World Urban Forum

Hi. In my city, Bogotá, Colombia there is a project of implementing a congestion charging in downtown in order to restrict the car use. At the same time there is another project going on in the city (for more than 5 years now), the implementation of the Public Transport Integrated System, which will unified and put order to the tradittional public transport in the city. So I think that maybe the question is not about the chicken or the egg, but maybe if both policies (push and pull) are implemented at the same time, with good planning and not something improvised, we can have people using each time less the private car and using more the public transport as well as non motorised transport. But lets hope that in our case (Bogota) these projects can be realised.

Yes, good comment. What other experiences have come out in your cities?

The same is the case in many developing cities. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for example, wanted to postpone the demand management strategies until they have developed a proper public transport system and until date they are waiting for their "proper" transport system. The idea is to implement the strategies along with the development of alternatives to a personal automobile. The trump card is integration of the modes, a city can have n-number of modes, as long as there is no integration among the modes there will always be a need to use a personal automobile.

Hi Carlos - Shanghai and Singapore are cities where TDM measures have gone hand in hand with the development and improvement of public transport. Beijing on the other hand only introduced TDM measure once the situation had gotten out of hand. Psychologically I would say that the former approach leads to less frustration on the side of drivers. Also, when is enough public transport enough?

Hi Cornie. Thank you for your comment. I don´t know the situation in Asia and I don´t know exactly when these TDM measures were applied. But one question that comes up is if in Beijing, TDM measures were planned and introduced because the situation had gotten out of hand, or also because of the Olimpics in 2008? Or the TDM were introduced before or after? The same is happening with Brasil, especially with Rio (which will also hold the Olimpics in 2016), they are investing a lot in transit. So the question is, an important event has to happen in order to invest and introduce, among others, TDM measures, (especially in developing countries) to show and present a more sustainable city?

These are great questions, and you're right that Olympics (and large events in general) have been a catalyst to various measures in transport, including the Beijing initial odd-even scheme which was later transformed into the more complex lottery scheme for license plates (Cornie should have more detailed info on that). Large events are also a catalyst for public transport, such as Johannesburg's BRT and as you rightly mention the Rio BRT systems!!

Now that you mention it, is regrettable to see how an event like the FIFA U-20 World cup, held last year in Colombia, was an "exception to the rule". Last year Colombia held this important event, not like the FIFA World Cup of course, but any way is a large event, and instead of investing in, for example TDM measures, what we (especially in Bogota) had, was the inconclusive BRT´s phase 3 due to many factors such as corruption. One year later we still don´t have in operation BRT´s phase 3. So, regardless the large event, other external factors (i.e. corruption) also plays a negative fact to implement TDM measures.

Hi Clarence you are right. The politicians are people with power and they drive cars, so they plan for more car infrastructure and less for cycling and/or walking. There is a growing need for more politicians to have a much more equity on their policies, what I mean is that policies should also involve at great scale the poorest and citizens´ participation. As said by the WB (2006) and you can find it on the WUF6 background: "by placing equity and fairness as central elements of an efficient development strategy, developing countries will be better able to reach sustainable growth and development trajectories". So their is a need for a more egalitarian policy, thinking in the infrastructure for the poorest. By the way, I would like to share with you a picture in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Medellin, Colombia (for those whow knows, La Comuna 13) where recently they open to the community electric escalators to make there "climb" towards their houses a much more pleasant and easy way giving the eldest and handicapped people and the community in general a much more suited infrastructure. This is not an example of e-bikes but we can say that these are e-stairs. (The banner says something like: What a pride! we are the only neighborhood in the world with public electric escalators). The other picture is public space and cycling infrastructure in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Bogota, Colombia (Patio Bonito).