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Yearly Archives: 2024
On BRT being the solution to many cities’ public transport problems
Here is a very informative article about the benefits of a bus rapid transit (BRT) to a city:
Renn, A.M. (June 17, 2024) “The Bus Lines That Can Solve a Bunch of Urban Problems,” Governing, https://www.governing.com/transportation/the-bus-lines-that-can-solve-a-bunch-of-urban-problems [Last accessed: 6/25/2024]
To quote from the article:
“One benefit of BRT is that it is much more capital-efficient and faster to implement than light rail. For many years, urban advocates have promoted light rail over bus transit, impressed by the success of light rail systems such as the one in Portland, Ore. But today’s light rail lines are extremely expensive. One proposed in Austin, Texas, for example, is projected to cost $500 million per mile. Also, most of the cities that have desired light rail are low-density cities built around cars and with little history of extensive public transit ridership. Converting them to transit-oriented cities would be a heavy lift.
BRT is much cheaper. The 13-mile Red Line BRT in Indianapolis, opened in 2019, cost less than $100 million — not per mile, but in total. The much lower financial lift required for building bus rapid transit makes it more feasible for cities to raise the required funds.
Because they typically run on city streets, BRT systems also offer the chance to perform badly needed street and sewer repairs during construction. Sidewalks can be rebuilt or added. Traffic signals can be replaced, along with new features such as prioritizing buses over auto traffic and additional pedestrian safety measures. The reduction of traffic lanes itself is sometimes a worthwhile street redesign project.”
It’s been more than a decade (almost 2 decades to be more accurate) since a BRT was proposed in Cebu City and in Metro Manila. So far, there is still none operating in the Philippines. The EDSA Carousel probably wants to be one but is far from being a BRT based on operations and performance. Cebu’s is supposed to be currently in implementation but it seems Davao might just beat them to it with its high priority bus project. The Philippines requires a proof of concept of the BRT in one of its cities that could be the inspiration for similar projects in other cities especially those that are already highly urbanized.
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Some aerial photos as we approached Panglao
Here are a few more photos from our plane as we journeyed to Bohol last week. This time, it is from the approach to Panglao. I was expecting the approach for the plane to pass above Cebu. I was rewarded with the following photos:
Mactan Cebu International Airport as seen from our plane making its approach to Panglao Airport
A view of the islands off Mactan and between Cebu and Bohol. There was a view of Olango Island but I wasn’t able to take a photo.
A quick shot of some of the hills at Bohol Island. I am not sure these are the Chocolate Hills but the formation, the geology is the same as the heritage site’s.
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Some photos after taking off from NAIA
I took a few photos as our plane took off last week on our way to Panglao. The photos are not as good as I wanted them as I wasn’t seated at the window.
Reclamation at Manila Bay – there are currently several reclamation projects with various proponents. The projects were halted at one point during the start of the current administration. Some if not all have resumed implementation.
A closer look at one of the reclamation areas. Note, too, the ships anchored around the area.
Sangley Point airbase as seen from our airplane. This is proposed to be the location of an airport recommended by a JICA study to replace NAIA. Not in the photo is the controversial former resort that is now a suspicious enclave.
The reclamation projects are also quite controversial considering many of the proponents involved Chinese companies. I have it from a reliable source who was involved in two of the projects that the project land values are sky high. So who would be able to afford settling, locating or residing in whatever will be developed in these reclaimed land? It would be very expensive for the typical Filipino and many local companies will probably balk at the property values. Whatever the developments would be, let’s just hope they don’t go the way of the former Island Cover Resort that is now allegedly a POGO facility.
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Article share: Planners’ Complicity in Excessive Traffic Deaths
Here is a recent article on safety and the involvement on traffic engineers from Todd Litman:
Source: Planners’ Complicity in Excessive Traffic Deaths
Let me note here about the interchangeability of the terms ‘traffic engineer’, ‘transportation engineer’ and ‘planner’. This is important to contextualize who is actually complicit or involved or responsible particularly in the Philippine setting. Too often and too quickly, traffic engineers or even civil engineers (in general) are blamed for traffic deaths or flaws in road designs. Disregarded is the fact that, as the article mentions, of the two major elements of travel – distance and speed – distance is often determined by the plans and designs of non-engineers. These are planners, or to be accurate land use planners, many of whom are architects by profession. We also want to differentiate between traffic engineers and highway engineers, who in the Philippine setting are actually quite different. One common thing about many of them is that they are slow to adopt progressive ideas or concepts of road planning and design such as complete streets and road diets. The outcome of this stubbornness is the specter of road crashes that lead to fatalities and serious injuries. But then they are not solely to blame or who should take responsibility for the atrocious road safety situation. The ‘distance’ component of travel is very much a product of land use planning and land development as practiced in our country. For many if not most developments, architects and planners are the ones who call the shots for the roads and transportation in the proposals. Traffic engineers are involved later and if not progressive complicates the situation regarding safety. Thankfully, some local government units are becoming progressive and are more mindful of development proposals including implications to road safety. Hopefully, many things will change among those involved so we can improve travel safety.
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On the idea of congestion pricing
I purposely titled this post to include the word ‘idea’ as congestion pricing is still very much like that in the Philippines. It is a reality in some part of the world particularly in Singapore where its Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) has evolved and improved over the years. Its success though seems to be an exceptional case that has not been replicated elsewhere where conditions are not exactly like the city state’s.
Here is an article that recently came out from The Washington Post about the New York Governor’s decision to backtrack on the proposed congestion pricing initiative in New York City:
McArdle, M. (June 12, 2024) “People hate traffic. They also hate this great idea to clear it,” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/12/congestion-pricing-great-idea-people-hate/ [Last accessed: 6/14/2024]
To quote from the article:
“Roads are a scarce good; you can fit only so many cars on a road at one time, and fewer if you would like those cars to go somewhere. When roads are “free,” we are forced to fall back on a more costly and inefficient strategy: sitting in traffic. This wastes valuable human time and inflicts noise and pollution on everyone nearby. Far better to charge a modest price that inspires some drivers to carpool and others to take public transit or shop nearer to home, until supply and demand are balanced and traffic flows easily…
In political disputes, a discrete group facing highly concentrated costs often defeats a larger public interest that conveys a small individual benefit to everybody — such as being able to move around the city faster when you really need to. This is particularly true in the American system, which is designed to empower angry minorities. And it’s especially true when they’re abetted by status quo bias and a sympathetic majority, as in this case.
Complain all you want about selfish suburban drivers or the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s bloated cost structure or Hochul’s cowardice; the biggest obstacle to congestion pricing is that almost two-thirds of New York City residents have told pollsters they oppose it — in a city where less than half of all households even own a car. A more technocratic, less democratically responsive government might have been able to ram it through, and perhaps in time everyone would have come to like it. But in fractious America, with all its political veto points, congestion pricing is doomed by the reality that people hate slapping prices on things — especially if they have to pay them.”
There is a congestion pricing proposal in Baguio City and we don’t know yet how this will go. I don’t have the details yet except that a private company whose core business is tollways is involved. Will this be a model or a proof of concept? Or will it just go the way of a typical tollway where users are those who are willing to pay and which would eventually congest if most of the current users pay and use it anyway? Will the funds generated be used to develop a more efficient transport system for Baguio, eventually leading and contributing to less congested streets? That would also mean eventually less revenues from the congestion pricing scheme and probably lead to it being unnecessary.
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Conventional vs. hi tech – the case of train tickets
Here’s an interesting (for me) read on something we usually assume could be improved by means of technology – transit fare collection:
Unseen Japan (May 27, 2024) “Japan Railways tried replacing tickets with tech., It didn’t go well,” Medium.com, https://unseenjapan.medium.com/japan-railways-tried-to-replace-tickets-with-tech-it-didnt-go-well-1e151f9a400f [Last accessed: 6/10/2024]
To quote from the article:
“So what went wrong? Some experts say that JR East’s major fault was forcing a cutover to online and automated systems before those systems were ready for prime time.”
As with others like this that seek to ‘disrupt’ the conventional or status quo, a hastily implemented system will likely face trouble and a barrage of complaints from users. This would be especially true if the current-old system is already efficient and requires only minor tweaking or improvements and an abrupt phase out or scale down of the old is not necessary.
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On the impact of bike lanes on motor vehicle traffic
With the news that bike lanes will be removed along major roads including, most recently, I share some findings from the US about a decrease in traffic speeds when there are protected bike lanes. The decrease in speeds are associated with a reduction in road crashes, ergo safer streets.
McPherson, K. (June 3, 2024) “Traffic Speeds Decrease When Bike Lane is Present,” Rutgers.edu, https://www.rutgers.edu/news/traffic-speeds-decrease-when-bike-lane-present [Last accessed: 6/8/2024]
To quote from the article:
“They found that the presence of the delineated bike lane made a difference: a 28 percent reduction in average maximum speeds and a 21 percent decrease in average speeds for vehicles turning right. For those heading straight and not turning, a smaller speed reduction of 8 percent was observed. In addition, drivers moving at a perpendicular angle to the bike lane did not slow down.
Marking the bike lanes with cones as a clearly delineated space was more effective at reducing speed than a painted-only bike lane. The painted-only bike lane was associated with a smaller speed reduction of between 11 percent and 15 percent, but only for drivers turning right.
Younes hypothesized that drivers slow down when they see a bike lane marked with the cones because the driving lane is narrower and requires more concentration, and it’s easier to notice cones or planters or some other space delineator than it is to spot painted lines on the road surface.”
Of course, one major element that was probably not considered in their studies is the presence and behavior of motorcycle riders. Motorcycles here frequently enter and use bike lanes whether protected or not. Often they crowd out bicycle users leading to situations where riders of motorized and non-motorized 2-wheelers come into conflict. Still, it would be nice to have a study to determine not just whether there are similar outcomes here but to what extent as well as how motorcycles figure in the study.
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Extreme turbulence during air travel
Transport-related news last week included a report about a Singapore Airlines B777 jet flying to London from Singapore that had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok due to extreme turbulence experienced. Many people were seriously injured when the plane suddenly ascended (“tilted up” as some news reports state) and then abruptly descended, resulting in people being tossed up and hitting the compartments above their seats. Obviously, these passengers were not wearing their seatbelts at the time. Otherwise, they would have been restrained to their seats. It is likely that the turbulence was not anticipated by the pilot as they usually advise passengers to put on their seat belts if turbulence was expected at any time during a flight.
The incident raises concerns about extreme and sudden turbulence occurring during flights. I guess this may happen anytime and aircraft instruments may not be able to tell the crew about an impending incident like this. Will such an incident have a significant impact on air travel? Perhaps not if these incidents remain rare. There should be records and monitoring of factors or elements leading to such incidents in order to establish the likelihood of these happening. Incident records will also show if there is an increasing frequency as well as the number of people killed and injured. Such information would be vital as more people use aviation for travel and there are more aircraft activity around the world.
As a precaution, it is good practice not to remove your seatbelt while seated in flight. If it’s tight, then loosen it. At least you have some restraint in case of incidents where the aircraft encounters sudden turbulence.
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Safety or speed?
We start June by sharing a video on why safety and vehicle speed are incompatible:
I saw this video while browsing an article on “Dangerous by Design”. The article discusses a new publication where road designs are evaluated from the perspective of safety. Most of our roads have been designed with speed in mind. That is, how to facilitate the movement of motor vehicles to ensure they travel faster. Forgotten or, even worse, disregarded is the most important element of safety. Why do we widen roads or insist on higher speeds in populated areas or school zones? Such questions are not addressed directly or not answered at all by agencies in charge of planning, designing, constructing and maintaining roads and bridges. The same is true for agencies or units in charge of traffic regulations or management. The result not surprisingly is an increase in the number of road crashes, fatalities and injuries due to our roads being ‘dangerous by design’.
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Pave paradise
With the arrival of rains, many would probably forget about the recent heat wave we experienced. Those days were definitely record-breaking in as far as temperatures and heat indices were concerned. It was so hot that many schools had to revert to online or hybrid modes. Many people were complaining and as usual, the loss or lack of trees were mentioned in conversations or exchanges about how trees and other foliage could have helped cool the earth. The problem is that we have not learned our lesson and continue removing trees particularly those that need not be removed or cut down. In the name of road widening, which appears to be a key performance indicator for the DPWH, trees have been removed along national roads. This led to the elimination of what used to be shaded roads (i.e., canopies provided by trees), and gave way to now very exposed and open spaces.
The very same trees providing us with oxygen and shade, and contributing to cooler temperatures are also the ones helping reduce flooding. Denuded mountains and hills easily have their soils saturated leading to landslides that often are destructive and murderous. While it seems cliche to state that government should lead in ensuring we have more trees, it is a truth and we are in search of champions in government to inspire us to work together for more trees for our future.
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Caught (up) in traffic 