A public transit oriented city: why is the shift so difficult?
- Xiaoqing Li
- Aug 1
- 2 min read
Image you live in a city where you can just walk out your home in the morning, through a direct, safe, pleasant pathway with greenery and bird 'singing' to boost your morning energy and release your possible anxiety to start a busy working day, and reach a transit stop or station without having to worry about collision with a morning rushing car... You get on the bus or train with a few minutes intervals to cater for rush hour demand so you won't wait too long... When you get off the bus or train, you walk into a pedestrian friendly district, where you can walk through the most direct path to your place of working, grabbing your breakfast or morning coffee along the way...
Image this is not a unique experience for privileged few, but for majority of the citizen, young, old, women, men, special needs...
Image this experience will not be jeopardized even during a rainy day or a hot day, or whether you are going to work, school, shopping, or entertaining.
Sounds good, right?
But in reality, why is it so difficult to shift our city in Southeast Asia to offer such experience, or a public transit oriented city?
Through my work across different countries and cities, THREE key challenges stand out of my mind, and every single one is complex enough to handle.
Silo government functions make public transport integrated land use planning difficult, if not impossible. Land use planning authority and transport authority, in most of cities, are parallel functions and they seldom speak to each other, not to mention to work together to create an integrated long term plan. A mechanism, which suits local context, is urgently needed.
Lack of policies to promote the use of public transport, making public transport investment not viable without heavy and continuous public funding support. These policies may include the ones making owning a car expensive and in-convenient, such as car tax, road tax, carpark provisions, prioritize other modes (e.g. walking, cycling, buses) in road and public realm design. On the other hand, these policies should make the last mile experience (for pedestrians and cyclists) direct, convenient, safe, comfort, and pleasant.
Fragmented land ownership and lack of effective & inclusive land acquisition policy for government to acquire land to develop public transit, which increases the land value dramatically but often is considered as the double edged sword.
Call for Champions, driven by sense of mission, from different, relevant functions of governments, to lead the transformation, to transform your city to the one that we imaged. Working as a group, we'll move the needle and crack the complex challenges.
Let's speak.
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