CB BureauWe cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that
created them.’ –
” Albert Einstein
The
phrase ‘sustainable development’ buzzes around politics and economics today,
but seldom is the phrase defined and even more rarely is the concept rigorously
applied to the future of transport and access issues.
The
traditional gauge of ‘development’ has been GNP or GDP. Lately, these have been
discredited because of their inability to accurately reflect the quality of
life. An equitable definition and measure of ‘development’ must reflect broad
changes in the quality of life, not just the increase wealth of a privileged
few. But development can never be at all costs.
‘Sustainability’
draws in the environmental considerations and dictates that the system must not
only meet the needs and improve the quality of life of today’s generation, but
it must also do it without compromising the quality of life in the future. It
must recognize that no human activity (as well as elephant, rhino, whale, seal,
or hummingbird activity) occurs without some effect on the environment. For
‘sustainability’, we must select actions that, along with their bundles of
secondary and tertiary consequences, can heal – preferably from natural, but
possibly from constructed, systems – within a reasonable period of time.
Finding a sustainable system in transport will require bigger lifestyle changes than
reducing water use with low-flow toilets, reusing beverage bottles and
recycling paper. To paraphrase Einstein, ‘We cannot solve our problems with the
same technology and lifestyles that created them.’
In ‘more developed countries’ and ‘less developed countries’ alike, a keystone of
environmental degradation has been roads. In almost every ecological crisis, a
road figures someplace in the scenario. Every mile of road that is graded opens
more land to vehicles and signals the spread of high-impact human activities.
But don’t roads provide access to education, healthcare employment and markets
– the basis of a better quality of life? How fundamental are roads? In many
parts of the world, less than one per cent of the people own cars and less than
twenty per cent can afford any form of motor transport; yet, they all in some
way or another get to education, healthcare, employment and markets. Even where
wealth is not a constraint, there is a growing number of examples of people
having access without relying on the privilege of affluence – the private
automobile. The fundamental enabling element in the current transport system in
most of the world is a ‘laissez-faire’ policy towards the public supplying of
roads to meet the increasing demand of private automobiles.
Hence,
the number of trips and the distances travelled have increased much faster than
the rate of population growth. The government’s response has been to build more
roads to make it easier for more people to drive more. Congestion has not been
reduced and pollution continues to poison the area.
In
the process of supplying and using the system of demand-by-private-automobiles, we have collectively: fouled rivers, lakes, ponds, wells and
estuaries; sealed over 50 per cent of many urban areas for streets and car
storage (storage for one automobile takes more space than many people have for
living); killed millions of people; maimed tens of millions more; poisoned the
air for hundreds of millions; increased asthma and allergies; exacerbated urban
flooding, caused nutrient-rich topsoil erosion and river silting; denigrated
fish-spawning areas, fish populations and wildlife habitat; choked, starved and
compacted aquifers; created mountains of used tyres and auto bodies; and
changed the earth’s climate. If a faction of any city’s cars were collected in
a factory building and left running, the factory would quickly be shut down
because of its cloud of emissions.
In
addition to the environmental consequences, roads and motor vehicles have
social implications. Roads benefit primarily the rich who can afford cars and
widen the development gap between rich and poor. Similarly, the negative impact
is harsher on the poor than the elite: roads have formed barriers across
neighbourhoods, and between homes and education, healthcare and employment for
peoples whose most affordable travel mode is as pedestrians and bicyclists.
In
the end, the burden of change should not be a question of urban/suburban vs
rural. Culpability more often runs between rich and poor. The transport
decisions of the poor, and certainly the rural poor, on all continents are not
the cause of major environmental destruction or social dislocation. In spending
public money on infrastructure that disproportionately benefits the rich,
resources are diverted from projects to serve the poor, who are further
impoverished. Once resource has been poured into roads for a few, they cannot
be used to improve the walking and bicycling access of the many.
A
society and economy that is undermining its livelihood like this is clearly not
sustainable. Which means it is self- destructive, or in a word, suicidal. Not a
happy thought. And we cannot assume that individuals will see their
self-interest in this dead-end scenari after all, if one person bicycles to
work, but his neighbour drives his car, the bicyclist will be inhaling the car
fumes and the driver has one less person competing for his road and parking
space. Another major obstacle to implementing a sustainable transportation
system is the urban-planning decision makers who are usually in or near the
economic class that can afford cars, and are more insulated than other
socio-economic groups from many of the most negative consequences of the
present system.
The
new paradigm of sustainable access must satisfy the demand for access without
continuous destruction of the environment. The specifics of a system will
probably and logically be different from location to location, but the main
elements will likely come from a common menu. To affect system supply:
- Implement policies to
increase utilization of existing infrastructure, i.e. convert use to
high-occupancy vehicles such as carpools, vanpools and buses, in addition
to bicycles and electric/hybrid vehicles - Design any new infrastructure that is necessary to primarily serve sustainable systems
- Develop an official
programme to raise the awareness and status of environmentally-friendly
travel - Revise traffic codes to favour pedestrians
- Create bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure
- Reduce the current infrastructure, i.e. de-paving
- Limit urban parking, particularly long term
- Institute traffic calming
- Adopt and enforce vehicle-emissions standards
- Establish and enforce fleet mileage laws
- Require the use of zero-emission motor vehicles
Investment
in alternative supply systems goes hand in hand with demand-restraint policies.
To affect traffic demand:
- Encourage an ethic that,
when at all practical, all trips of less than 6 km (3 miles) are by
non-motorized modes - Establish progressive
road-pricing programmes - Institute public- and
private-sector ‘earth-smart’ or ‘green-travel’ incentive programmes - Adopt growth policies
to inhibit urban/suburban sprawl - Revise zoning or land
use codes to permit appropriate mixed-use development that reduce trip
volumes and distances
Big
cities, north and south of the equator, must work to reduce or avoid large
vehicle volumes in the built-out core, where the infrastructure cannot grow. By
using travel space optimally and moderating the demand for urban car trips, we will then be closer to a system of sustainable access.