The energy,
environmental and social benefits of sustainable transportation have always
been recognised but are now mainstream as Kyoto and the community politics of
transportation indicate. However sustainable transportation has always been
seen as secondary in economic terms unless lots of unquantifiable parameters
were included. The results of a study for the World Bank now show that cities
with significant sustainable transportation systems are least costly in terms
of a range of parameters including the amount of road expenditure, transit operating
cost recovery, fuel-efficiency, road accidents, air pollution and in overall
terms the % of city wealth that goes into transportation. The data show that
cities with the most roads hare the most costs for their transportation and the
most rail-oriented cities have the least transportation costs. Further, the
single most important variable relating to transportation efficiency is the
density of the city - the most sprawling cities are the most costly. Thus
strategies to contain sprawl, to reurbanise , to traffic calm, to build new
light rail systems into car dependent suburbs with focused sub centers, and to
facilitate biking and walking, all appear to add to the economy of a city.
Strategies that build freeways and add to sprawl are draining the economy of
cities. Global information trends are making the need for these sustainable
urban patterns even more necessary. The need to
operationalise these strategies in planning and engineering practice and
in the politics of infrastructure funding remain the major challenges.
Author
PETER NEWMAN
Professor of City Policy Director, Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy Murdoch University Perth, Australia
Download
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment