Itzel Garcia Mejia advocates that the world should learn from each other when it comes to mobility. Not only the emerging countries from Europe. The other way around, too.
Photo by Fionn Große on Unsplash
The discussion about environmentally friendly and inclusive mobility as well as sustainable urban planning is sometimes very academic and often only conducted within certain circles. Yet urbanization and mobility are no longer just the concern of metropolises like Berlin or London. They are global megatrends, as the Zukunftsinstitut confirms.
„More and more people worldwide are living in cities, making them the most important living spaces of the future. Cities are more than places - they are hypercomplex, dynamic systems, important problem solvers of global challenges, creative centers of pluralistic society, hubs of the globalized economy and increasingly powerful political actors.“
Zukunftsinstitut on megatrend urbanization
Weil immer mehr Menschen in den Städten leben, wird der Wohnraum knapp, und die Mieten und das Verkehrsaufkommen steigen. Diejenigen, die sich die Mieten in den Innenstädten nicht leisten können, verursachen durch ihr Pendeln auch mehr Verkehrsstaus im Umland.
Urbanisierung bedingt zunehmendes Verkehrsaufkommen
As a result of more and more people living in cities, living space is becoming scarce, and rents and traffic volumes are rising. Those who cannot afford inner-city rents are also creating more traffic congestion in the surrounding areas by commuting. Already, more than 50 percent of the global population lives in cities. By 2050, this figure will be almost 70 percent, which means that around 6.5 billion people will need mobility solutions. Urbanization thus also directly influences people's mobility behavior. And it is doing so worldwide.
"Tomorrow's mobility will be defined by the intertwining of work, home and leisure. Getting from A to B will no longer be enough in the future - the decisive factors in a multimobile world will be: Experience, sustainability and health."
Zukunftsinstitut on the megatrend of mobility
One person who is working to make mobility more environmentally friendly and inclusive worldwide is Itzel Garcia Mejia. Mejia is from Mexico City and studied civil engineering in Mexico as well as in Poland and a master’s program in urban management with a focus on sustainable mobility in Germany. She currently lives and works as a sustainable mobility expert and independent consultant at Cities Forum and Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Berlin.
Sharing knowledge beyond the mobility bubble
Among other projects, she is involved in GIZ's Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) project, which aims to accelerate the implementation of sustainable urban transport development and mitigation of climate change by mobilizing finance, building capacities and promoting innovative approaches. The project, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), promotes innovative pilot projects on urban mobility.
TUMI also trains and empowers leaders from developing countries and emerging economies with in-depth knowledge to create sustainable urban mobility, based on the premise that the transition to sustainable urban mobility requires a change in policy making and investment decisions.
„People working in the mobility industry, urban planners and policy makers from relevant ministries are already discussing what we need for a transport turnaround, but the concept also needs to become known beyond that. We want to inform students and citizens just as much as practitioners or CEOs - all over the world."
Itzel Garcia Mejia
The three basic requirements for sustainable, environmentally friendly mobility:
Avoid/reduce: compact (re)development of cities is required to reduce the trip length and the need for motorized travel. By connecting and intermingling residential, work and leisure districts, travel distances to services can be reduced.
Shift/maintain: mobility must be shifted away from the most energy consuming and polluting transport modes (i.e. cars) to more environmentally friendly means of transport (i.e. active mobility and public transport).
Improve: vehicle and fuel technologies need to be improved and become more environmentally friendly. The operational efficiency of public transport needs to be optimized and its attractiveness improved.
This is particularly important in the emerging markets, but of course also in Europe, says Mejia. Accordingly, more than 60 info events have been held and more than 50 publications published as part of TUMI since 2016. In addition, within the framework of TUMI more than two billion euros have been invested in sustainable mobility projects in BMZ partner countries to date.
Together with her colleagues at GIZ, Mejia is committed not only to sustainable mobility, but above all to inclusive mobility for all. "We need mobility solutions that work for everyone: women, men, the elderly, children and people with physical disabilities."
Here, individual countries can learn a lot from each other. "Not only emerging countries like Brazil, India or African countries from Europe - also vice versa: Europe can also learn a lot from South America, Asia or Africa," says Garcia Mejia.
Buses have the right of way in South America
BRT, or bus rapid transit systems, emerged in Latin America. These buses are cost-effective services at metro-level capacities that travel in their own lane and are therefore not stuck in traffic jams. The affordability and right of way of these buses are intended to make this form of public transportation more attractive. In Latin America, so-called cable cars are also becoming popular, as they provide a transport service for geographically and socially challenged urban districts in an inclusive, affordable and environmentally friendly way, says Garcia Mejia.
"Cable cars are an important form of transportation that connects unplanned low-income neighbourhoods in Medellín to wider public transport systems and to the neighborhoods where people go to work." "
In contrast, cycling hardly plays a role in South America, Mejia said. In her native Mexico, bike lanes are virtually nonexistent, she said.
Yet less than 22 percent of the population of the Mexico City metropolitan area travels by car. With a population of about 22 million, however, that's still 4.8 million cars clogging the city.
"In Mexico there's no culture for cycling yet - and it's also very dangerous both because of traffic-related accidents and crime."
Itzel Garcia Mejia
Strollers, wheelchairs or walkers are also apparently not provided for in city planning, Garcia Mejia says: sidewalks are very narrow and full of barriers, elevators to subways do not exist or do not work properly and there are still elevated “pedestrian” bridges that prioritize cars over people.
Europe can learn from Asia, Africa and Latin America
Bicycles are banned on public transport - except on Sunday mornings. That's when recreational cycling programs are implemented in cities like Mexico City and Bogotá. These projects consist of opening the main roads of the cities for non-motorized transport (mainly cyclists) with more than 20,000 participants in Mexico City and more than 1.5 million participants in Bogota each week. "I think that's great. In Berlin there are also similar projects, but implemented only sporadically and only on side streets. In Mexico City and Bogota, it's every Sunday on the main streets."
Garcia Mejia said the Western world could also take a leaf out of the bus-only lanes and informal transport of so-called emerging economies. The latter in terms of the provision of last mile solutions and inclusive mobility (e.g. to address women's mobility patterns), that services such as the tuk tuks and matatus provide in Asian and African cities.
Other problems are similar across continents: Ticketing and fare systems are often opaque, and women often don't feel safe on public transportation. "Sexual harassment on public transport is a big issue in Latin America, not that it can't be experienced in Berlin, but it's not comparable." Garcia Mejia tells us. Accordingly, campaigns here attempt to educate and sensitize men on how women perceive public transportation.
For the mobility turnaround, Garcia Mejia says, safety and the perception of safety also play a role: mobility must work for everyone - and everyone must feel comfortable with the mobility solutions on offer. For this to happen we need a collective effort, mainly from cities and transport companies, but also the involvement of researchers and civil society.