A Metrobus stop on 9 de Julio avenue in Buenos Aires, with the famous Obelisk in the background. Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jan 6 2014 (IPS)

Sustainable transport grew in the Latin American cities of Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

The left-wing government of the Mexican capital inaugurated the fifth Metrobús bus rapid transit (BRT) system route and extended the Ecobici Individual Transport System.

It also expanded the Ecoparq parking meter system – a new parking management scheme – into new areas on the west side of the city and opened up a new pedestrian-only street in the old city.

In the Argentine capital, meanwhile, the third Metrobús line began to operate with great success on Avenida 9 de Julio, and the government expanded its “Buenos Aires, mejor en bici” (Buenos Aires, Better by Bike) programme.

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the centre-right city government forged ahead with the construction of the Transcarioca and Transbrasil BRT corridors, while the second stage of the Transoeste BRT project got underway.

The network of bicycle paths was also enlarged, as part of the infrastructure planned for the FIFA World Cup, to be held in Brazil from Jun. 12 to Jul. 13, and the 2016 Olympic summer games in Rio de Janeiro.

In Mexico City, “there have been interesting projects, but they haven’t been carried out at the desired speed,” Bernardo Baranda, Latin America director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), told IPS.

He called for more initiatives and said they should be more rapidly implemented, aimed at “a further reduction of the use of automobiles” in greater Mexico City, home to more than 20 million people.

As part of that objective, he said it was important to expand Ecobici, which includes exclusive and non-exclusive bike lanes as well as a bike-share system.

What is happening in greater Rio de Janeiro, population 11.7 million, “is very exciting,” he said. “A great deal has been invested in infrastructure. Bicycle use has expanded. The centre has great potential for better transport conditions.”

The ITDP Latin America director said that in greater Buenos Aires, home to some 13 million people, “the use of public bicycles has been fomented, along with the idea of turning several streets in the microcenter into pedestrian-only.”

Roberto Remes, an independent Mexican expert in public policies on the environment and transportation, also pointed to interesting developments in the three cities.

He explained to IPS that in Buenos Aires, right-wing Mayor Mauricio Macri “is trying to build an alternative system to the subway,” which turned 100 years old in December.

Meanwhile, “in Mexico we see mainly plans. Apparently we’ll do ok, we’ll have an integrated system with policies focused on mobility and a person-oriented, rather than car-oriented, perspective.”

With respect to Rio de Janeiro, he said “they want their prepaid public fare cards and their institutional image to be the same across the entire country – something that not many countries have achieved.”

The three cities face similar challenges, such as heavy dependence on private vehicles, the proliferation of parking garage buildings, and virtually no progress on road safety, except in the case of Buenos Aires.

In addition, there have been social protests against the infrastructure work accompanying the development of sustainable, multimodal transportation systems.

Baranda said “the bicycle must be better integrated with mass transit, and more integrated transport is needed in order to make it easier to get around.”

On Jan. 15, the ITDP and eight other organisations will grant the Sustainable Transport Award in Washington, DC. This year’s nominees include Buenos Aires, Lanzhou, China and Suwon, South Korea. Mexico City won the award in 2013.

The prize, granted since 2005 to cities of more than 500,000 people, awards accomplishments such as improving public transportation and public spaces, reducing transport-related air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and improving safety and access for cyclists and pedestrians.

This year, the Mexico City government will build another Metrobús line and will expand segregated and non-segregated bike paths.

For its part, the ITDP will focus on reducing the number of parking garages, and drew up a study on the viability of a Metrobús line on the central Avenida Reforma.

For the 2013-2016 period, the Rio de Janeiro city administration plans to build 150 km of bike paths, as well as bicycle parking stations, to reach a total network of 450 km by 2016.

Buenos Aires projects the creation of another four Metrobús routes for 2014-2015.

The December report on “Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts of BRT Systems” stresses the benefits of bus rapid transit in Bogotá, Colombia; Mexico City; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Istanbul, Turkey.

The report was produced by EMBARQ, the sustainable urban transport and planning programme of the World Resources Institute (WRI).

The study shows that BRT systems have led to travel time savings, a reduction in vehicle operating costs, improvements in health due to reduced pollution, and improved road safety.

But it also identifies challenges such as declining quality of service, the exclusion of the poorest residents from the system, limited integration with other transport systems, and competition with subways.

Remes warned that it was not enough to focus transport strategies on merely establishing BRT systems without addressing other possibilities, such as urban trains.

“The existing models of financing, management and planning only allow for the expansion of these systems. If we create BRT corridors, we can cover the cities in a decade, but there is still a problem: transfers and switches from one system to another. There’s something that’s not working in the long-term vision,” he said.

In the 1970s, nations like Japan, South Korea or Singapore began to build railway networks to foment a mix of transport, employment, financing and economic development in big cities.

In Latin America, “we are a millennium behind,” Remes lamented.

Greater integration of public passenger transport is a major challenge facing the next government of the Mexican capital, one of the most traffic-congested cities in the world, if it wants to guarantee people the right to mobility.

The authorities of the Mexico City Federal District have invested billions in collective transport, but have failed to create a balanced, multi-modal transportation system.

“Part of integration is physical – making it much easier to move from one system to another,” said Bernardo Baranda, the director for Latin America of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).

“It also has to do with the design of stations, and improving the integration of multimodal transport,” Baranda, whose office is based in Mexico City, told IPS.

ITDP, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that provides technical assistance to cities on sustainable transportation development throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas, advises the Mexico City government.

The Metrobus system carries 800,000 passengers a day in Mexico City. Mariana Gil/ EMBARQ Brasil/CC BY 2.0

In the metropolitan area of Mexico City, made up of the Federal District and several municipalities in the surrounding Mexico state, there are 49 million daily trips, of which 53 percent are carried out on public transport and 17 percent in private vehicles, according to the Centre for Sustainable Transport for Mexico City (CTS-Mexico).

The transport system in this area of over 20 million people is made up of buses, minibuses, the Metro Collective Transport System and the Metrobus, which are often disconnected from each other. They transport 14.8 million people a day.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), in office since 1997, will be succeeded on Dec. 5 by his PRD colleague Miguel Mancera.

The metro system, with a network of 11 lines totalling 201 kilometres, moves five million passengers a day, a number only surpassed by the 6.8 million people who travel in private cars, according to figures from the road and transport secretariat.
The Metrobus, with four routes and a total of 95 kilometres, transports some 800,000 passengers a day.

Among the main factors contributing to the lack of integration in the expanding public transport system is the proliferation of shanty towns on the outskirts of Mexico City, according to experts, who are offering the next city administration different formulas for creating a more humanised mass transit system.

“A major concern is the lack of public policies for controlled urban development,” Daniel Zamudio, an expert with El Poder Ciudadano (Citizen Power), told IPS.

“Continual housing development means journeys are getting longer and longer, less safe and more costly,” said Zamudio, the public transport coordinator for the NGO.

In its comprehensive transport and mobility programme for 2007-2012, the government of the capital promised to create 10 routes for Metrobus and a bus rapid transit (BRT) system with pre-paid cards, exclusive lanes and articulated vehicles.

But only four Metrobus routes were built, and the authorities opted instead to build the 12th line of the metro, 24 kilometres long, at a cost of two billion dollars, to link the west and east sides of Mexico City. It is about to be inaugurated.

Ebrard also chose to build new stretches of elevated highway, which promote the use of private cars, according to critics of this move.

Total public and private investment in transport infrastructure has amounted to 4.7 billion dollars over Ebrard’s six-year term.

Even so, some of the plans for 2007-2012 remain pending for the Mancera administration to complete.

“We must ask the incoming government to be more aggressive in expanding Metrobus and improving current operations. The priority has got to be quality public transport. Work must begin in the most underprivileged areas, like the east of the city,” Baranda said.

On Tuesday Oct. 23, ITDP presented a plan titled “Perspectivas de crecimiento de la red de Metrobus y transporte integrado del Distrito Federal a 2018” (Prospects for growth in the Metrobus network and integrated transport in the Federal District to 2018), which proposes annual growth in the system of between 25 and 30 kilometres and the addition of 10 new routes by 2018, benefiting two million additional passengers.

The report estimates an annual investment of 117 million dollars. In 2013 a network linking the east and south of the capital could be built, a project that the city government has already planned.

The 10 new routes would save 290,000 hours a day in commuting time; signify a reduction in emissions of 11,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming; and reduce traffic accidents by 30 percent.

“It is necessary to create additional routes that feed into the Metrobus system, so that more people will start using mass public transport. Furthermore, bus stops and metro stations must be restructured to make them accessible and promote the right to mobility,” Zamudio said.

Since Oct. 17, commuters have been able to purchase the Federal District card and use it to ride both the metro and Metrobus. In future, it will also be possible to use the card to pay for bus transport, taxis and parking meters, as well as to rent bicycles.

Mancera has already been given the “Acuerdos para la Movilidad” (Agreements on Mobility) drawn up by “Citizens with a Vision,” made up of six civil society organisations that suggest expanding, modernising and integrating a quality public transport network.

They also point out the need to consolidate a legal and institutional framework for better public transport.

In terms of mobility, the group recommends articulating urban development and mobility policies; moving towards a more compact and orderly city; and achieving efficient and sustainable public investment in transport.

The measures proposed by ITDP would improve public spaces and passenger safety, reduce transit times, expand coverage by the mass transport network, decongest saturated transport corridors and improve the connectivity of the network.

“Mobility problems are solved by prioritising public transport. A good transport system serves the needs of the people,” Baranda said.