts to the driver, “Can’t you go a bit faster?” The driver looks back at him out of the corner of his eye. “Of course we can go faster,” he says, “But what are we going to do about the car?”
Wrapping up Sunday afternoon’s discussion, Lee Schipper, EMBARQ’s Research Director, asked fellow transportation gurus the “million dollar” question: Why do governments and funders tackling transportation problems so often pursue high-cost solutions, like highways and rail systems, when there are solutions like Bus Rapid Transit that are tried, true, and cheap? The debate that followed suggested that there is no simple answer, but it likely has less to do with design and engineering and more to do with sociology and culture.
Read the rest of this entry »
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