I just spent 3 months in Fort Worth Dallas, Texas, and the only time I saw a train, or a bus was when I was in Downtown Dallas which is a 30-minute drive from where I was staying. Extensive and unbusy, the streets are completely empty, free of pedestrians and cyclists. Everyone drives everywhere, considering there are 821 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. About 90 percent of households had at least one vehicle at their disposal in 2017. Hence why the traffic from Downtown Dallas to neighboring towns during rush-hour is so slow that it takes commuters long hours to reach their destination. This reminded me of my time in Nairobi, another city with ridiculously horrible traffic.
I do not own a car, and to be honest I am not a very good driver. However, I know I might have to buy one as soon as I stop moving around and finally settle down. Not buying a car would leave me with two options: using Uber or using public transportation. The former is pricey and the latter inconvenient. This certainly depends on the city I choose to live in, as some cities offer impeccable, reliable, and more affordable public transportation than others. Take the densely built cities in Europe, like Paris and Moscow, for example, whose transits were luckily developed before the automotive age. Unfortunately, African urbanization, not unlike in the U.S, boomed in the automobile age, and the private car remains the best available option in Sub-Saharan countries. Therefore, I could logically justify my need for a car with financial and time management arguments, but the culprit and main underlying cause is that our cities continue to build on car dependent infrastructures.
Transportation contributes about 20% to global greenhouse gas emissions annually, and 80% of these transportation emissions comes from road vehicles, according to World Resources Institute. Since the beginning of the world lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, China has seen a 50% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions likely saving 77,000 lives according to a study done by Stanford. An important step to combat climate change is to improve public transportation to serve as an efficient alternative to the preferred personal car ownership. My climate conscious generation seems to also prefer driving themselves which is counteractive to all the green movements we support. This is suggesting that even though we are clear on what the issues are, we are not so sure how to solve them considering how the blame lies with the established transportation infrastructures.
For teenagers and young adults alike, having your own car signifies independence, freedom, and complete control over when and where you get to go. Without even really thinking about the environmental implications of owning your own car, we just associate public transportation to inconvenience and poverty. There is a social status associated to the car, promoted significantly in our capitalist culture through mainstream media and advertising. In our modern society, it is not seen as respectable to ride your way around town on a bicycle. And yes, it sucks even more to be stuck in traffic for hours when you are in a packed smelly bus that stops every 3 miles, than if you are in your own car. However, if more people were doing it, and if there were more biking lanes, I think it would eventually look stylish to do your short urban journeys on a bicycle, which is also faster and healthier.
Transport and energy sectors together take up most of African infrastructure spending annually—about 80% in low in-come countries. 30% of it goes to roads spending, according a report done by the World Bank. The constructions of bigger roads and highways remains a big component of public infrastructure investment. And this is accompanied with the constructions of bigger parking lots, more petrol stations, and other elements enforcing our car dependent driving system. Governments are the most prominent financiers of public infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa at 80-90% of total capital investment. In most major African cities, taxi bikes are the norm --- the affordable alternative to terrible public transport and expensive personal cars used to avoid traffic, and the biggest contributor to traffic jam, ironically.
What is interesting to note is that “the wealthier a nation becomes; the more cars circulate.” The car business sector, and more recently, the electric car receives billions in investments, creating and supporting thousands of jobs. It might easy or reassuring to think about simply switching to renewable fuels, but this elaborate transition would shatter the car culture as we know it today. Billions would be affected, millions would lose their jobs and livelihoods, and there would be massive political and economic implications for both the public and private sectors: from car engineers and manufacturers, to fossil fuel businesses, urban planning designers and engineers, to suburban businesses, imports and exports as well as global supply chains.
Instead of investing in new highway capacity, governments should spend tax money on addressing land use, gentrification, and displacement within cities --- new shiny roads in neighborhoods that drive up property values so much, forcing low income people to seek new homes is a common negative consequence of gentrification. This is a major issue that Rwanda has been dealing with. Building an economy around city expansion, rapid urbanization and gentrification that pushes out many people into the rural areas. While many would agree that the loss of economic opportunities that living in the city offers is devastating, the Rwandan government compensates displaced citizens by incorporating them into cooperatives that drive business and enterprise in the rural communities. This is indeed a more sustainable system that boosts the local rural economies in the long run.
The newer generations understand that economic interests, cultural beliefs combined with an excitement for development and technological advances are the main reason why urban planning prioritizes driving infrastructures. However, we also know that things must change sooner than later. To avoid falling into the same car dependency problems as the U.S, African countries should emulate Asian counties such as Singapore, Japan, or China, in the way they mobilized massive public investments in urban rail networks when they had their explosive urban growth. African governments should tailor proper policies towards transportation infrastructures and prioritize mass transits and walking as well as biking over personal cars for a more sustainable future.