Ahmedabad on modernity bus, says BRTS pioneer

Enrique Penalosa, a Colombian economist and administrator, who introduced the BRTS in Bogota when he was the city’s mayor from 1998 to 2001, describes how Janmarg can transform the life of all Amdavadis.

The impact of the TransMilenio (the name by which the Bogota BRTS is known) was revolutionary. Today, nearly 1.6 million commuters use the TransMilenio. Ahmedabad's BRTS, the Janmarg, is modelled on Bogota's transit system.

Ahmedabad's Janmarg bus rapid transit system will soon start operations. It will transform many citizens' lives, saving them hundreds of travel time hours annually. It should be the seed of a BRT network covering the whole city of Ahmedabad and become an example for other cities in India and Asia in general.

Ahmedabad's population of 5 million is slightly smaller than Bogota's 7 million but, over the next 20 years, it is likely to surpass 20 million. It is crucial that the city has efficient mobility. Janmarg's success is crucial to the quality of life in Ahmedabad and its competitiveness as a city, as we move towards the future.

As mayor of Bogota, I took the decision to create TransMilenio, a BRT system, and led the construction and implementation of its first two stretches. TransMilenio now has 84 km of trunkways and moves 1.6 million commuters daily. An additional 22 km of roads is under construction.

Two other Colombian cities have similar systems in operation and, in four other cities, construction is well under way.

Twenty-one percent of TransMilenio's passengers are car owners who prefer to leave the car at home as TransMilenio is faster and allows them to avoid parking problems.

It is important to understand that mobility and traffic jams are two different challenges that require different solutions.

Transit systems are the only way to improve mobility. But not even the best transit system in the world can solve the problem of traffic jams. Only car-use restrictions will achieve that objective. Even London, which has 400 km of the Underground Metro and a total of 1800 km of rail lines, and thousands of buses, was forced to charge for car-use downtown in order to reduce traffic volumes.

Most residents of the richest and best cities in the world use public transport--not because they love it or want to protect the environment, but because there are restrictions on car use. Cars are too slow, it is difficult to find parking space for them, or they are expensive to use.

It should be clear by now that what creates traffic is not the number of cars in a city--that is only one variable. What creates traffic is the number of trips people make in different vehicles and the length of the trips. For that reason, more roads or bigger roads never solve traffic jams. Bigger roads, flyovers and so on, beget more and longer trips and thus more traffic. Trying to solve traffic with more road infrastructure is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.


The Ahmedabad Janmarg has benefited from the strong leadership of IP Gautam, commissioner of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), the wonderful local technical expertise of Shivanand Swamy from CEPT University and technical support from some of the world best experts on Bus Rapid Transit Systems who worked on Bogota's TransMilenio, and thanks to the support of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy over the last four years.

If the BRTS is so wonderful, why aren’t there more such systems in the world’s cities? The reason is that a BRTS demands difficult political decisions. Firstly, it is difficult to reorganise traditional transport operators, and second, the car-owning upper-middle classes do want a millimetre of road space to be taken away from them.

The Indian Constitution, like all other constitutions, includes many citizen rights, such as those to education and healthcare. But neither India’s nor any other constitution includes the right to park.

The Indian states and their local governments are under no obligation to provide parking in public spaces. Given that a large majority of Indian citizens do not own cars, getting rid of parking spaces to make wider footpaths would seem to be the democratic course to follow. Where should cars park? That is of no concern to the government, just as the government is not concerned where people keep clothes or food staples.

In developing countries, the car-owning upper-middle classes are a minority, but they carry most of the political power. A true democracy must give priority to the majority’s needs. And of course, soon enough even car-owner, just as it happened in London, New York or Paris, will prefer to use transit to go to work, in order to save hundreds of hours yearly. In a truly advanced city, wealthy citizens walk in public spaces, take public transport, and even ride bicycles next to everyone else.

In terms of infrastructure, what differentiates an advanced city from a backward one are not highways or subways, but quality footpaths. Great cities have great footpaths on every street. Cars parked where there should be footpaths are a symbol of a lack of democracy, showing that citizens with cars are of a higher class than those without them.

As mayor of Bogota, I had to confront powerful interests as I worked to get tens of thousands of cars out of footpaths and parking bays carved out of footpaths in order to make quality, wide footpaths and protected bicycle-ways. A few years later, once people lived the environments we created, opposition turned into massive support.

Wide, quality footpaths are an end in themselves, as they significantly improve quality of life. But they also are part of transit systems. Good footpaths on access streets to stations and along the roads where the BRT is located will stimulate longer walks to the BRT line, saving on feeder system costs. But they are important as well because people must perceive BRTs not simply as transport systems but as urban improvement projects.

The objective is not to have one BRT line but a network covering the city. Residents in other areas of the city should want BRT lines be built through where they live. For that to occur there must be significant improvements in footpaths, ideally including the putting of cables underground and regulating commercial signs.

Bicycling is more efficient than walking. Protected bicycle-ways show that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as one in a $30,000 car. Bicycle parking should be provided near the Janmarg stations. All advanced cities in the world are promoting bicycle use and building infrastructure to protect bicyclists. Physically protected bicycle-ways should be viewed not as a nice architectural feature but as a right; unless we believe only those with motor vehicles have a right to mobility without the risk of getting killed.

The most valuable resource a city has is its road space. How a society distributes such space between pedestrians, bicyclists, public transport and private motorcars says as much about how truly democratic a society is as the fact that people vote to elect their governments.