Rethinking urban mobility
Today, the first Monday of October, like all first Mondays of October, is World Habitat Day. We reflect on the state of our towns and cities. The day is to remind us of our collective responsibility for the future of the human habitat.
The theme for this year’s World Habitat Day is Urban Mobility. The United Nations has chosen this theme because mobility is fundamental to the functioning of cities and towns. Cities are the greatest inventions of human civilisation. Ancient civilisations such as Egyptian, Greek and Roman were built on cities. Significantly owing to mobility, cities became the centres of knowledge, culture, politics, trade and offered security. In some historic European cities today, you still find cobbled streets built at the height of Roman civilisation. Civilisations create cities and often cities die with the death of civilisations.
The modern city functions because of networks. These networks include water reticulation, electricity distribution networks, voice and data networks, sewer and other drainage networks and mobility networks such as roads, railways, cycle ways and footpaths. In a sense, the city as a system can be compared to the human body. For the human body to function properly, its networks (arteries and veins) must function properly. If the networks do not function properly, the human body can develop serious complications such as high or low blood pressure, stroke and even death. In the same way, if the city’s networks do not function properly, the city will malfunction leading to inefficiencies, loss of productivity, environmental degradation as well as reduced ability to attract investment.
This is why all who are involved in managing cities and towns need to pay particular attention to networks, including urban mobility, as it is at the centre of the life of cities. People must be able to move from homes to schools, markets, churches, hospitals, recreation centres as well as places of employment with efficiency, convenience and in safety. Goods and services must be able to move from one point to another with efficiency, convenience and in safety. However, all too often, this is not what is experienced in our cities. The problems with mobility in our cities can be attributed to levels of investment, investment priorities and planning/design issues.
Mobility infrastructure is by its nature largely capital infrastructure and therefore, very expensive. The level of investment in mobility infrastructure has not kept pace with the demand for such infrastructure. Most urban dwellers today cannot be reached by emergency vehicles because they live where vehicles cannot reach because there are no roads. Traffic congestion is becoming a common feature in many of the cities.
A mobility study carried out in Blantyre City over 10 years ago showed that only 12 percent of the city population used motorised transport (private cars and public transport) to get about the city. However, up to 80 percent walked to school, markets, hospitals, churches and workplaces and eight percent cycled. Yet investment in the urban transport sector is almost all in the motorised transport sector. There is hardly any investment to talk of in form of footpaths, footbridges and cycle ways for the majority of the population who walk or cycle. It can be argued that urban transport sector investment priorities are elitist as they favour private car owners at the expense of the majority who walk or use other non-motorised transport. Design of urban roads infrastructure is also skewed as most roads are designed without pedestrian pavements or cycle ways. In the age of Kabanza or Sakramento, we cannot afford not to provide for this form of mobility in urban transport sector investments.
The inability to design for or invest in non-motorised mobility infrastructure has led to pedestrian/cyclist/vehicular conflict on urban roads creating the conditions for increased road accidents, slow traffic flow and congestion. The poor and often non-existent facilities for public transport such as bus stops, functioning depots/minibus parks and public transport routes is encouraging the use of the private car. Malawi can make a contribution to addressing climate change through investment in non-motorised transport facilities as well as in public transport in cities.
Urban planning has a key role in facilitating urban mobility. It is only through the planning for compact, densified, connected, integrated and inclusive cities that we can achieve urban mobility. Spread-out cities such as Lilongwe and the urban sprawl that is happening in the outskirts of all urban centres in Malawi make urban mobility expensive and difficult to achieve, especially for the urban poor who often live very far from social facilities and employment centres.
The sustainable growth of our cities and towns is only possible with improved urban mobility ensuring the right balance and level in mobility infrastructure investments to achieve efficiency, convenience and safety in the movement of people, goods and services taking into account the mobility needs of all including people with physical disabilities who are often forgotten in the design of such infrastructure. As we observe World Habitat Day, let us all commit to working to ensure that urban mobility works for all.
