Transcriber: Thùy Dương Reviewer: hila scherba
Have you ever tried to imagine how the streets of Xi An, Athens or Rome
or any ancient city looked like thousands of years ago?
Well, truth is not much different than today.
Buildings have changed for sure, but the paths are basically the same.
The planning of cities, in fact, generally have long lived impacts,
and a city's street network, like its density,
is fundamental in determining
what kind of transportation systems the city will have.
That’s why it’s much easier to prevent sprawling suburbs
from ever being built in places like Kenya and India,
and instead plan roads that are friendly to walking, cycling and transit.
This will avoid the need to retrofit cities
after they have been built on unsustainable patterns.
Over the next 30 years,
about two billion people will come to live in our world cities
and the way people move around these cities will change.
This change will be determined by the policies that governments enact now,
and these policies will have extensive impacts
on livelihoods, public health, social justice and the Earth’s climate
for decades or even centuries to come.
By acting today, we can ensure we are going to live
in neighborhoods that will be sustainable from the beginning.
Transportation can be affordable or expensive,
depending on how a city’s mobility system is structured.
For nations, cities, individuals and families alike,
transportation is a major expense.
In car oriented United States, for example,
low income families spend as much as 30 percent of their income on travel.
In more compact cities in Europe, people at the same income levels
only spend about seven percent of their income on transportation.
That’s a huge difference for these families.
Transportation is how we all access jobs, school, health care and other services,
and that access must be equitable.
We must make transportation affordable and accessible for everyone.
Per the Paris Climate Agreement, in the next 10 years,
we will have to cut emissions in half
and limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C.
We must invest now, today, in more sustainable forms of transportation,
especially public transport.
Using public transport is one of the easiest ways
citizens can tackle climate change on a daily basis.
But in order for it to be effective, we need to provide frequent,
safe and accessible public transportation for everyone.
If this sounds like a challenging shift to take on, it is.
Timing is key.
We need to change the mindset of people
and make public transport more inviting than driving.
Cities all over the world need more bus lanes, more bicycle lanes,
more rail transit and pedestrian sidewalks to encourage a shift to these modes
by making these options easier than driving a car.
Transportation is currently responsible for a quarter of CO2 emissions
from burning fossil fuels,
so another promising approach to reducing emissions lies with electric vehicles.
However, electrification won't get us to our climate goals.
We also need to focus on developing cities that are compact
with abundant public transit, walking and cycling.
Although the production and purchase of electric vehicles is ramping up quickly,
and this is super exciting,
it will still take decades for them to go mainstream,
especially in many countries where people cannot afford cars.
We need to focus on these other fundamental solutions
that help alleviate this pressure
and provides timely, affordable solutions for all.
It is only the combination of both electric vehicles,
along with the development of compact, transit oriented cities
that get us to our climate goals on the urgent timeline needed,
allowing us to reduce emissions by 80 percent in just 30 years.
That message is what has emerged from our latest study,
called the Compact City Scenario Electrified,
which is the fourth joint research study in a series by ITDP and UC Davis,
which models the climate impacts of possible future scenarios
in urban passenger transport.
According to our research,
both electrification and compact cities
have enormous potential to decarbonise urban passenger transport,
but the scale of the challenge is greater than either.
Our report shows that neither of those strategies alone
is sufficient to reduce emissions to the level needed.
We need electrification and compact cities,
along with public transport, walking and cycling to meet our goals.
Strategically, electric vehicles and compact cities make a great pair.
Compact cities could reduce our energy demand by 40 percent,
making it easier to ramp up renewable electricity
in time to meet our climate goals.
Compact, mixed use cities, public transit,
bicycle infrastructure and traffic control measures
could save the world five trillion dollars
in direct, public and private costs every year by 2050.
This five trillion dollars could instead be invested
in health care, education or other services for people.
There will need to be strong policies in every country
to achieve this rapid transition,
but these things are logistically and technologically feasible.
All that’s missing is the political well.
Climate change is urgent.
We must do everything we can all at once and all together.
But how are these cities going to be different from others?
Well, in compact cities,
people live within a short distance of their daily needs,
so they can easily walk or cycle to them.
These cities also make public transit more efficient
by having more destinations such as homes, jobs and services
around stations and shorter distances between stations.
Cities that have embraced these opportunities in land use polic
include Kigali, in Rwanda, Paris, France, Singapore,
Portland in the United States and Curitiba, Brazil.
High quality footpaths,
an extensive network of dedicated and protected bicycle lanes
and public bike share systems that integrate with public transit
are also a primary focus.
Cities that have developed these components include
Chennai, India, Bogota, Colombia, Sevilla, Spain,
Hangzhou in China and Mexico City, Mexico.
A massive increase in public transit must replace half of all car travel,
and the vast majority of this should be provided by buses.
Cities that have boosted their public transit effectively include
Seattle in the United States, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania,
Jakarta, Indonesia.
Electrification adds benefits to this equation.
These cities show us that change is possible.
So what can we do to act now?
We need to call on national governments
for a greater investment in public transport.
If we are going to stop the climate crisis,
we need everyone to have easy access to clean transportation.
Traveling by private vehicle divides us. Public transport unites us.
Let's all come together to invest in our public transport systems
and make our cities better for people and better for the planet.