Better ideas do not by themselves change the world.

If the developing world has to resolve the paradox of extreme poverty amidst high economic growth, they will have to adopt an alternative framework to promote inclusive   development where principles of universal access to basic needs and social wage are given prominence.

"Better ideas do not by themselves change the world. The suffocation of a certain balance of social forces precludes alternative ideas from being taken seriously. There are hundreds of designs in engineering labs for smoke-less chimneys and water-less toilets, but their existence has not meant that they have been adopted for mass usage. It will require a shift in social power to allow new ideas and new technologies to become acceptable in our times. In absence of such a change, an “alternative” will simply mean a solution of a practical nature that is not capable of being fully embraced."

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Why Women Bike . . . and Why They Don't

To follow up on yesterday's piece by Janice Turner on "dull cycling" in the UK, the ever-stylish biker April Streeter reports from Portland on a survey of why women in the US cycle, and why they do not. (And if you are a female cyclist and have views on why women cycle, or perhaps do not, in your country, let us hear from you too.)

Sporty cyclists few in Amsterdam but individualized and stylish cycle gear abounds. Photo A. Streeter.

In Amsterdam, they say, cycling is like breathing - everyone does it and nobody really thinks too much about it. Kids learn to cycle before they are of school age - push cycles abound - and ride (without helmets) to school with or without parent supervision. But we're not in Amsterdam, and women especially have myriad reasons why they don't ride a bike.

To get to the heart of the reasons women do and don't cycle, The Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals has created a web-based survey around attitudes toward cycling. By word of social networking, 7,300 women have already responded to the survey, which will run through May 15. Some insights have already emerged, and what is startling is that the top reason (90% of respondents) women do cycle is because of the health benefits.

Wide separated bike paths in Amsterdam make biking a pleasure for women of all ages. Photo A. Streeter.

Health benefits are definitely important - it's just amazing that it is the top respondent reason for cycling. And what's even more amazing is that (at least in these NYC numbers), it doesn't take all that much cycling or walking to have a positive effect.

"If more women and girls bicycled more places more often, they could achieve better health while having a very positive impact on their community and the environment." - Kit Keller, APBP executive director of the APBP.

The second most important reason women purported to cycle is to be in the outdoors (88% of respondents). This is also great reason, and while not knocking it, I found it a bit ironic, because among many non-riding women that I have spoken with, the outdoors (i.e. the weather) is a huge reason women say they don't ride. I'm not a competitive cyclist and instead consider myself a transport cyclist, and I don't like rotten weather or being miserable. But over time I've also realized I'd rather be out in weather on my bike (properly attired) than using any other means of transportation, including walking.

If the outfit, the bike, the gear, and the route are all good, then cycling is too. Photo of a woman cycling in Taiwan by Richard Masoner via flickr.
And that's probably due to the fact that I (along with 73% of respondents) feel that cycling is a real tension and stress reliever. I have far more mental freedom on a bike than driving a car, and it is exactly the right type of freedom, for while my body and the part of my brain controlling my reflexes are active, there's still a bit of the unconscious mindspace left over to generate new ideas and solve old problems.

The last two most popular reasons women cycle, according to the APBP survey were; "It saves me money" (72%), and, "It's very green and I'm doing my bit" (70%). Having taken the survey myself, I realize that these are choices that I likely put an "X" next to when thinking about the question of why I bike. Yet looking at them now, they seem quite abstract, and secondary to the joy of cycling (which in its own way may seem abstract to non-cyclists) and the fact that for me it's the most fun to be had while achieving transport. "Fun transport" was not one of the choices on the survey, however.

It's a job - this young Amsterdamer rides all day, every day, taking tourists on "yellow bike" tours. Photo A. Streeter.

I felt that it is a pity that the survey (a final report will issued in May) also didn't include a category choice for "I can show off my sense of style" as one reason for cycling. To men, this choice might seem absurd - perhaps to competitive and sports cycling women, too. To me, however, what was once a big hassle - choosing what to wear that is bike appropriate - has now become an interesting challenge and also a form of community with other urban women cyclists in other cities. When I see a great and practical outfit on a great and practical bike on a stylish woman, I really like it.

The future of urban biking is important to the quality of life of cities. APBP's survey is an important document to overcoming the hurdles of getting and keeping women cycling, so it will be very interesting next month to see the data and analysis of why women don't ride. Safety, we know, is a big hurdle. Here, for example, are urban issues' blogger Mary Newsom's top necessary conditions for her to cycle to work in Charlotte, N.C.:

"1. First, safe bike lanes wide enough so I didn't feel I'd put my life in danger.
2. Second, a chain guard to keep the grease from getting onto my office clothes.
3. Third, a good place to shower at the office."

What are your pre-conditions?

# # #

About the author:
In this slot at the end of contributed articles, we generally try to place a few sober words that will permit our readers to know a bit about the author. But this time the temptation is too great, so now you have a short bio note in April's own words. "April is a former bilingual cocktail waitress who left the warm beaches of Hawaii to pursue an upstanding career as reporter on the new and exciting digital world for MacWEEK magazine in San Francisco. When she finally couldn't stand the thought of writing about one more wireless local area network router, she recast herself as an environmental and sustainability journalist for Tomorrow magazine in Stockholm, Sweden. A few years later, she escaped the Scandinavian chill to become editor of Sustainable Industries magazine in Portland, Oregon, where she today is a freelance writer forever on the lookout for a good/local/organic/sustainable/fair trade Swedish burrito."

Source: April wrote this piece for Treehugger yesterday and sent this to us at the same time with permission. You can find her original at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/why-women-bike-and-why-they-dont.php?campaign=daily_nl. Thanks for sharing April.

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International Women's Day . . . and World Streets

Today is the ninety-ninth anniversary of the first International Women's Day, a day well worth celebrating. And while we are at it a perfect occasion to remind ourselves of what we need to be thinking about and trying to do over the next twelve months to make sure that when 2011 and that important 100th anniversary roll around, we have made our own best effort for a better and brighter future for all. Because. . . women hold the key to the future of not only sustainable transportation but also to a sustainable and just world. It's that smple.

Women have been absolutely critical to the focus of World Streets, and behind it the work of the New Mobility Agenda since the latter's founding in 1988 -- and, it is fair to say, that this has been the case to a far greater extent than with most of the groups and programs working in our area. Why is that?

From the beginning we have had two very specific policy targets as far as the involvement of women in this sector, both of which eminently ethical and no less practical and political. If you click through the articles which are grouped under the heading http://tinyurl.com/ws-women you will find that on average each month we publish one or two on the subject of women in transport as part of our continuing, long-term, and, we can say, passionate commitment to this great cause.

The first of our arguments in support of a greatly increased role of women in the sector is "Women as our metric for sustainable lives". The second sets out our best arguments for "The leadership role of women in transport".

1. Women as our metric for sustainable transport and sustainable lives:

One does not have to be an especial genius to figure out after spending a few years working with and looking at transportation projects, programs, processes, accomplishments, shortcomings, and hypocrisies in many parts of the world, that the limitations of the policies behind all this jumble have been a direct function of (1) the kinds of people who are making the decisions that shape them, and (b) the kinds of people and interests for whom those decisions are targeted. One and the same, it turns out -- and by way of executive summary let us say that it boils down to: (a) policy decisions and investments made primarily by males and (b) for people (mainly males) who either have or desire to have access to their own cars. No great mystery to that, eh?

The result, as we all know so well, has been a transportation system which pays more attention to vehicles and their requirements then to the full range of people and their very different kinds of requirements.

So once we figured that one out, we began to call out in publications, international fora and our direct advisory work for radical revisions in the entire planning and policy process/paradigm, making the point that it is now time to take it back to the drawing board and put at the core a very different metric than the old one (that is all those men and all their cars), namely women of all ages and stations in our society.

Look, it could not be more simple. Women make an excellent metric. If we design our systems to offer quality service to women in all their varieties and situations, we are going to get an entirely different kind of transportation system. And a better one. If we take into account the full range of their life cycle economic situations, travel constraints, the daily obligations at different periods of their lives, and even their, temperament and values characters, we are going to come up with a set of planning criteria and transportation arrangements that will not only serve them better, but will serve society as a whole a lot better.

With this in mind, from the first day on World Streets, under the posting entitled "Sustainable Transportation Anyone?: It is high time for Plan A", we put the basic design criteria for women right at the top of our list of fundamental building blocks for the new strategy.(You can see all that at http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/03/its-high-time-for-plan-the-new-mobility.html) Here is how it reads:

Strategy 5. Design for women:
Our old mobility system was designed by, and ultimately for, a certain type of person (think about it!). And so too should the new mobility system: but this time around it should be designed to accommodate specifically women, of all ages and conditions. Do that and we will serve everybody far better. And for that to happen we need to have a major leadership shift toward women and, as part of that, to move toward full gender parity in all bodies involved in the decision process. It's that simple.

So, if we can now start to put women as the fundamental metric for sustainable transportation, we are going to get a different and better system.

But that is only the first half of our commitment and campaign.

2. The leadership role of women: (Hold onto your hats. Think Norway)

Our transportation arrangements do not only have to be planned with women in mind ("thank you very much"), but by them -- and, while they are at it, for us all. (And I hope this sounds very simple.)

What about just a bit of parity?

Surface parity, while a start, is unlikely to be sufficient.

We can observe that all too often women who do get into key roles very rapidly begin behaving like or reflecting the behavior and values of men. Examples would be very dangerous ... but try to think of women in such powerful positions who HAVE acted differently to the males in previous or similar positions of influence and power.

It’s just that the worldviews and values of our sector at the top are in general, very male! And this is precisely what we need to change to realize our very different future.

Broaden the skills base of the deciders

The forced, high-priority network expansion that full gender parity requires can open up another priority need that also requires significant rectification. Specifically it can help us to increase greatly the range of backgrounds and skills we bring into the various decision fora. This therefore gives us a golden opportunity to rectify some of the debilitating historical inadequacies in the sector that have led to its underperformance in so many areas.

Of course, as we look to bring in more women we need of course to bring in more expertise in the entrenched professional skills such as transport planning, traffic management, engineering, financial planning, technical modeling and the usual array of “hard skills” which have the front stage in the sector. But that is not enough.

But to get the job done right we also need greatly enhanced competence in such areas as environment, climate, land use, public health, cities, rural areas, community relations, demographics, local government, social services , behavioral psychology, education, childcare, job creation, poverty reduction, communications and all those other key areas of our daily lives which thus far have not received the necessary attention in the transport discussions and decision-making process. And in these, we need both women and men to enhance our understanding of these mission-critical issues and to inform policy and practice in the sector.

Sexism?

Now, is it that I really believe that women are for some reason better, smarter or more noble than we Y chromosome-encumbered males? That’s not the point. Rather it is my experience that women often have a different view of the world in many respects. It is this differentness that we need to bring in and profit from.

However to give this full scope we need to go beyond the usual token representation. We need their strength. And we need their numbers. A scattered handful of females does not appear to suffice to force the change. Put enough women into a forum and they will keep us on our toes. I promise. (The key being the ”enough”.)

There is an analogy with our recent experience with the expanding role of cyclists in some of our cities. If there are none out there on the streets, few people even think about it. If there are a few, this makes no great difference. But once there is a strong quorum, strong presence, this starts to change everything. And not just for the cyclists. There is ample proof in this in city after city where this transformation has started to take place.

One important wrinkle on this is provided by a singing phrase of the Gender and Built Environment collaborative program at http://www.gendersite.org/ who advise us: “Don't treat women equally”. Hmm. Something I think that is important for each of us to think through for ourselves.

Now what?

However it works out, I would hope we do not need yet another law to make this happen. But we will need a high profile public commitment by leaders and a growing culture which accepts that there is simply no other way of going about this. (And if that doesn't work, well there is always the law. No reason to be excessively timid about this.)

On August 26th 1920, almost 89 years to the day, the Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution formally passed into the law, guaranteeing the right of women's' suffrage. A long journey that get its symbolic start when Abigail Adams in 1776 asked her husband, one of the framers of the Constitution and one of our first president to "remember the ladies". To which he responded that men will fight the "despotism of the petticoat".

It then took something like 134 years for this oversight to be rectified. We don't have, and we don't need, that much time to do what we should be doing in our bit of daily life. We can start to get our end of the job done in 2010. If we do it together.

Eric Britton, Editor

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We support Medecins Sans Frontières in Haiti today And invite you to do the same

Paris. Sunday, 17 January 2010.
Greetings from a city living this mid-January 2010 day in peace, health and security. Our children are safe, our neighbors about to sit down to a full Sunday meal, and most of us will venture out onto the streets of our cities tomorrow morning to another full and peaceful day. You too I hope. But that is not at all the case in Haiti and its tragic streets. What can we do?

• I. What we/you can do today
  
• II. World Streets/Haitian Streets: What to do once the emergency has been met

I: What we can do today

[Summary: Take 5 minutes, go to http://www.msf.org/msfinternational/donations/, and make your donation. You will be glad you did.]

But why do I interrupt your peaceful weekend with this unasked-for message? Because I am sure that somewhere in your heart you feel it is important that you take some kind of action in such an agonizing case. But what to do from so far away?

Here's a thought. As it happens over the last couple of decades through our work with The Commons (since 1973), the New Mobility Agenda (since 1988) and over the last year on World Streets, I have had the great luck to meet, correspond with, get to know, and on occasion work directly with several thousand highly creative and engaged people in some eighty countries on all continents, just about all of whom know about adversity, and who I know have big hearts and are good neighbors in all senses of the word. Now that's a lot of the right kind of people to know at a time of great need.

* Click here for video presenting MSF emergency report

Paul McPhun, MSF operations manager, gives a briefing here on the situation for MSF and our patients in Haiti, including damage sustained to MSF medical centres, our medical focus, the types of injuries and traumas we are seeing, further response plans, how medical teams are overwhelmed, having worked all night and concerns over staff and patients unaccounted for.

So following the latest from Haiti, here is the idea that struck me. Suppose you and I and the couple of thousand others we have come to know and resepct, come together to bond and carry out the same simple neighborly act that takes just a few minutes -- and which I am sure every one of us, even the most modest, can afford with no great pain? If I do it, if you do it, then others will do it too. We may amaze ourselves. Let's see how this might work.

It's simple: We move to our computer or "smart" phone, click to Medecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders at www.msf.org and make a donation, large or small. Say ten or twenty Euros/dollars as a symbolic statement. Or perhaps the price of a meal this evening with someone you love, that latest iPhone that you may not really need, or more, That will be your choice, but the important thing is that we make our donation here and now, or in some other way no matter how small. And if you already did it, well go ahead and do it again.

I had already been thinking about Haiti of late for several reasons. Recently we started work with an NGO -- EcoWorks International who maintain a small office in Port au Prince, where only two of their ten colleagues on the ground there have yet to report in– to lay the base for what we hoped were going to become a series of collaborative workshops with local groups, agencies and operators in support of low cost, high impact appropriate transport innovations across the country. The situation we were originally looking at on the ground was already about as tragic as you can imagine. But even that has been catastrophically cut short, for now, though we are ready to go as soon as circumstances permit. However as you are aware there is a great deal that must be done first.

So what about this, old friends and colleagues from all over this troubled planet? What about joining hands today in clicking to MSF's donation page at http://www.msf.org/msfinternational/donations/. Once there all you have to do is pick your country and whip through their efficient donation cycle, using credit card or PayPal. I just did it here through their French site just now: it took all of five minutes, lightened my purse by a few Euros, and hey! I feel just one small bit better already. I am not just one more passive soul sitting this one out next to a blabbing TV. Of course I want to have done more, but we each do what we can afford.

May I then invite you, may I encourage you, may I entreat you to do the same? You will know that you have done the right thing. And once you have, if you find a minute please do drop a quick email to us here to editor@worldstreets.org to let us know that you have stepped up to the challenge, we can add your name to our World Streets honor roll.

If World Streets in all its forms and extensions and rhetoric and bustle does not care right down to our guts about what happens on the streets of the world, we are no more than idle chatterers.

Thank you for proving otherwise,

Eric Britton

PS. We next invite you to look to: World Streets/Haitian Streets: What to do once the emergency has been met

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(From our 2009 archives and worthy of your attention) "Transport Refugees – Victims of Unjust Transport Policies"

The term “refugee” if used in the context of transportation would normally be understood to mean “the movement of refugees”. But what we fail to comprehend is that for various reasons it is our own transport systems, and the values and decisions that shape them, that are making many of us “refugees” in our own cities? It does not have to be this way.

[Back on July 22nd of this year we published some extracts of this important thinkpiece, which has recently become a subject of vigorous discussion in our Sustran Global South Forum, specifically in the context this time of the continuing push by certain authorities to ban rickshaw pullers in Dhaka from plying their trade. This tendency of many authorities to try to concentrate on buying and building expensive imported technologies, instead of innovating, improving and working with what they have ,is something of a phenomenon we are seeing in many parts of the world, North and South. Spend a bit of time here with Sudhir and Bert. It will not be time wasted, pointing us to valuable lessons good not only for Dhaka, but Detroit and Dar es Salaam, Dortmund and Djakarta, and beyond. (And if your time today does not allow you to read the full article here, may we urge you to check out their World Streets 22 July summary here-.)]

Transport Refugees – Victims Of Unjust Transport Policies

- Sudhir Gota and Bert Fabian, Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities

Becoming “refugees” in our own cities

According to international refugee law , a refugee is someone who seeks refuge in a foreign country because of war and violence, or out of fear of persecution "on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group”. Authors draw parallel from the term “refugee” in order to emphasize the growing social discrimination and exclusion of vulnerable road users while making transport decisions.

The authors have investigated various documents and news reports to argue as to how we are increasingly becoming victims of our own solutions and thus becoming refugees in our own lands. In the subsequent sections, the authors have tried to explore various issues in order to prove this facet, while the WHO (2009) in the latest study provides a very good summary of victimization of vulnerable people.

“Our roads are particularly unsafe for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists who, without the protective shell of a car around them, are more vulnerable. These road users need to be given increased attention. Measures such as building sidewalks, raised crossings and separate lanes for two wheelers; reducing drink-driving and excessive speed; increasing the use of helmets and improving trauma care are some of the interventions that could save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. While progress has been made towards protecting people in cars, the needs of these vulnerable groups of road users are not being met”



The externalities of transport

Outdoor air pollution alone causes an estimated 800,000 deaths each year. Research from the East & West Center based in Hawaii, U.S. on commuter’s exposure to PM 10 while walking in Hanoi (2006) are as high as 495 µg/m3. The Health Effects Institute hospital and household studies in Ho Chi Minh City (2007) found a strong link between air pollution, especially ozone and NO2, and health impacts on young children in the form of acute lower respiratory illness.

In a 2009 survey, one in every five people in Hong Kong said they were considering leaving the city because of the air pollution. One in 10 was either seriously considering leaving or already in the process of leaving. Also results indicated that severest health effects aggravated by air pollution are associated with income with poor people as major sufferers.

The WHO in a 2009 study estimates around 150,000 deaths occurring in low-income countries each year due to climate change from four climate-sensitive health outcomes – crop failure and malnutrition, diarrheal disease, malaria and flooding. 85% of these excess deaths were found in younger children.

According to latest WHO estimates, nearly 1.27 million people die in road traffic crashes every year. In addition, road crashes cause between 20 million and 50 million non-fatal injuries every year and are an important cause of disability. Important aspects to be noted are:

• High share of “vulnerable group” in the traffic accidents. In fact, in low-income countries of South East Asia over 80% of those killed are vulnerable road users

• Over 90% of the world’s fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries which has 48% of vehicles

• 32% of countries in world have national or local level policies on walking and cycling

• 50% of world’s population lives in countries which do not have speed limits on urban roads (of less than or equal to 50 kph) and for the countries which have some sort of speed limits, enforcement is very poor (in a rating evaluation only 9% of countries scored 7 or more in the range 1-10)

• Projections suggest that road traffic fatalities would be the fifth leading cause of death by 2030 with an estimated 2.4 million fatalities per year

Data from many cities (Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand, India and Philippines) suggest that average ambient noise levels range from 50-100 with 112d b being maximum. Research on noise pollution is indicating that it causes more deaths when compared to heart disease. There is growing evidence that noise pressure levels exceeding 50 db(A) during night time are related to the development of high blood pressure and exceeding 65 db(A) during day time increases the risk for heart attacks in men. Research (footnote 6) indicates that, In a German city “Cologne”, for every third household moving out of city, noise and air pollution in the city was a crucial reason. It is to be noted that people walking, cycling and using public transport face the highest exposure thus are at greatest risk.

Urban sprawl induced development

Asian cities undergo a “push-pull” phenomenon. Many people are abandoning the cities in search of better quality of life and environment and moving out of such cities (push), on the other hand, there are still a high number of people migrating into such decaying cities in order to make a living (pull). Also, the trend of ‘slush and burn development’ is on the raise in many Asian cities. Private real estate developers are developing various periphery business districts and new commercial areas while abandoning the old decaying sections of the city in order to generate the economic boom. This kind of development needs to be understood in context of poor people.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization report points out that the overwhelming majority of the hungry live in the developing world with 65% of them in just seven countries - India, China, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Majority of such poor migrate to cities and live in slums next to major corridors. Some reports indicate that Asian cities currently accommodate nearly 60% of total world’s slum population. In Delhi, approximately 45% of population are clustered into slums and live in inhuman conditions and have to face transport discrimination daily.

Sometimes the cleansing, densification and beatification process carried out for city development (sometimes solutions such as transport focused development which induces sprawl along public transport routes) creates more victims then solutions. Major benefits accrued by land because of such transport development are squeezed by rich people thus further marginalizing the poor.

Reports from Mumbai indicate that 1,5000 million INR Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) is being opposed the very expert committee which was authorized by government. Reports indicate that the reason being possible damage to the livelihood of local people as well as the burden it will add to an already-densely populated area. Some reports indicate that from a city like Chennai alone about 100,000 people will be shifted out of the city as part of a clean-up. A news report quotes Jeb Brugmann as saying

“I have studied migrant communities in several places and one thing that stands out is that they all have a unique psychological profile — they are risk-takers with a strong entrepreneurial drive. Shifting these people to the margins, cutting them off from resources and opportunities is only a recipe for revolution,”

Several research papers have documented the impact of rail system on Bangkok land market. It is true that Bangkok has seen some transformation because of improvement in public transport facilities. But not many people have documented the impact of such projects on vulnerable people. ADB’s Urban Transport Project in Bangkok has documented some impact of the ADB’s urban transport project. Nearly 1220 households had to be relocated. The Performance Evaluation Report notes that

1. Increase in commercial area around the corridors ( exploitation of land for commercial reasons)

2. Of every 100 vehicles on the roads that benefit from the project road, 45% of the persons in them are estimated to be bus passengers.

3. Although the information is patchy, the main conclusion is that the relocation has not improved the lives of the relocated people because of project. The main issues were increased travel distances to work and separation from relatives. There were indications that a portion of the resettlers had become worse off: 49% had economic problems, and 44% took more time to travel, with only 9% taking less time.

With such increasing challenges, research from India and China indicate that people spend more on transport then on housing, health and education. With increasing prices, people tend to consume less food in order to afford higher transport costs.

Subsidizing the rich at the cost of the poor and the underprivileged

In 2008, increase in fuel prices severely affected governments that subsidized fuels. Fuel subsidies cost annually about 0.1-15 billion USD across various countries. The Indonesian government acknowledged that “with the increasing fuel subsidy, the government’s ability to fund programs which are oriented to the improvement of lives for the poor has dramatically reduced. These programs include education, health facilities, National Program for Community Empowerment, small business credit facilities, and the development of infrastructure. On the other hand, the fuel subsidy is mainly consumed by those who are not targeted by the program. As much as 40 percent of high income families benefit from 70 percent of the subsidy, while 40 percent of the lowest income families only benefit only 15 percent.”

The Elite and poor Neighborhoods in New Delhi

A recent walkability survey in Delhi by CSE, points out the deficiency in investment planning. It evaluated pedestrian facilities in a low income neighborhood with a high income neighborhood and found that- In Govindpuri (low income neighborhood) where about 100 persons walk per five minutes during peak hour had poorly designed if any foot facilities and in Aurangzeb Road (high income neighborhood) lined with ministerial bunglows, where only 3 persons were seen walking in ten minutes during the morning peak hour, has well designed and spacious footpaths.

Banning Cycle Rickshaws in New Delhi

In May 2006, the High Court of Delhi passed an order directing the municipal government to stop granting licenses for cycle rickshaws on Delhi roads, complete a ban on use of cycle rickshaws in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area, and introduce compressed natural gas buses in the area to replace the rickshaws. The reason citied was high congestion caused by cycle rickshaws. Estimates suggested that cycle rickshaws save more than 10 million motorized trips daily across the capital. Infuriated by the authority’s unjust intervention, many NGO’s fought the battle in judicial courts.

Many studies were quoted in the exchange. According to the latest reports, the Delhi High Court took an exception to the ‘unrealistic approach’ of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) in banning cycle-rickshaws in parts of the capital and slammed it for not fixing a limit on the number of cars a person can possess.

It suggested - ‘We find the guidelines are unrealistic. Why are you so enthusiastic in banning cycle-rickshaws? Why don’t you issue guidelines limiting the number of cars a person can have in the city?’

Though the court battle is still on but the condition of cycle rickshaw drivers have deteriorated over time due to harassment by authorities and fellow motorists. According to a survey by ITDP, the majority of cycle rickshaw drivers (54%) were landless laborer and over 30% were small/marginal farmers with majority of them illiterate. Their earnings from running the cycle rickshaw was around 2$-6$ per day.
It is to be noted that there has been no reports on reduction in congestion at the places where ban took place.

Banning Cycle Rickshaws in Dhaka

One of the main reasons of Cycle rickshaw growth in Dhaka has been the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), decision on September 1, 2002 to ban two stroke auto-rickshaws. The demand for informal public transport and short trip lengths (<5km)

DUTP – 1998 report showed that the Rickshaws took only 38% of road space while transporting 54% of passengers in Dhaka. The private cars on the other hand, took up 34% of road space while only transporting 9% of the population.

HDRC study captured the before and after impacts of Cycle rickshaw ban. Few of the conclusions are presented below

a. Average monthly net income of rickshaw pullers decreased by 32%, from 3,834 to 2,600 taka

b. The amount of money sent back to their villages also declined following the ban. Before the ban, on average rickshaw pullers spent 64% of net income and sent the rest (36%) to his village. Following the ban, the amount spent in Dhaka decreased by 27%, while the amount sent to the village decreased by 41%.

c. Pullers compensated for loss of income by reducing food consumption, particularly of fish, meat, and cooking oil: for NMT pullers overall, 85.9%d ecreased their consumption of fish, 87.5% decreased consumption of meat, 65.1% decreased consumption of cooking oil, and over half (55.3%) decreased consumption of vegetables.

d. There was an increase in the number of income earners in the family from 1.24 to 1.37. This suggests that some children have been taken out of school to compensate for lost income, or that the burden on wives of the pullers have further increased as they must earn money as well as do all the family and household labor.

Sharifa Begum et al. did research on income and poverty aspects of cycle rickshaw drivers and concluded that

a. urban rickshaw pullers in Dhaka come from very poor economic backgrounds consistent with the characteristics of chronic poverty

b. rickshaw pulling provides a route for modest upward mobility for those chronic rural poor who come to the city for work.

c. rickshaw pullers are susceptible to systematic health risks; deteriorating health, combined with health shocks, can impose a significant burden on the urban poor, dragging down the pace of upward mobility during their lifetime.

d. rickshaw pulling represents an unsustainable livelihood, as the initial welfare gains taper off with length of involvement in the sector.

e. intergenerational mobility of rickshaw-puller households is constrained by very limited schooling and the poor range of occupational choices for children.

Before and after studies conducted on some roads proved that there was no travel time gain for fuel dependent vehicle was achieved due to rickshaw ban but instead over the years the travel times for buses did undergo significant deterioration with a 26.1% increase of travel times. Also for shorter trips, there was significant increase in travel time due to non availability of transport-mode.

It can be derived from various research reports that banning cycle rickshaws do not serve any purpose and instead efforts should be made to improve the life of such people by offering them security and benefits. Banning is not a solution as it does not improve the congestion of city, road safety and life of such drivers but instead restricts the accessibility, mobility and increases motorization and environmental damage.

How about the old & persons with disabilities?

There are nearly 207 million aged (65 or>65 years) people in Asia (constituting approx 6% of total population). With mandatory retirement age of 55-60 years , and with huge proportion of older people being poorest people all their life with no savings , aged people become dependent on families as governments in many countries don’t play an active role in providing benefits across various dimensions. From the transport sector, in many countries it does not provide any relief but acts as a catalyst in aggravating the problems. Consuming polluted air for major part of life and travelling in torturous transport services over the later part of the years inflates the problems. Inefficient public transport services with encroached non-motorized facilities by traffic leaves them with little options. Research indicates that very few old people access public transit services in developed countries but its opposite in Asia.

The old people who manage to use public transport facilities often find themselves in mercy of crowded fellow passengers for getting a seat. Deprived of accessibility and mobility over the years, people are left to fend themselves from high motorization externalities.

Some Asian governments provide little transport-finance incentives such as

1. The Government of India has provided a 50% discount for bus transportation for older people (in one state free transportation is allowed on city buses)

2. In Nepal, the elderly get a 25% discount on transportation courtesy Nepalese Municipal Authority.

3. For the elderly in Thailand, only half price is charged for third-class journeys from June to September

Reports suggest that only about 15% of the loco motor disabled in India are able to use public transport. The term “barrier free” movement is yet a vision in Asian cities (exceptions include some developed cities such as Hong Kong and some Japanese cities). Experience from Philippines suggests that only 2 percent of children with disabilities have access to elementary education with the major barrier being “absence of accessible transportation”.

The following is an excerpt from the Persons with Disabilities Act from Malaysia, Philippines and India -

Malaysia (2008) - Access to public transport facilities – “Persons with disabilities shall have the right to access to and use of public transport facilities, amenities and services open or provided to the public on equal basis with persons without disabilities”

Philippines - Batas Pambansa Bilang 344 (National Law), Accessibility Law in 1983: purpose of enhancing the mobility of persons with disabilities by requiring public utilities to install facilities to make transportation accessible. Enactment of Republic Act 7277 provides in Section 25 thereof for a barrier-free environment

India (1995) - the act emphasizes the need for access of children with disabilities to school. It further suggests

a. adapt rail compartments, buses, vessels and aircrafts in such a way as to permit easy access to such persons;

b. adapt toilets in rail compartments, vessels, aircrafts and waiting rooms in such a way as to permit the wheel chair users to use them conveniently.

c. installation of auditory signals at red lights in the public roads for the benefit of persons with visual handicap;

d. causing curb cuts and slopes to be made in pavements for the easy access of wheel chair users;

e. engraving on the surface of the zebra crossing for the blind or for persons with low vision;

f. engraving on the edges of railway platforms for the blind or for persons with low vision;

g. devising appropriate symbols of disability;

h. warning signals at appropriate places.

Though many cities provide subsidies in tickets, in-accessibility of public transport terminals and vehicles proves to be a major barrier. Even with the passage of such laws, transport in many cities is yet to become disabled friendly.

Recent news reports from Indonesia suggest that “Instead of requiring level footpaths and ramps, lawmakers voted unanimously this month to demand disabled people wear signs announcing their condition so motorists won't run them down as they cross the street.” Though the reports are yet to be confirmed by authors, but if this is true then it indicates further marginalization of persons with disabilities.

And the women?

Marginalization of women in transport can be understood from the fact that gender specific travel data is rarely collected at national and local levels and with such a mindset, rarely it may happen that the “women” were involved in the project design thus making the modes, mindset and infrastructure are rarely feminist sensitive. The transport challenge faced by women stretch across various dimensions such as safety, equity, accessibility and mobility. Transport opportunities often forces women to make restricted choices in employment as they have limited options in accessibility. For example, in one of surveys conducted in Dhaka, About 58% of women regarded the present bus service as overcrowded and accessibility difficult.

Sharifa et al. researched that many of rickshaw drivers in Dhaka who had switched jobs ( due to variety of reasons) had reduced monthly income. The wives of such drivers showed increase in incomes thus indicating more stress and hard work. Experience from Pakistan also indicates the similar story. Reports indicate that “uncivilized behavior” of some of the public transporters and unavailability of public transport are the main reasons for restricted trips.

One of the interesting findings of Metro Manila Urban Transportation Integration Study (1996) was that the trip production rates of women over the years (contrary to the logic where people expect increase) have decreased. In 1980, trip production rates were 2.17 (women) and 2.28 (men) which changed to 1.78 (women) and 2.40 (men). Perhaps due to growing inefficiencies in the transport system, the women were the victims with restricted mobility whereas mobility of men increased.

In one of the surveys in Delhi, it was found that women either travel by foot (54%) or use buses (39%) for work purpose. Important thing to note here is the incidence of women spending 2-3 hours in commuting (17%). This creates high impact as they not only need to undergo longer work hours but also work at home and manage the family chores. Sad part is that they are wasting more time travelling lesser distances then men because of the inefficient transport systems.

What about the people living on streets? Research from Delhi indicate that at any given time, there are 10,000 homeless women in Delhi who live on streets as there are insufficient shelters (3) available for use by homeless women. Such women are not only exposed to the increased risk of illness and starvation associated with life on the street, but also heightened vulnerability to violence.

Does our transport system help them or victimize them further?

Clearly our transport system has become more and more injurious to health and inequitable. Over the years, we have tried to compartmentalize and segregate many of the problems of transport and tried to derive piecemeal / quick fix technical solutions without much success. Congestion costs as accessed by various researchers from various cities range from 1-8% of GDP. Current transport and city design severely restricts the accessibility and limits people earning capability.

Already the citizens are avoiding non motorized trips and shifting to motorized trips in order to escape the discrimination in accessibility and mobility. Several researchers have established that Asian cities which are conducive for walking and cycling with large number of trips with length less than 5 km are increasingly accessed by motorized modes. The cities are yet to invest huge amounts of money on pedestrian accessibility as they are yet to acknowledge pedestrians as road users. Thus it can be concluded that In spite of decades of investment on roads and infrastructure, cities are yet to realize solutions. The problems have magnified and so called solutions have become counterproductive.

There is a huge disconnect between policies, practices and proposed solutions. Past decades of inefficient policies have made us victims of our own solutions. Transport services in cities instead of providing relief; aggravate the problems and causes marginalization of vulnerable group. Increasingly people are getting dissatisfied and becoming “refugees” in their own cities. Thus top of pyramid solutions create more unrest and victims and the need is to plan and provide solutions for vulnerable people.

Transport Planning focused on such refugees would provide equitable solutions!

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The orginal article will be found here - http://cai-asia.blogspot.com/2009/07/transport-refugees-victims-of-unjust.html

Note - this study quotes many websites, research papers and news articles. Please contact the authors in case you would like to have the full references.

About the authors:

Bert Fabian has worked on transport and environmental issues in the last 10 years and has been with the CAI-Asia Center for 7 years. He enjoys the outdoors and cycling in his spare time. Email: bert.fabian@cai-asia.org


Sudhir Gota – a former highway designer has abandoned designing roads to work on sustainable transportation issues. He enjoys doing research. Email: sudhir@cai-asia.org

Both are from Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities

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The Transportation Majority. Can't politicians count?

Public transport? Cycling? Walking? Car pooling? Car sharing? Stuck at home? Elderly? Handicapped? Spend my hard-earned money for them? Bah! Who needs it? Why bother if it's just for a few marginal people? Let's concentrate on the big problems, those of the majority of people. Us drivers and our cars. We are the transportation majority.

In the world of human mobility there is, as it turns out, no one "big problem". And hence no big solutions. There is, for better or worse, just an ever-changing confluence of a very large number of different problems, different people, different desires, different daily life realities, different needs, different constraints, different priorities, different possibilities, and different decisions. And different actions. And different consequences.

The old mobility vision of society is essentially one of striding workers, with secure jobs, fixed hours, well defined trips, leaping into their car and then buckling up for "safe driving". Very nice.

All of whom well served by our "normal transportation arrangements", that is the huge and hugely expansive infrastructure that we continue to build and repair to support automotive transportation (and those largely empty cars).

Something like eighty percent of the local transportation funding in most cities of the world goes for that car-supporting infrastructure: roads, bridges, cloverleafs, tunnels, supporting elections, policing, accident prevention, and the long list goes on. Life is sweet.

Then there are "the rest", among them: the old, disabled, poor, rural, etc., etc. And of course the poor old disabled rural.

They too of course need to be catered to as well. Fair enough. Let's give them a bit here and a bit there too. But most of our hard-earned tax money is still going to be spent on providing high quality mobility arrangements for "normal people". That's right, isn't it?

Sorry but no, it's not at all right. It is in fact 100% wrong. It is wrong because it is grossly unfair and uncivil. And beyond that, it is also based on a false precept. Why?

Because that splendid vision of society with thee and me at the wheel with the wind blowing through our golden hair, simply does not jibe with reality. It never did in the past, and as our societies age it increasingly is absurdly contrary to reality. Here is the surprise, the kicker:

The "transportation majority" is not what most people think, transportation planners and policy makers among them.

The transportation majority are all those of us who increasingly are poorly served by the mainline, no-choice, car-based truncated service arrangements that eat up most of our taxpayer money and take away our choices. And each year, as our populations age this majority grows in numbers.

Here is a generic short-list of the people who make up this till-now all too silent majority:

1. Everyone in your city, country or electorate who does not have a car

2. Everyone who cannot drive

3. Everyone who cannot afford to own and operate a car of their own (And remember that costs a lot of after-tax money)

4. Everyone who should not drive (for reasons of a variety of impediments such as limitations associated with age, psychological state , , , ,)

5. Everyone who lives in a large city and for reasons of density, public health and quality of city life needs to have access to a non-car mobility system

6. Everyone who would in fact prefer to get around by walking, cycling or some form of shared transport who cannot safely or readily do so, because all the money is being spent on the car-based system which is fundamentally, and financially, incompatible with these "softer" and more healthy ways of getting around

7. Everyone who suffers from some form of impairment that makes driving or even access to traditional public transit difficult or impossible

8. Everyone who cannot responsibly take the wheel at any given time (fatigue, distraction, nervousness, some form of intoxication. . . )

9. All those who are today isolated and unable to participate in the life of our communities fully because they simply do not have a decent way to get around.

10. And -- don't lose sight of this! – in a few years you!

How do we work our way out of this? Simple, get out there and vote!

Vote for mayors, counselors and legislators who are ready to work for the transportation majority.

Vote for mayors, counselors and legislators who are ready to join the transportation majority and get to work and around their city by public transport, walking, bicycle, carpool, or carsharing. Or better yet some combination all of the above.

And don't vote for the other guys.

They will get your message.

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Editor's note:

Several of our readers have pointed out that while this may be interesting, the only way to make the point is to put numbers to it. Exactly! But this has to be done on a place by place basis, so one can hope that this will be done and that we shall be seeing the results of this important metric here and in many other places.

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Transport Refugees – Victims of unjust transport policies

The term “refugee” if used in the context of transportation would normally be understood to mean “the movement of refugees”. But what we fail to comprehend is that for various reasons it is our own transport systems, and the values and decisions that shape them, that are making many of us “refugees” in our own cities? It does not have to be this way.

- Sudhir Gota and Bert Fabian, Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities

The term “refugee” term if used in the context of transportation would most often be understood to mean “the movement of refugees”. But what we fail to comprehend is that it is our own transport systems which make many of us “refugees” in our own cities.

The social discrimination and exclusion of large groups of people from fair transport in many places creates an unbalance in society which leads to further victimization. The growing externalities of inadequate transport further aggravate the poor quality of life of what is in many places a very large group of people. Not some kind of marginal hence to some trivial minority.

Let us consider the following statistics from the latest report on road safety just out from the World Health Organization : "We are responsible for our future" (click here for article and details of this report on World Streets):

i) 1.27 million people are killed in traffic crashes every year.

ii) In addition, road crashes cause between 20 million and 50 million non-fatal injuries every year and are an important cause of disability.

iii) In low-income countries of South East Asia over 80% of those killed are vulnerable road users (the poor, the weak, the very young, the very old, the disabled).

iv) Outdoor air pollution alone causes an estimated 800,000 deaths each year.
v) 150,000 deaths occurring in low-income countries each year due to climate change

vi) Research on noise pollution is indicating that it causes more deaths than heart disease.

Clearly our present transport arrangements are daily becoming more and more injurious to the health of the people. However despite this visible reality, when it comes to planning transport and investing in the sector we consistently neglect the needs of such people. In fact, we manage to do worse than simply neglect.

Let's take an example: the current debate in India on an “engineering marvel” in Mumbai city – a sea bridge of 4.7Km length costing approx 366 million USD. This bridge is fully “access controlled” and prevents the movement of pedestrians, cyclists, two and three wheelers in the heart of the city.

Instead of making the systems “barrier free and accessible to all”, we in fact treat disadvantaged people as barriers to mobility and thus set out to make the system “free from such barriers”. This is our public policy.

There is something seriously wrong with a system which invests huge resources on physical infrastructure, and which isolates the victims from the beneficiaries and impoverishes them in the process.

This unfortunate trend is duplicated in many other Asian countries which prevent the growth of non motorized transport under the pretext of “fighting congestion”.

Another worrisome trend is the exploitation of land by improving its value by such infrastructure, which makes the poor citizens refugee migrants in their own cities. They are obliged continuously to migrate inside city from one place to another in search of cheaper housing, thereby imposing upon themselves sacrifices of transport , time and quality of life.

Worse, many cities in our poorer countries have transport systems which are “gender insensitive” -- which creates inequalities in the society by preventing the employment accessibility by offering them limited accessibility.

Transport Refugees constitute such people who are often made “invisible” when we plan, execute and finance transport systems.



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For more discussion of transport refugees, click here to http://cai-asia.blogspot.com/2009/07/transport-refugees-victims-of-unjust.html

About the authors:
Bert Fabian has worked on transport and environmental issues in the last 10 years and has been with the CAI-Asia Center for 7 years. He enjoys the outdoors and cycling in his spare time.

Sudhir Gota – a former highway designer has abandoned designing roads to work on sustainable transportation issues. He enjoys doing research.

Both are from Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities

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