The Future of Urban Transport. Less Petrol and Pollution...?

Air pollution in large cities represents a major health risk, and much of it is caused by cars. At the same time, and I don’t think I’m playing Cassandra here, we probably shall run out of usable oil in the next 100 years. I say “probably” because estimates have varied over the years, between running out in the 1970’s to never running out at all!

This means that whatever your take on it may be, the days of cars in their present form are numbered, and the sooner we develop alternative forms of transport the better. For now though, it’s all about pollution, traffic jams, and the respiratory illnesses caused by them. One way of combatting this is to reduce the need for people to use their cars in cities whilst still ensuring quick and efficient transit of people in urban areas. In other words, public transport.

I thought you might like to know about how they do things here in Lyon, France, which has a public transport system, called the TCL, which is second to none. (Most of the figures quoted here are taken, or extrapolated, from this site, which is in French).

Lyon is the third biggest city in France, with a population of  500 thousand people in terms of those with access to the TCL.

The system uses a dense combination of subway lines, tramlines, and bus routes, which, between them, stop at over three thousand places, with well over half of trips needing only one change. It’s almost impossible to find somewhere that is over five minutes walk from at least one form of transport, and the majority of people have the choice of at least two.

Not only that, but average waiting time for transport here, depending on which mode you are using, is 2 to 5minutes during rush hours and 4 to 8 minutes the rest of the time.

The implications for pollution and the use of oil (petrol/diesel) are enormous.
The system handles 20% of urban traffic but generates only 3% of urban transport-related pollution, because 70% of the system uses forms of energy other than oil. In one year the TCL covers 60 million kilometers (over 37 million miles) and carries almost 550 million passengers.

Looked at another way, each time someone uses public transport they emit an almost negligeable quantity of CO², and the savings in terms of barrels of oil and pollution are more than significant.

Take the bus for example, which is the only mode still using deisel fuel in some cases. A busful of rush-hour passengers means 40 less cars, which in turn means 70 thousand litres of petrol less in one year for rush-hour traffic. Multiply that by the many thousands of rush-hour buses that run over a year, and you are talking a lot of economised oil. If you count clean-energy Subway and Tram passengers, the figure runs into millions of barrels.

The effect of all this on urban pollution here is significant. Respiratory and other diseases caused by  petrol pollution are being reduced by this policy, and urban road deaths and injuries have gone down significantly. The streets are quieter and safer, and pedestrianised zones are becoming more and more common.

Bicycle lanes are to be found in most parts of the city, many roads have had the number of lanes for cars reduced to make way for bus and tram lanes, car parks cost a fortune and there are almost no free parking spaces left in the close inner-city (and none at all downtown). Municipal Police armed with contraventions are everywhere and fines are hefty.

Yes, the car is being pushed out of central Lyon, free parking is becoming scarce, traffic jams have been reduced in general but are even worse for those who try their luck up to the inner-city perimeter. And they are being pushed further and further out as time goes by.

The numbers are on the wall. We should be planning and implementing the future of urban transport now, because petrol will not last forever. Those countries and cities which don’t make the effort now are eventually going to learn the meaning of the time-honoured expression “Prevention is better than cure” the hard way......

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(Here is a detailed and zoomable pdf map of the TCL system)