Promoting walking in Africa – what’s at stake? – Article by CityLab

Promoting walking in Africa – what’s at stake? – Article by CityLab

Africa is the world’s most rapidly urbanizing continent. Transit in cities will have to adapt to encourage walkability and prevent isolating sprawl. There has been a focus on ‘sharing the road’ for some time. This article by CityLabs written by Sam Sturgis explains the African situation.

John Howe, a widely published academic in the field of African infrastructure and transportation, posed a series of questions back in 2001.  Each sprung from a larger, underlying curiosity: Why haven’t African cities been investing in pedestrian infrastructure?

Why is this? Is it the very ubiquity of walking, or simply that it lacks any sense of sophistication, or modernity, that many seem to yearn for? Is it perhaps because it has been, until comparatively recently, largely an unqualified phenomenon? Or is it simply because it is regarded as unimportant?

The reasons undergirding urban Africa’s relative dearth of pedestrian infrastructure are the subject of incomplete debates on the influence of history and colonialism, among many other factors. But what is undeniable is that people in Africa’s cities commute heavily on foot. In Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and home to 10 million residents, an estimated 60 to 80 percent of travelers walk, according to a 2012 report. In Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, about 70 percent of all travel is done either on foot or bicycle. “The share of walking trips in sub-Saharan Africa is higher than in any other region of the world,” a 2013 U.N. report states.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Cities in sub-Saharan Africa, once shackled by colonial exploitation, remain relatively poor (though they are catching up). Poverty, as the 2000 book Compact Cities: Achieving Sustainable Urban Forms explains, is closely correlated to rates of pedestrian transit.

But now more than ever is a good time to revisit the relationship between Africa’s urban hubs and walking. In the 14 years since Howe explored the topic, both the perception of walking as transit and the state of urbanization in Africa have changed greatly.

Africa is expected to become the most rapidly urbanizing region of the world five years from now. Between 2020 and 2050, Africa’s urban population will triple, the U.N. projects, with many entirely new cities developing along the way. (CityLab has covered urban walkability and its potential benefits extensively, including herehere, and here.) For better or for worse, urban Africa’s sheer volume of pedestrian transit makes it the global epicenter of walking at a time when “walkable” cities have never been more in vogue.

Tackling a topic of such dimension is a daunting task. The African continent is too big and diverse to be summarily defined. Nonetheless, urban planning efforts  underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Nairobi, Kenya, demonstrate that some cities south of the Sahara are positioning themselves to be more walkable urban hubs.

David Rifkind, an academic that has studied Addis Ababa extensively, believes that walkability has always been an important part of the Ethiopian capital’s short history. Unlike other urban hubs in Africa, where the quality of sidewalks has eroded noticeably (if they are present at all) in recent decades, sidewalks are ubiquitous in Addis Ababa, and investing in pedestrian infrastructure has been a consistent priority. Nevertheless, the city’s accessibility on foot has gradually given way to sprawl.

The city’s horizontal expansion has been well documented, becoming so extreme that residents on the periphery, suddenly facing consumption by the capital city, have reacted in protest. In a 2012 report, American urban planner Wendell Cox warned of such perverted growth, arguing that Africa’s cities had, “become too spatially large for walking to suffice.”  By the end of this month, Addis Ababa is expected to complete an ambitious $475 million light rail project. This will be sub-Saharan Africa’s first rapid-transit network, David Rifkind says. And the new rail system should encourage much-needed residential density, mitigating sprawl as well as catalyzing greater volumes of foot traffic outside the urban core.

“What [the light rail] is going to do is open up all kinds of affordable housing for the emerging middle class,” explains Rifkind, who also teaches at Florida International University in Miami. Dense, middle-class communities are the lifeblood of more accessible, pedestrian-oriented commerce, he says. Just like young professionals in cities like Washington, D.C., Addis Ababa’s young workers are gravitating to neighborhoods around the new rail stations—even before they open. There, they expect to find retail shops and restaurants easily accessible on foot.

A man walks along the electrified light-rail transit construction in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The project presents an opportunity for the city to develop dense, walkable neighborhoods. (Reuters/Tiksa Negeri)

“The new light rail stations going out into the periphery of the city already have neighborhoods growing up around them,” Rifkind says. “It’s going to create even denser development. So you’ll have a whole neighborhood with all sorts of shops and restaurants.”

The state of walkable transit is far less rosy 700 miles south of Addis Ababa, in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. “The road is really contested. And there’s a lot of attempts to claim ownership, or claim rights to be on it.” explains Amiel Bize, a Columbia Ph.D candidate who has been studying pedestrian safety in Kenya since 2010. “[T]he default in Nairobi for the proper road user is the car.”

50 to 70 percent of all traffic accidents in Nairobi involve a pedestrian, according to Bize, who calls that a ballpark estimate and notes that the aggregate number of pedestrian fatalities is likely underreported. Nairobi represents a sliver of the dangerous environment pedestrians face across the continent. According to the WHO’s 2013 Road Safety Report, 38 percent of road traffic deaths in Africa involve pedestrians, which is 16 percentage points higher than the world average.

The ongoing battle for the roads of Nairobi is an extension of the city’s broader class segregation: Cars, a transit option for the city’s upper classes, command the road with superiority. Pedestrians, many of whom belong to Nairobi’s lower class of informal laborers, are funneled into dangerous and uncomfortable walking environments. (One study found that residents of Nairobi’s slums were twice as likely to walk to work rather than travel by automobile). But the government of Nairobi is signaling that it’s ready to break this socio-spatial status quo.

In February, the City County of Nairobi is expected to present a non-motorized transit policy, a first of its kind in Kenya. No formal proposal has been presented yet, but it will likely incorporate facets of the U.N. and FIA Foundation-sponsored Share the Road campaign, a detailed guideline for non-motorized transit put forward in 2013. (The proposal was developed with input from Kenyan authorities). And Nairobians eager for a more walkable, pedestrian-friendly city are anxiously awaiting the new intiative.

“Walking and cycling have been completely neglected in Kenya’s capital,” an African urban planning blog argued in December. “Kudos to the City County of Nairobi for starting a process of developing the first NMT policy in the country.”

Whether Addis Ababa’s rail network and Nairobi’s non-motorized transit plan will truly render sub-Saharan cities more walkable will be tested by time. Their efficacy will hinge greatly on whether pedestrian fatalities drop and if dense, walkable neighborhoods emerge. But they already represent a resounding shift in the perception of urban walkability.

Death Rides a Moto – global article focus by Foreign Policy

Death Rides a Moto – global article focus by Foreign Policy

The world’s most pressing public health crisis isn’t AIDS or Ebola or malaria — it’s a soaring number of motorcycle fatalities. And it’s costing developing countries billions. An article written by Foreign Policy, an online and print news outlet have placed renewed focus on road safety. It places a spotlight on the increasing rate of motorcycles in the low and middle-income countries and its rising burden of road crashes.

On a typically steamy afternoon in Phnom Penh, Chhay Hour, a 26-year-old engineer who works for Cambrew, Cambodia’s largest brewery, has been bargaining hard for a used Honda in the capital’s Prampi Makara district, known for its hundreds of used motorcycle shops. This will be his first bike. He used to walk to work from company-provided housing at its main facility near Sihanoukville. But he’s been transferred to a new job in the capital and will have to commute about four miles. Hence the need for wheels.

I ask Hour, a lanky fellow with a self-assured air, if he has a license.

“Who needs a license?” he replies with an amused laugh and raised eyebrow. “I have no intention of getting one. It’s just a piece of paper. If the police stop you — even if you have license — they will find some way to steal your money. If the police stop you, you just pay.”

This attitude — and this kind of petty corruption — is pervasive across Southeast Asia. If the traffic police don’t take traffic laws seriously, why should anyone else?

The graft, people seem to think, is just the cost of doing business in a developing economy — a necessary evil that greases the wheels. As one senior police official in Bangkok told me, “People are not complaining about it. If they can buy a police officer, it’s much better than the whole tedious process of going through the courts and paying a heavier fine. So they prefer it this way, even if it makes the whole society corrupt.”

Only about a quarter of Cambodia’s drivers bother to get a license, and a recent survey found that 70 percent of the country’s motorists didn’t understand the meaning of a simple stop sign. Which might explain why the country is at the head of world’s most-overlooked health crisis: the sharply rising death toll that has trailed the developing world’s motorcycle boom.

In wealthy countries like the United States, motorcycles typically represent 3 to 5 percent of the vehicles on the road, but a disproportionate 12 to 20 percent of the road fatalities. Across Asia, which is the epicenter of the motorcycle boom, two- and three-wheeled vehicles account for about a third of all highway deaths, with the highest numbers in Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, for example, motorcycle crashes represent 67 percent of all road deaths; in Thailand and Laos it has reached a staggering 74 percent. With the number of vehicles in the region doubling every five years, the number of fatalities is expected to grow commensurately.

On an official level, governments pay lip service to making roads safer and the need to accommodate the growing number of motorcycles, but they appear to view the body count as an unavoidable cost of economic progress. This, however, is a serious miscalculation.

According to World Bank estimates, road crashes are costing the economies of Southeast Asia between 2 and 3.5 percent in annual GPD. Loss of productivity due to death and long-term disability (the overwhelming majority of motorcycle fatalities are male breadwinners), the burden on the health care system and property damage are the main factors. Ratnak Sao, a WHO road safety specialist in Phnom Penh, told me that road crashes cost the Cambodian economy $337 million last year. “It’s not just the people who are killed,” said Sao. “Everybody pays.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Brian’s Column: Does Music instruct us to drive recklessly?

Brian’s Column: Does Music instruct us to drive recklessly?

Our regular columnist, Brian Bilal Mwebaze is back on all things youth and road safety, from an African perspective. This time, he addresses some of the messages in music. While many things interact with our understanding of road behaviour, could music be another factor in play? Brian explores!

February is here! The shortest month of our calendar, it’s only 28 days, so hold your horses. For the rest of us who’d really have loved to WhatsApp your Lord about our struggles with our school’s demands, take it easy because, we all know it: -the most successful things never came without hard work! Aint no kidding: See;

  • Nelson Mandela was in prison for a whole 27 years! And now, we all know about him.
  • It took Michelangelo 2 years non-stop to make his masterpiece David.
  • Michael Jackson was always forced to undergo more hours of rehearsals than his brothers by his father! And now, we call him the King of Pop
  • Wasn’t it hard enough to spend 9 months in our mothers’ womb? So, whatcha you worried about? 

It’s said that even Michael Jackson was the hardset worker out of all of his brothers!

Anyways, I don’t know about you, but I spent, literally the whole weekend following the 24th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where I had a chance to grab 2 signatures from the Botswana Minister of Gender and Zimbabwe’s Minister of Culture to #SaveKidsLives Campaign. Unfortunately, security didn’t allow me to take photos but yeah…Cheers to that! Cold Play says, ‘You can see your future in a glass of water..’-whatever that means, huh. Tired like a door mat, I headed home upon which I asked a mate to give me the ‘coolest music’ he’s got on his ear-thingy! Boy, I needed to chill out.

And boom, the music went like…

“I got this feeling on a summer day, when you were gone,
I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn,
I threw your sh*t into a bag and pushed it down the stairs,
I don’t care, I love it.
You’re from the 70’s, but I’m a 90’s b***h!”

Yeahhh…ofcourse I know ICONA Pop’s ‘I love it’ song which’s got great beats, but hell breaks loose when she confidently insists on crashing her car into the bridge and watching it burn.  I don’t know about you, but doesn’t such kind of music in some way influence one to think they are invincible? Take more risks on the road? Drive like they do in the movie? Couldn’t this be one of the confounding factors to the sad fact that Road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for young people aged 15-29?

What about the ‘You’re from the 70’s, but I’m a 90’s b***h!” Don’t break my leg because I might be wrong if I hypothesized that, this could trigger young people to think, we don’t need no advice  about how we drive or act while on the road. That we have all the answers all the time…

Does some music give off a negative message in terms of road safety?

On the other hand, I am not saying we should all have a Pope Benedict’s i-pod or Maria Theresa’s disc, I just think that, may be, we could be more rational, enjoying the music but toggle tasking onto the lyrics:-this could make us a little wiser, and be safe on our roads. Pardon me too, but am aint got no musicophobia syndrome thanks to Busta Rhymes FET Linkin Park ‘Together we made it, we did it even though we had our backs against the wall…’

So while music lyrics probably don’t determine your actions, lets be a bit less reckless in our messaging. After all, we MUST preserve the next generations and stop lives being taken on our roads. What I’m saying is, question some of the things you hear in your music!

Maybe everyone should take a listen to ‘Safe and Sound’ by Capital Cities:

“I could lift you up
I could show you what you wanna see
And take you where you wanna be

You could be my luck
Even if the sky is falling down
I know that we’ll be safe and sound

We’re safe and sound

Ahhhh, and there is 14th February….winks…if you know what I mean! #StaySafe #RoadSafety #Africa

Delft Road Safety Course opens for participation for 2015

Delft Road Safety Course opens for participation for 2015

After the very successful courses in 2012, 2013 and 2014, Delft Road Safety Courses decided to continue the course in 2015. The 2015 course programme will be largely inline with the previous courses and will be supplemented with key assets of the FIA Foundation Road Safety Leadership Initiative. Participants from all over the world, who took part in these courses, awarded the course with very high ratings.

Those who are interested in participating are invited to register online (www.delftroadsafetycourse.org) and submit a motivation letter in English. On the basis of this motivation and further qualifications, the course leader will decide on admittance to the course.

Background

Delft Road Safety Course lecturers are from universities and research institutes with the highest international reputation. Moreover we have policy makers and experienced road safety advocates to make a valuable contribution to the course. Our initiative strongly supports the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 – 2020.

Capacity building is seen as a key-component for improving road safety in LMIC’s and this course offers a unique opportunity for the professional development of road safety professionals.

The Delft Road Safety Course in action.

Who’s it for?
The course is targeted at road safety professionals from LMIC’s who are or will be active in road safety for a substantial part of their professional career. Potential participants may have a background in engineering, behavioral sciences, public health, law enforcement, transportation/land use planning, statistics, economics, education and public policy.

Registration Fee and Scholarship

The course fee amounts to €5100, including lodging for the 2 week period. Costs for travelling to and from Delft are not included.Registration willclose at July 1st 2015. The number of places is limited and they are available on a first come, first served basis! A limited number of scholarships is available.

FIA Foundation continue their support of the Delft Road Safety Course.

A scholarship will cover the course fee and the travel costs to/from Delft (economy class). The first deadline for submitting a scholarship application is April 1st 2015. The procedure for registering, scholarship application and awarding is explained on www.delftroadsafetycourse.org check out the information leaflet attached above.

New report: ‘Young Adults’ Licence Behaviour’ in the UK – RAC Foundation

New report: ‘Young Adults’ Licence Behaviour’ in the UK – RAC Foundation

A new report entitled, ‘Young Adults’ License Behaviour – Holding and Driving Behaviour in the UK’ written by the RAC foundation makes some interesting examinations on the changing trends in youth’s lives. Today’s young adults are experiencing a delayed transition to adulthood. Many young people are staying in education longer, entering employment later and making the transition to residential independence, partnership and parenthood at older ages.

A massive change of social dimensions relate to are questioned in this report. Since the mid-1990s there has been a decline in car use amongst young adults, especially young men. This report presents the individual, household and local level characteristics that are affecting the driving behaviour of 17-34 year olds in the UK.

The findings are fascinating, not only because they help explain the current situation, but because they point towards how car use may change in the future as young people move into employment, form families and change their residential status. If, as this report suggests, increased levels of education and female employment lead to greater licence-holding among women, car use on the roads tells us something about what is happening in society, which is of interest and relevance beyond transport. Equally, increases in educational enrolment and unemployment, or a rise in the proportion of young adults living in the parental home, may be associated with a decline in the proportion holding a full driving licence.

What are the changes in young adults’ behaviour towards holding a licence and driving behaviour? This report studies those trends.

This report reminds us that transport generally, and car use in particular, provides a means to an end. There is much talk about reducing car use, encouraging modal shift and meeting environmental, social, safety and economic policy ends. But it is too easy to forget that how people travel offers a window into how society is operating, both now and in the future. 

Key findings:

  • In total, 65% of males aged 17–34 and 58% of females aged 17–34 held a full UK driving licence in 2009–10.
  • Net of the effect of other factors (in other words when these have beentaken account of), the most important predictors of licence-holding among men and women aged 17–34 are age, area type, level of education, individual income and living arrangement. Other variables found to have a significant association, net of other factors, are economic activity status and housing tenure.
  • Young men and women living in London are significantly less likely to hold a full UK licence than are those living in other urban areas. Those who live in rural areas are the most likely to hold a full UK licence.
  • Individual income has a positive association with the likelihood of licenceholding, especially for women.

New studies show that the level of education, individual income and living arrangements impact on the the quantity of licence holders in the UK.

  • Even after controlling for other variables (including income and economic activity status), those with intermediate (i.e. GCSE) or advanced (i.e. A levels or a degree) education are more likely to hold a licence than those with no qualifications. This educational gradient is far steeper for young women than for men.
  • Once other factors are held constant, employed young adults are more likely to hold a full UK licence than those who are unemployed / economically inactive. Additionally, being a full-time student is associated with a lower likelihood of holding a full UK licence among men, but not among women.
  • Once other socioeconomic characteristics are controlled for in a multiple regression, living in the parental home is associated with a slightly lower likelihood of licence-holding for both men and women. 
        

 

Since the mid-1990s there has been a decline in car use among young adults, especially among young men. This decrease is associated with both a reduction in the proportion of young adults who hold a full driving licence, and a decline in the average annual number of car miles driven. It is important to understand the factors associated with young adults’ driving behaviour, since this age group may be leading a trend away from car use.
Register your event for the Third UN Global Road Safety Week

Register your event for the Third UN Global Road Safety Week

The World Health Organization website have opened a calendar of events to map activities taking place during the Third UN Global Road Safety Week taking place on 4-10 May 2015. For all organizations planning to run events during the week, you are encouraged to register at the WHO website. It is hoped that sharing information about your event will inform and inspire others.

Governments, international agencies, civil society organizations, private companies – all of us who travel the world’s roads – are encouraged to plan and host events on 4-10 May 2015 to mark the Third UN Global Road Safety Week. The theme of this Week is “children and road safety”. The Week will be celebrated worldwide under the banner #SaveKidsLives.

By completing the form, information about the event you are planning will be listed on the “activities around the world” section of the official global web site dedicated to the Week. It is hoped that sharing information about your event will inform and inspire others and will facilitate coordination of events in the same city or country.

Information received about an event will not be edited, and will be presented in the language in which it was received.

Kindly note that the Decade secretariat, hosted by WHO, may use its discretion about listing organizations on the Week’s web site; should there be any doubt as to the legitimacy or reliability of an organization, the organization’s event will not be included in the global calendar.