De-coupling Economic Growth from Transport Growth

The aim of the original BUSTRIP project was to help cities in the Baltic Region to plan their development to in the short term minimize the environmental impact of increased transport growth caused by economic growth, and in the long term to produce a strategy for Sustainable Urban Transport Plans (SUTP). This project was partly funded by the European Union.

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the basket case economies of Eastern Europe have sought to develop quickly in order to improve the prosperity of their people and to align themselves with the successful economies of Western Europe with the eventual aim of integration into the EU.

Rather than repeat many of the mistakes made by Western European countries Eastern European governments and NGOs have sought the advice and technical support of the EU to create a smooth and low carbon transition to a modern free market economy. Among these developing countries the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have all shown a keen interest to de-couple economic growth from transport growth.

The Baltic States are small nations. They have key natural resources of forestry and marine resources. They do not have any significant oil, gas or coal resources. In the past these states have been the meeting place between East and West where Gazprom Russian oil gets sent by pipes to Western Europe. Realizing the fragile and vulnerable state of Baltic State natural resources in the face of the immense flow of money represented by the natural gas business, initiatives to protect the quality of life for normal people in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania was a high priority.

BUSTRIP activities started in 2005 and came to a conclusion in December 2007. They were a great success. Of the 11 cities that participated in the program all managed to improve their GDP with a minimal escalation in carbon emissions caused by increased urban transport. Sadly, things were set back greatly by the Global Financial Crisis that started in 2008. Baltic banks like Icelandic banks took huge hits in the economic downturn and many projects aimed at protecting urban environments lost their government funding.

However, the lessons that were learnt from BUSTRIP are valuable ones that can used to improve urban air quality and lower urban carbon emissions in other developing countries.

Foremost among the actions to create sustainable urban transport plans was to focus on public transport. Improving urban transport so that it could increase its capacity, reached major urban and suburban population centers, was affordable for most people, and that was as low as possible in carbon emissions was key to SUTP. At the same time, urban and suburban transport plans improved bus shelters, train stations and bus stations to create better security and more amenities.

It was found that it is much better to provide an urban public transport system that people enjoyed using and felt safe using to discourage people from taking their cars to work and for shopping. This is the ‘carrot’ as it were to make urban transport more environmentally friendly. The stick of higher petrol prices, tolls on roads and at entry points to cities only creates resentment to local governments and often leads to fruitless political struggles within municipal governments that detract from the real job of keeping urban air low in dangerous particulates that cause respiratory diseases and carbon emissions that contribute to Global Warming.

It is important to adopt a plan for sustainable transport policies that works with the existing transport system. The carbon cost of scrapping old transport systems and starting again from scratch is prohibitively high. If buses were previously used then the buses must continue to be used. These can be made more environmentally friendly by using more fuel efficient engines and the old buses can be gradually phased out and replaced with electric buses.

Tram systems are ideal for using electricity as the main means of propulsion for urban transport. Trains too. Electricity represents clean energy. It is vital to invest in infrastructure projects to extend the grid of train and tram coverage to cover a city as it economically develops and creates new centers of employment and business.

Another effective policy for making urban transport systems more environmentally friendly is to encourage people to live near their work places. This can be done with city planning that allows pockets of housing to exist in all areas where economic growth is also developing. It is also possible to use the tax system to give economic incentives to people to buy homes near their workplaces. The closer a person lives to his or her work place the greater the likelihood of them riding a bicycle to work.

Bicycles are the ideal form of urban transport as they produce zero carbon emissions or pollution. Bicycle production should be subsidized if necessary to make them affordable to all. Bicycle theft should be prevented by better policing and bicycle lanes should be set up where ever possible.

Finally, it is in education, in schools where the real battle for sustainable transport systems needs to be fought. Young people must be made aware of the issues at a young age. They must be made to feel part of the city and its growing prosperity, and so they will naturally seek to lower emissions and pollution in the future.

This website is full of articles looking to address the many issues created by the drive to make city environments clean and safe. Everyone wants economic growth but not at the cost of lower life quality. It is this balance between economic growth and environmental protection that http://www.bustrip-project.net seeks to analyze.