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On the key transformations needed to achieve sustainable, low carbon transport
Also related to COP26, I am sharing material from the Sustainable Low Carbon Transport (SLOCAT) partnership, of which our center is part of. SLOCAT recently released the 11 key transformations for sustainable low carbon land transport urgently needed to meet the climate targets. Here’s a link to their site:
SLOCAT also has the following Wheel of Transport and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) on the same site. The Wheel illustrates the four cross-cutting themes: equitable, healthy, resilient and green.
In the SLOCAT site, they list the following to support the transformations:
Overarching approaches to apply across transport modes and sub-sectors overtime
- Put people first, not vehicles and technology
- Co-create and communicate a compelling vision and targets
- Guide short- and medium-term action with clear, coherent political messages
- Combine push and pull measures: Regulate and incentivise
- Link policies within and beyond transport for synergies
- Prioritise resources by social and sustainable value for money
- Engage, empower and coordinate stakeholders across government levels and sectors
- Build capacity and improve data
- Implement pilots to learn and share, then roll out at scale
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We need to do more to reduce transport emissions
I did some work on long term action plans on low carbon transport for the ASEAN region before. We were able identify many of interventions that were being implemented as well as those that can be done to reduce transport emissions. Such reductions for the region would ultimately contribute to alleviating global warming. Unfortunately, while ASEAN is a significant contributor to emissions, it pales in comparison to emissions by individual countries like China and the US. If these two and others in the industrialized world do not commit to reducing their emissions, all work will come to naught. Here is an article that serves as a pre-event write-up for COP26, a major climate summit that will be held in Glasgow in the coming days.
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Do we miss commuting?
That’s the question asked in a recent article about commuting via public transport in the US. The pandemic has altered much of our lives including our typical daily travels between our homes and workplaces. Of course, the experiences vary in many countries and different towns and cities. However, we cannot deny that with the still developing information about the Covid-19 virus (i.e., how it is spread), many of us have had doubts about taking public transportation. For those who didn’t have much options for their commutes, they just had to do their part in observing health protocols and trust that the operators and drivers of public utility vehicles also do their part to sanitize vehicles.
Barry, D. (May 10, 2021) “No Scrum for Seats. No Quiet-Car Brawls. Is This Really My Commute?” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/nyregion/new-jersey-transit-commute.html?smid=url-share [Last accessed: 5/11/2021]
How did your commutes change from what it was before the pandemic? Are you back to using public transport? Have you shifted to active modes like bike commuting? Did you go back to driving a car? Or are you still basically working from home most of the time? And did you miss how you were commuting before?
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Vaccine passports anyone?
As the Philippines, relaxes protocols to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, it is interesting to note that other countries have not let down their guard. And the latter includes nations that have been quite successful in dealing with the pandemic. Many countries have also received the vaccines and have started inoculating their populations. These received the doses ahead of the Philippines and have now vaccinated a significant % of their population according to their respective prioritization schemes.
But even as countries have started vaccinations, the question remains whether a vaccinated individual can now move around or travel as if it were pre-pandemic conditions (the old normal). Here’s a nice article to read as the topic of unrestricted (or restricted, depending on your take) comes up in discussions including those leading to certain policies to be formulated by governments:
Fisher, M. (March 2, 2021) “Vaccine passports, Covid’s next political flashpoint,” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/europe/passports-covid-vaccine.html [Last accessed: 3/4/2021]
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Post-typhoon BFCT and SM Marikina area
Still on the aftermath of Typhoon Ulysses (Vamco) though this is already a late post about it, here are some photos at the river banks level on the side of SM Marikina and the vicinity of the transport terminal constructed and operated by the former MMDA Chair and Marikina Mayor’s company. The area is basically a flood plain and in other countries would not have been suitable for building. Rather, these are often used as open spaces like parks, football fields or baseball diamonds, among other possible uses.
There were garbage and mud everywhere. By the time I passed by, the mud had dried up and turned into fine dust that blanketed the area.
Trash were everywhere and you can see how deep the water was by the garbage still on the power line towers and the trees.
Underpass leading to SM Marikina – bulldozers and payloaders were busy moving mud and garbage to clear the roads. There were no signs of the work in progress so I ended up making a U-turn seeing the way to SM’s parking was blocked by mud and debris.
On the way back to Marcos Highway, you can see the large trees that were transferred to this area from Katipunan Avenue (when it was widened by way of removing the service road to give way to the MMDA’s U-turn scheme). It is heartening to know these survived the river’s onslaught.
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The FVR Road and Bridge after Typhoon Ulysses
This is a continuation of the feature on the aftermath of Typhoon Ulysses (Vamco). I am posting this here as part of my archives on the floods in the Marikina Valley.
There’s a road branching off from Marcos Highway that links to a bridge crossing the Marikina River and connects with the FVR Road along the Marikina Riverbanks. The following photos speak for themselves in as far as the mud and garbage that was left after the floods subsided.
Descending from Marcos Highway, only one of two lanes are passable after heavy equipment moved tons of mud and garbage to the roadsides. The fences trapped a lot of garbage, too, as seen in the photo.
Piles of mud and garbage at the service road leading to the east bank of the Marikina River and the SM Marikina access road.
Under the Marcos Highway Bridge, garbage, mostly plastics, remain on the wire fences. This area was totally submerged during the height of the floods with water reaching the underside of the bridge. Fortunately, the bridge seems undamaged.
Even lamp posts and electric poles caught a lot of garbage.
The Olandes housing development was surely affected by the swelling of the river.
The FVR Road leading to C-5 is already clear for 2-lane traffic but you can see the mud and garbage all around. The dried mud has turned into dust (alikabok) that blows away as vehicles pass through the road. There is also mud on the plants in the median planters as this area was also submerged during the height of the typhoon.
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Tumana during and after the flood
I was heading to the office the Monday after Typhoon Ulysses had devastated wide areas in Luzon. I was aware of the congestion along my usual routes so I used Waze to guide my trip. Waze took me to Tumana instead of Marcos Highway, which I assumed would have been less congested. I took the following photos in the Tumana area:
Congested main road due to heavy equipment like bulldozers, backhoes and dump trucks clearing the mud and trash in the area. There were also lots of parked vehicles along each side of the road including Marikina service and emergency vehicles.
There was trash all around that included what looked like the belongings of people residing in the area. Many people were busy clearing their homes of items destroyed or damaged by the floodwaters.
Despite being cleared for traffic, you can see the mud and water still in the area and signs of how deep the flood waters were by markings on the buildings.
At the foot of the bridge connecting to Quezon City, you can see that there is still so much mud in many areas especially those closest to the river. Sidestreets were so narrow that the heavy equipment cannot enter them and cleaning the mud had to be done entirely manually.
Here are what looks like the vehicles that survived the floods. I thought people must have rushed to get their vehicles on the best positions atop the bridge when they realized the waters were rising fast. It was likely few if anyone left their vehicles there during the height of the typhoon. That’s because the winds were so strong that perhaps people though it would be unsafe to leave their vehicles exposed to the winds.
The following photos from Facebook shows the extent of the flooding that reached the other side of the river – Loyola Grand Villas and another subdivision that’s directly along the banks of the Marikina River. The first photo shows the submerged end of the bridge from the LGV side in the foreground and Tumana in the background at the other end of the Tumana Bridge. The second photo is atop LGV and shows many submerged homes and cars.
Only the cars on the bridge likely survived the floods.
This was definitely at the level of the floods of Typhoon Andy (Ketsana) given the spread and depth of the floods.
One wonders what is now the return period for these typhoons. Ondoy was 11 years ago and the monsoon (Habagat) rains that also brought heavy rains and floods were in 2012 (8 years ago). Such floods cannot be solved by improving drainage systems alone but have to go to the root cause of flooding while also addressing how people could cope with these phenomena. Infrastructure alone cannot solve this and certainly will cost a lot for any initiative to provide some relief from such.
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A bigger picture for the ‘new normal’
Here’s something different thought not totally unrelated to transportation. The article is about the emergence of super typhoons and their aftermaths:
Niiler, E. (November 4, 2020) What Is a Super Typhoon, and Why Are They So Dangerous? Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-a-super-typhoon-and-why-are-they-so-dangerous/?bxid=5bd6761b3f92a41245dde413&cndid=37243643&esrc=AUTO_OTHER&mbid=CRMWIR092120&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_DAILY_ZZ&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_mailing=WIR_Daily_110420&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_term=list2_p2
With the typical influx of typhoons (i.e., during the wet season there are months that can be referred to as ‘typhoon season’) and the prospects of super typhoons becoming more regular, there is now a need to review infrastructure, building guidelines and standards for cities and municipalities to become more resilient vs. these phenomena. Not long ago, disaster resilience became part of the agenda for infrastructure development; including maintenance and retrofitting vs. the anticipated calamities from typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruption that are experienced in many parts of the country. Perhaps the transportation system can be structured to be more disaster-resistant. And, if these phenomena happen, the transportation system can survive and serve for relief operations.
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New WHO publication on transport in the context of COVID-19
I’m just sharing the new publication from the United Nations (UN) World Health Organization (WHO) – Supporting healthy urban transport and mobility in the context of COVID-19:
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240012554
The brief document contains recommendations for travelers and transport service providers. It is a compact, concise reference for everyone as we continue to deal with the impacts of COVID-19.
On the safety of transit use during the pandemic
Here is another quick share of an article that reports on a study showing that there is no direct correlation between COVID-19 and public transportation use:
editor@aashto.org (October 2, 2020) Study: No Direct Correlation Between COVID-19, Transit System Use. AASHTO Journal. https://aashtojournal.org/2020/10/02/study-no-direct-correlation-between-covid-19-transit-system-use/
Such articles and the study (there is a link in the article for the report) support the notion that public transportation can be made safe for use by commuters during the pandemic. The report is a compilation of best practices around the world that can be replicated here, for example, in order to assure the riding public that public transport (can be) is safe. Needless to say, car use is still less preferred and other findings have also supported active transport whenever applicable. This reference is both relevant and timely given the new pronouncement (or was it a proposal?) from the Philippines’ Department of Transportation (DOTr) to implement what they termed as “one seat apart” seating in public utility vehicles in order to increase the capacity of public transport in the country. The department has limited the number of road public transport vehicles and the current physical distancing requirements have reduced vehicle capacities to 20-30% of their seating capacities. It is worse for rail transit as designated spaces/seats in trains translated to capacities less than 10% of pre-lockdown numbers.
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Caught (up) in traffic 