By Prof. Evaristus M.Irandu
Introduction
Throughout the world, COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the day-to-day functioning of cities. It has paralyzed transport systems, endangered public health, and ruined their economies and livelihoods of vulnerable groups. For the lobbyists of walkable, unpolluted and vehicle-free cities, the past few months have offered an unprecedented opportunity to test the ideas they have long advocated for. With COVID-19 lockdowns drastically reducing the use of roads and public transport systems, city authorities around the world are taking advantage by closing streets to cars, opening others to bicycles and widening sidewalks to help residents maintain physical distancing recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the World Bank (2020) about 100 million people around the world are likely to become poor due to COVID-19. A majority of the “new poor” will be people living in cities and who are self-employed, mostly working in the informal sector. Most of these urban residents are not only income poor but also mobility poor.
The challenge is: how will the urban poor access jobs, food and basic services such as transport, water, education and health while at the same time maintaining social distance? How should urban street patterns be like in the new normal so as to ensure safety and security of all residents?
Empty Streets During Early Phase of COVID-19
Since the outbreak of Coronavirus in December 2019, most city streets all over the world have been empty as residents stayed at home for fear of contracting the deadly disease. Overnight, traffic jams and overcrowding in bus and other transport termini in various cities vanished. Air pollution also reduced drastically. As a result, cities became friendlier than ever before.
Given these benefits, there is need to reimagine, reorganize and make urban streets accommodate all road users. Already, many cities around the world such as New York, Chicago, Auckland and Bogota among others have installed more cycle and wider sidewalks to take advantage of the traffic-free streets and encourage safe mobility. Policy makers and transport planners should take advantage of the prevailing circumstances to plan for sustainable transport in our cities. There is need to make urban transport more inclusive, safer and environmentally friendly.
Issues Requiring Attention
While numerous issues need to be addressed as cities throughout the world emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the following are pertinent:
- How will urban streets look like in the post COVID-19 era?
- Will urban streets be more clogged by private cars whose ridership may surge as commuters shun public transport?
- Will cities promote non-motorized transport with more cycle lanes and wider pedestrian networks?
- Will there be new street patterns with designated Bus Rapid lanes especially in developing cities?
- Will the Central Business District streets be pedestrianized?
Answers to these questions will determine whether cities will transform their street patterns after COVID-19 to accommodate more people than vehicles. It is incumbent upon policy makers and transport planners to make our city streets more people friendly. Situations where urban streets are clogged by vehicular traffic during morning and evening peaks are unsustainable. Such conditions prevailed in Nairobi streets before the outbreak of the Coronavirus. However, like in other cities throughout the world, the scenario changed drastically during the early phase of COVID-19 when streets became empty.
Growing demand for Non-motorized transport
Walking and cycling are low-carbon modes of transport that enhance urban quality and facilitate social cohesion. They are affordable and flexible modes of transport without which the majority of the urban poor in many developing cities would be excluded from social and economic activities. Besides, rapid urbanization has put too much pressure on local and national authorities to plan, guide development, provide services, and sustainably manage their cities. As a result, cities exhibit poor accessibility and mobility, and the needs of majority of the residents remain unmet. Investing in better walking and cycling infrastructure can improve the situation.
According to UNEP (2016), access and mobility are key not only to sustainable mobility but to sustainable urban development. NMT, primarily walking and cycling, is the most sustainable form of movement, whether as a local access or an arterial or mobility mode. Yet, NMT in our cities often receives scanty recognition in policy and legislation as well as budget, resource and space allocation.
The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted mobility worldwide, more and more cities are transforming their streets to increase space for pedestrians and cyclists and to reduce car use after use the pandemic. These changes are designed to help people move about their business freely while maintaining social distancing. As the pandemic forces cities across the globe to grind to a halt, bicycle usage has soared.
There is growing evidence that many people are turning to cycling as a resilient and reliable option to fill the void left by public and private transportation. There has been a surge in cycling in cities in China, the UK, Netherlands, Germany and the United States. Similar trends are observable in other cities around the world. This trend offers a unique opportunity to embrace cycling as an integral part of urban transport system. Cities need more resilient and equitable mobility, not only to weather the current storm, but to prepare for future crises. Non-motorized transport consisting mainly of cycling and walking provides that kind of opportunity.
Cycling positively impacts public health by improving urban air quality (UNEP, 2018). By cycling regularly, one benefits from consistent exercise. It has been argued that by cycling, the chance of getting cancer tends to reduce by 40%, one is less likely to die prematurely and more than 50% less likely to have heart disease (Schwedhelm, 2020). Studies have also established a positive correlation between COVID-19 fatalities and levels of air pollution. This could probably be due to poorer lung health.
Heavy traffic jam near Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi
Source: Daily Nation, September 16, 2018. https://www.nation.co.ke/kenya/news/traffic-jams-the-cause-of-sleepless-nights-for-nairobi-residents–48410
An empty street in the City of Nairobi after COVID-19 outbreak
Source: OMG Voice, 18 March, 2020 https://omgvoice.com/ke/thanks-to-coronavirus-nairobi-streets-are-empty/
COVID-19 has posed challenges to city authorities the world over to rethink how urban transport systems might operate differently. It is high time cities used their streets as testing grounds for transformation. Today’s lockdowns could reveal solutions that have far-reaching benefits for cities long into the future, pointing the way to more resilient, accessible and safe urban transport. As Schwedhelm (et al, 2020) observe, ‘a city with more cycling is a city with healthier people, safer streets, cleaner air and better connectivity’.
However, cycling in cities is not smooth sailing as it faces some barriers. These include conflict with motor vehicles, poor driving behaviour and negative motorists’ attitude towards cyclists, poor maintenance of cycle lanes and invasion by street vendors (UN HABITAT, 2014).
Transport in Nairobi today is mostly motorized with those in the high-income brackets operating personal cars, while the middle-class are mostly public transport dependent. A small percentage uses commuter trains. Non-motorized transport (NMT) is mainly the preferred mode for those in the low income bracket for trips not exceeding 5km. Of the NMT modes, walking and cycling are dominant. Low income earners form the bulk of the population of Nairobi City. About 40% of the people in Nairobi walk to work. (https://medium.com/katie-hill-chronicles/nairobi-is-a-walking-city-6a70659c39d1). A new Non-Motorized Transport Policy designed to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists was developed by the County Government of the City of Nairobi (Nairobi City County Government, 2015).
Pedestrians walking alongside vehicles in Nairobi
Source: https://medium.com/katie-hill-chronicles/nairobi-is-a-walking-city-6a70659c39d1
Pedestrian and cyclist friendly street in Nairobi’s Central Business District, Kenya
Source: https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/54970-new-look-refurbished-nairobi-streets-nms-photos
Pedestrianizing City Streets
In response to COVID-19, cities should consider banning vehicles in areas with high pedestrian volume. This would allow people to move freely and safely without dodging vehicles. Pedestrian-only streets improve safety for pedestrians, improve air quality, reduce noise pollution, and improve public health. Pedestrian-only streets should be strategically located and easily accessible from residential and commercial spaces. They should be well-connected to the public transport systems, bicycle routes and parking. Thus, walking like cycling too, offers numerous health and ecological benefits to urban residents.
However, walking in cities faces many challenges. These are:
- Increased travel distances due to urban sprawl make it unviable.
- More road traffic accidents (RTAs) make it more dangerous.
- Sidewalks are too narrow for social distancing.
- The great allure of the car especially for the emerging middle class in developing cities discourages modal shift to walking.
- Urban planning, policies and investments often favour car ownership to pedestrianization.
For a long time, cities have been striving to become more pedestrian friendly, a process that has gained momentum with the COVID-19 outbreak. In post COVID-era, it would be prudent to widen sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure networks throughout cities. The City of Nairobi has not been left behind in pedestrianizing its streets to make them more people-friendly. According to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Engineer Michael Ochieng, a new implemented project gives pedestrians priority over motorists within and around the CBD. He observes that
“previously, we have focused a lot on expanding the capacity for motor vehicles. We have more pedestrians than motorists in the city. On our current site along Kenyatta Avenue, pedestrians at any one point are outstripping motorists by nearly 20 to 40 times,”
The plan will lead to significant reduction in the number of motor vehicles inside the CBD as the City authorities seek to better accommodate the influx of pedestrians (https://citizentv.co.ke/news/a-section-of-the-newly-refurbished-kenyatta-avenue-inside-the-nairobi-central-business-district-cbd-photo-courtesy-334787/).
Promoting Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Systems
Majority of developing city residents rely almost entirely on public transport to access employment, education and public services, especially where such services are located so far away that walking or cycling is difficult or impossible. Bus services where available, are often unreliable, inconvenient and dangerous.
As urbanization continues apace all over the world, cities are desperately looking for credible solutions to improve urban transport systems and reduce traffic congestion. Sophisticated and expensive systems such as underground subways are economically beyond reach for many developing cities. But, there are other cheaper, safer and environmentally friendly alternatives. One of these alternatives is the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/how-to-decongest-and-depollute-the-worlds-mega-cities/).
With massive reduction in car traffic during the coronavirus pandemic, cities have an opportunity to use road space more innovatively. Public transport commuters want reliability, quick service, affordable fares, safety and comfort. In addition to expanding cycling and walking infrastructure one way to improve the first two attributes is to implement exclusive or preferred bus lanes. This is why many cities both in developed and developing cities have embraced BRT. Bus Rapid Transit is a bus-based, rapid-transit service with a completely dedicated right-of-way and on-line stops or stations, much like the Light Railway Transport (LRT).
BRT is a cost-effective way of providing high quality service. Dedicated bus lanes and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems can help improve travel times and access to jobs while reducing emissions and making roads safer. BRT is used in many cities around the world. These include but not limited to Curitiba, Bogota, Jakarta, Singapore, Lagos, Mexico City and Dar es Salaam among others. Nairobi plans to introduce its BRT soon.
Conclusion
Throughout the world, investments in cities have been skewed towards car-centric development rather than improving NMT facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. However, this is gradually changing in many cities including Nairobi. Before COVID-19 outbreak, City authorities in Nairobi had embarked on pedestrianization of the CBD to make it more people friendly and to reduce road traffic accident rates. This is the trend in many other cities worldwide and its tempo has picked up due to corona virus. COVID-19 pandemic has forced cities to reimagine, rethink and transform streets urgently for people and not for vehicles.
References
Curitiba Bus System is Model for Rapid Transit, https://www.reimaginerpe.org/curitiba-bus-system. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020.
Daily Nation, September 16, 2018. https://www.nation.co.ke/kenya/news/traffic-jams-the-cause-of-sleepless-nights-for-nairobi-residents–48410. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020.
How to decongest and depollute the world’s mega cities. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/how-to-decongest-and-depollute-the-worlds-mega-cities/. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020.
Nairobi CBD gets friendly for pedestrians, cyclists as facelift takes shape. https://citizentv.co.ke/news/a-section-of-the-newly-refurbished-kenyatta-avenue-inside-the-nairobi-central-business-district-cbd-photo-courtesy-334787/. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020.
Nairobi City County Government (2015). Non-motorized Transport Policy. “Towards NMT as the mode of choice”.
New Look of Refurbished Nairobi Streets by NMS, 4 July 2020.Retrieved on 30th July, 2020. https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/54970-new-look-refurbished-nairobi-streets-nms-photos.
OMG Voice, 18 March, 2020.https://omgvoice.com/ke/thanks-to-coronavirus-nairobi-streets-are-empty/. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020.
Schwedhelm, A, LI, W. Harms, L. Adriazola-Steil, C. (2020). Biking Provides a Critical Lifeline during the Coronavirus Crisis. https://thecityfix.com/blog/coronavirus-biking-critical-in-cities-alejandro-schwedhelm-wei-li-lucas-harms-claudia-adriazola-steil/. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020
WB 2020. Projected poverty impacts of COVID-19 (coronavirus) https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/projected-poverty-impacts-of-COVID-19. Retrieved on 30th July, 2020.
UNEP (2016). Global Outlook on Walking and Cycling: Policies & realities from around the world. Nairobi.
UNEP (2018). Streets for walking & cycling Designing for safety, accessibility, and comfort in African cities. Nairobi.
UN HABITAT (2014).Bicycle use Study and analysis Report for Nairobi Business District. Nairobi.
Prof. Evaristus M.Irandu is a Professor of Travel, Tourism & Economic Geography, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Nairobi.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the University of Nairobi.
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