FACTFILE: VIENTIANE SUSTAINABLE URBAN TRANSPORT PROJECT
Chile’s Atacama Desert, Russia produces a fifth of the world’s high-grade nickel and China has major sources of natural graphite, rare earth elements and other critical EV commodities. Mass transit For urban areas, a reliable public transit system can go a long way towards alleviating traffic, heavy pollution, and the high costs associated with commuting with a private vehicle (parking, fuel, etc). For rural areas, public transit can connect otherwise isolated areas, which stimulates economic growth and opportunity. Yet much of the world lacks these essential connections. Convenient access to public transportation is a reality only for about half of the world’s city dwellers. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, sub-Saharan Africa and the Central and Southern Asia regions are farthest behind, with only a third of urban residents living within walking distance of buses, trams, trains, or ferries. “Sustainable urban transport allows everybody regardless of age, financial resources, or physical ability to access the wealth of urban opportunities available to them,” said Mohamed Mezghani, Secretary General of the International Association of Public Transport, speaking at last year’s UN Sustainable Transportation Conference. By not creating dedicated space for public transit such as special lanes only for buses, private vehicle use is essentially being subsidized as public real estate provided freely for private use. Allotting a place for mass transit and other alternative forms should play a key role in the design of any place’s transit plans.
The OPEC Fund provided a US$15 million loan in support of a project in Lao PDR’s capital city and economic center Vientiane that will include the construction of bus-ways, stations, road makings, signs, and the purchase of 96 buses. The new urban transport system will offer the nearly one million residents a safer and more reliable way to get around. The project will also create a single transport management body, which will also improve traffic management and promote accessibility for pedestrians and other non-motorized forms of transit, thereby reducing harmful carbon emissions.
“We need to make sure this is a natural decision of our policy makers, and not one that needs political courage,” Mezghani said. In Vientiane, the capital city and economic center of Lao PDR, a small percentage of roadways are paved and motorcycles are the primary source of transport. A project is now underway to create a dedicated public transport system with special lanes for buses and improved intersections (see Factfile box, above). What’s more, the project will also include a fare pricing structure geared towards making the transport services affordable to poor households, which will enable better and safer access to jobs and social services.
so for traversing large urban areas. Still, allotting dedicated space to mass transit, bikes and other small vehicles can go a long way to alleviating traffic congestion and the pollution that comes with it. In Uganda, motorcycle taxis (or boda bodas ) account for a significant share of the country’s motorized trips, in part because of their maneuverability in traffic as well as their ability to navigate terrain difficult for cars and trucks. However, the boda bodas , as motorized vehicles do, also produce harmful emissions. Bicycles, on the other hand, offer many of the perks of the boda bodas , with fewer of the disadvantages. Without access to adequate transport, rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa are cut off from basic goods, services, and facilities. Intermediate means of transport – pack and draft animals, wheelbarrows and handcarts, bicycles, cycle trailers and tricycles, and low- cost, slow-moving motorized
Low-tech solutions Any transit system will be affected
by the layout of a particular community. Bikes are a low- cost, low-emission solution that work great over short distances, but less
vehicles – are used widely in Asia, but are much less common in Africa. The World Bank has labeled this absence the “missing middle” of the rural transport system in Africa. Overcoming the factors that prevent the adaptation
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