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2012 5 Public Transport Challenge Latin America
2012 5 Public Transport Challenge Latin America
a) Multi-Modal Connectivity
b) Park&Ride Availability
c) Non-Motorized Modes Availability
When examining the Spatial Framework (SF) of a city, Figure 1b, confirms that
both population and land area increase over time, not only for USAs cities but
for most cities around the worldc .
For many cities, the increase in area has been proportionally greater than the
increase in population, and their average population densities have declined.
As shown in Figure 1, urban land grew 6.7 times from 1950-2000, while
population just grew 2.3 times and density diminished from a scale of 1 to 1/3.
In general, cities with lower population density have higher levels of vehicle
ownership, besides low overall population density may increase average trip
lengths and spur motorization, in such scenario travel time is likely to increase,
independently of trip purpose; Home-Work, Home-Services or Home-Other
Places, affecting our quality of life.
Besides, it is inferred from the analysis made by Marshall that each urban
newcomer, on average, occupies about twice the per capita land area of
existing residents, reflecting peoples desire to consume more land than their
peers, while not exceeding income constraints and/or appearing over
extravagant.
Figure 1
Urban Land Area and Population in USA-Cities: 1950-2000
Group 1; Are the first Urban Areas in the USA that were considered US Census Urban Area
(1950)
Table 1
Population, Work Places, and Facilities in Quito
Figure 2 Figure 3
Quito-Densities Quito-Central Area
Main Transport Corridors
According to Florent Demoraes e the area where the majority of the population
lives (white area in map) has a good accessibility; this provides ease of transit
modes use.
Figure 4
Accessibility in Quito
In the case of Medellin, from the Pilot Project of the City in 1950, it has grown
along the river, on a linear pattern limited in both sides by the mountains and
having around 10km wide in most of the urban land.
Figure 5
Medellin-Densities
According to data collected some areas of Medellin reached densities as high as
1,000 inhabitants/ha, or 100,000 inhabitants/km2 (black colored area in map),
and for most of the territory densities of 100-500 inhabitants/ha or 10,000-
50,000 inhabitants/km2, this of course alleviate the provision of transport
facilities.
By 2010, as shown in Table 2, there were less than 7 cars per 100 inhabitants
in Colombia, according to the United Nations Statistical YearBook, in USA's
Cities the ratio of cars/inhabitant was as high as 0.765 in 2002, this is 76 cars
per 100 inhabitants, ten times the average in Colombia, an average which will
not be reached in Medellin or Quito, even in 2040.
Table 2
Motorization
Year Population Vehicles
Ratio
2010 45.5 2.99 0.066
2015 48.2 3.71 0.077
2020 50.9 4.62 0.091
2025 53.6 5.86 0.109
2030 56.3 7.28 0.129
2035 59 8.80 0.149
2040 61.7 10.42 0.169
Although Car ownership does not necessarily imply car use (see Figure 6), it is
inferred that the possibilities of having congestion caused by cars are far less
in Cities like Medellin or Quito. Besides in some Colombian cities, as Bogota or
Medellin, f the growth of car ownership is not, as high as, the growth of
motorcycles according to current trend.
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.
Travel/Inhabitant Travel/Inhabitant
City
2008 2040
Bogota 1.76 2.32
Medellin 1.65 2.21
Cali 1.63 2.19
Barranquilla 1.45 2.01
Pasto 1.06 1.62
Neiva 1.40 1.97
Villavicencio 1.61 2.18
Tunja 1.38 1.95
Sincelejo 1.06 1.62
Average Larger Cities 1.56 2.13
Average Smaller Cities 1.30 1.87
This implies that Mid-Size Cities, like Medellin or Quito, have better
opportunities of managing mobility performance, including issues as ; Travel
Time, Cost, and Availability of transit, as far as there are fewer trips per
person.
This is true, as far as, population growth maintain a low rate, and authorities
are oriented to support travel demand by good provision of facilities.
Both saw increases in ridership of their transit systems between 2000 and
2008: Houston saw a 1.05% increase, Dallas an 11.7% jump. Those increases,
however, were entirely lost by 2010, which has been a terrible year for transit
in the two cities. At the same time, their city populations increased by 15.7%
and 9.3%, respectively; transit improvements couldnt keep up. This may be
because of poor choices in public transportation investments or re-densification
in the urban cores of these cities (or annexation, spreading the population
out), but either way these are not model cities for transit investments ".
Table 4
Modal Split-Medellin
Mode %
Bus 33.97
Pedestrian 30.27
Car 12.79
Subway 6.49
Taxi 6.39
Motorcycle 4.9
Others 4.2
Bicycle 1
Figure 7
Medellins Metrocable
Figure 8
Medellins Transportation Network
We should consider that walking and cycling are highly sensitive to the local
built environment j, some recently changes related to urban design and
specifically oriented to re-thinking public spaces use, in New York k have had a
tremendous impact on attracting more people to walk.
Compared with driving l, walking requires far less space for travel and parking,
does not require building setbacks to mitigate traffic noise, and encourages
more clustered development patterns. As a result, walkable communities can
devote less land to pavement and tend to result in higher development
densities than is common with more automobile-oriented transport systems,
reducing per capita land consumption.
By 1998, in cities as Bogota, 70% of total trips made by car were less than 3
km long, then we will agree about the opportunities for lessen car trips from
improving Non Motorized options.
Figure 9
Walkway The Golden Mile-Medellin
Table 5
Table 6
Modal Split-Quito
Mode %
Bus+Tram 65
Car 35
In relation to Modal Split, although in Quito the percentage of Travel by car has
reached 35 %, while at the beginning of the twenty first century was around
20%m, we should consider the way data has been aggregated. In the case of
Medellin we should consider Travel by car around 20 % (12.79+6.39) as far as
we must add to the data of Travel by car, travel made by Taxi too.
In both cases, these cities have a lower share of travel by car than USAs
cities, even to those best rated cities as Boston, Washington and San Francisco
where car mode share is around 45 %. The mode share by car in New York,
which is the best in USA, is 28.7 %, similar to the one in Quito or Medellin.
Table 7
2009 Mode Share in Americas Biggest Cities
Total
Total Total Driving
Non- Carpooling Transit Biking Walking
workers Auto Alone
Auto
Las Vegas 245685 88.8 6.3 77.9 10.9 3.4 0.3 2.6
Los Angeles 1748419 77.6 15.7 67.1 10.5 11.3 1.0 3.4
New York 3731917 28.7 65.8 23.5 5.3 54.9 0.6 10.3
San Antonio 606446 90.2 5.5 78.8 11.5 3.3 0.1 2.0
Considering travel times, and having as a reference the City of Quito, there is
still a challenging scenario for future Transit Planning, since as shown in Table
8, the average of travel time in car (0.34 of an hour, this is 20.4 minutes) is
half the time of the best transit option available (0.66 of an hour or 39.6
minutes), becoming travel by car a more attractive option.
Table 8
Comparison of Travel Times in Quito: Car-Buses-BRT
Figure 10
Travel Speed in Quito 2008-2025
Walkability
While, walkability has been found to have many economic benefits, including
accessibility, cost savings, increased efficiency of land use, increased livability,
economic benefits from improved public health, and economic development,
one of the most important benefits is the decrease of the automobile footprint
in the community.
RateMyStreet is a website that uses Crowd sourcing, Google Maps and a five
star rating system to empower local communities to rate the walkability of
their local streets.
Users can rate a street using eight different categories: Crossing the street,
Pavement/Sidewalk width, Trip hazards, Way finding, Safety from crime, Road
safety, Clean/attractive and disabled people access.
Conclusions:
1.- There is not a single condition that will allow improving quality of life in a
long lasting way, instead we should consider multiple and simultaneously
applied policies that comprise from land use planning, density management, to
urban design and transport facilities design.
A Transversally conceived Plan, will describe better the conceptual basis of
future interventions.
2.- Independently of improving travel time, in any city, then making more time
available for other activities, we should consider options for adding value to
travel itself. Technology ought to open alternatives for using other senses,
besides the eyes, for learning, communicate or just for pleasure while
travelling.
For instance, Wi-Fi access in transit, opens an opportunity to make more
attractive its use in comparison to car travelling.
3.- The Planning of Transport facilities considering nodes and corridors allows
better accessibility since according to recent research, the urban form leads
people to interact with their environment in a linear manner, rather than in
terms of the two dimensional space around them.
From the experiences of Quito and Medellin this premise is also validated.
4.- The concept of Trip Profile, should lead us to consider the necessity of
designing modes that include some others modes as complimentary options,
there is no a single mode that provides all the best performance for a trip.
For instance subways that allow carrying bikes in or cars carrying portable
bikes.
6.- Urban Design plays a critical role on attracting pedestrian trips. People
should be able to appropriate, identify and appreciate streets and public spaces
as their own spaces, not only for functional purposes but for leisure, as well.
We should consider, as stated by Jan Gehl, Life, Space and then Buildings
and not the other way around.
These facilities can become attractive landmarks not only in terms of land use
but furthermore as attractive public spaces having complimentary options for
leisure, fun, and sports or else according to demand analysis.
8.- Walkability is a concept to define life quality, since it allows empathy
between people and the environment.
Conventional transportation survey data and evaluation methods do not
consider this qualitative approach, they rather tend to prioritize
quantitative basis.
References
Gregory K. Ingram and Zhi Liu. Motorization and Road Provision in Countries
and Cities. 1997
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html
http://www.elcolombiano.com/BancoConocimiento/M/medellin_necesita_una_c
ultura_de_la_moto/medellin_necesita_una_cultura_de_la_moto.asp
http://www.embarq.org/en/node/3124
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/10/13/transit-mode-share-trends-
looking steady-rail-appears-to-encourage-non-automobile-commutes/
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch5s5-3-1-5.html
http://www.gehlarchitects.com/#/378166/
http://www.vtpi.org/walkability.pdf
Joyce Dargay, Dermot Gately and Martin Sommer. Vehicle Ownership and
Income Growth, Worldwide: 1960-2030.
Marshall, Julian. Urban Land Area and Population Growth: A New Scaling
Relationship for Metropolitan Expansion. 2007
There is evidence from this research that the correlation between income and
motorization is not linear in all cases or cities around the world. It was found, for
example, that Sydney, the city with the highest income per capita in Australia was the
place with the lowest motorization ratio within the six cities analyzed there.
Citizens from Vancouver travel twice the distance travelled by the people in Montreal.
Motorization ratio in wealthy Asian cities (Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo) is
comparable to the ratio of the poor cities (Bangkok, Manila or Jakarta) 217
cars/thousand inhabitant to 227 cars/thousand inhabitant, respectively.
b
Marshall, Julian. Urban Land Area and Population Growth: A New Scaling Relationship
for Metropolitan Expansion. 2007
Marshall introduces the concept of Linear Population Density (LPD) (units: people per
meter) is the number of people in a meter wide strip across an urban area. LPD is
distinct from, and behaves somewhat differently than, population density. Distributions
of LPD values among US UAs during 19502000 show surprisingly little variability over
multi decade time-scales. For example, from 1950 to 2000, average population, land
area and population density changed by more than a factor of 2, but average LPD
changed less than 10 per cent. This suggest that Modern vehicle-centric urban form
leads people to interact with their environment in a linear manner, such as along
transport corridors, rather than in terms of the two dimensional space around them,
and this fact leads to long-term consistency in linear population density.
c
Gregory K. Ingram and Zhi Liu. Motorization and Road Provision in Countries and
Cities. 1997
d
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html
e
The research considered five features to assess the accessibility (land slope, roadway
density, ratio of people/ha within a kilometer of a major road, sinuosity ratio, and
linkage between roads)
f
http://www.elcolombiano.com/BancoConocimiento/M/medellin_necesita_una_cultura_
de_la_moto/medellin_necesita_una_cultura_de_la_moto.asp
g
http://www.embarq.org/en/node/3124
h
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/10/13/transit-mode-share-trends-looking
steady-rail-appears-to-encourage-non-automobile-commutes/
i
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch5s5-3-1-5.html
j
Lee and Mouden. ECMT, 2004a. 2006
k
http://www.gehlarchitects.com/#/378166/
l
Litman, Alexander. Economic Value of Walkability. 2011
m
Demoraes Florent. Movilidad, Elementos Esenciales y Riesgos en el Distrito
Metropolitano de Quito. Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement. 2005
n
Aspelin, Karen. "Establishing Pedestrian Walking Speeds". Portland State University.
2005
Although walking speeds can vary greatly depending on factors such as height, weight,
age, terrain, surface, load, culture, effort, and fitness, the average human walking
speed is about 5.0 kilometers per hour (km/h), or about 3.1 miles per hour (mph).
Specific studies have found pedestrian walking speeds ranging from 4.51 km/h to
4.75 km/h for older individuals to 5.32 km/h to 5.43 km/h for younger individuals.
o
Joyce Dargay, Dermot Gately and Martin Sommer. Vehicle Ownership and Income
Growth, Worldwide: 1960-2030.
Walking is generally considered a lower status activity compared with motorized travel.
Conventional planning tends to ignore or undervalue benefits such as fitness and public
health benefits of active transportation, enjoyment of walking and cycling, and
improved mobility options for non-drivers.
Decision-makers often take walking for granted and assume that it can take care of
itself (Goodman and Tolley 2003).