To places on two wheels

Most of Lahore isn't large or difficult to get around on a cycle. So, why can't we adopt it as our preferred mode of transport?

By Ahmad Rafay Alam

TNS (http://tiny.cc/Y4VrR)

When the editor of this newspaper commissioned me to write an article on 'how Lahore can be made cycle friendly', I thought that making a list of things that could be done was one way to go about it, but to convince everyone about the need to cycle would be more effective. Once the need for cycle-friendly cities is understood, the 'how' is merely procedural -- a means to an end.

To begin with, we have to understand that our cities, and especially Lahore, are polluted; and that if we don't do something to improve the air quality in our urban areas, we are, for sure, killing ourselves. Urban air quality deteriorates because of an excess of commercial and industrial activity. It also deteriorates because of a scandalously poor sewerage and sanitation system. But the air in our cities is also made poisonous by the emissions of the many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of private automobiles that congest city roads.

Incidentally, the increase in automobile usage has lots to do with the way our cities have been allowed to grow. Because of our insistence of living in detached bungalows, our cities have fallen victim of urban sprawl (the alternative is higher-density, low rise and environmentally-efficient habitats with dramatically smaller footprints). Massive urban footprints means an increase in commuting distances and commuting time. And, since none of our cities have invested in public transport, the only means of getting around is the automobile. Most "planned" housing schemes involve using a car to perform basic household chores like getting milk and eggs. Meanwhile, using an automobile is the most polluting thing any one of us does on a regular basis. No amount of forgetting to switch a light off at night or letting the tap run while you brush your teeth can compare to the fossil fuels burnt while driving from A to B in our increasingly congested and polluted cities.

Secondly, we must realize that mobility is a basic human right. Because we don't, our increasingly automobile dependant cities violate this right on a regular basis. Because our cities have become so large, and because there is no public transport, only people who can afford access to private automobiles have the advantage of mobility. Anyone who cannot afford a car simply can't compete with the "automobile elite" when it comes to getting around for things like work, entertainment, family and recreation. In Lahore, less than 15 percent of the population has access to a private automobile on a daily basis. In such circumstances, the fact that there's nothing by way of public transport means that, immediately, the elderly, the infirm and the female population of this and other cities are, effectively, rendered immobile and their right to mobility violated. With the potential of so many Pakistani's dampened by simply the fact that our cities are automobile dependent, the right to mobility is one of this country's least appreciated fundamental rights.

Thirdly, we must understand that automobile dependent cities and lifestyles are, in fact, incredibly unequal and undemocratic. The amount of money governments spends on the construction and maintenance of roads -- which are enjoyed predominantly by the automobile elite -- is grossly disproportionate to the needs of the majority poor. For example, for the budget year 2008-2009, the Government of Punjab allocated Rs 35 billion to health, public health and education. On the other hand, the singular allocation for roads and underpasses was Rs 45 billion. If anyone wants to understand why Pakistan has so many sick and illiterate children, it's because the money that should have gone towards better schools, better medical education, better salaries for public sector doctors and better healthcare facilities is being spent on only those people who have the means to access private automobiles. That's certainly not what I voted for.

Budget allocations are not the only thing that is unequal or undemocratic. The automobile also has a strange ability to distort perceptions. What else can account for our indifference to the suffering of children begging at red lights. Something happens to people in cars that stop them from having a human -- a humane -- reaction. Socially, if you don't have a car, it's assumed you don't count for anything. And it's not unusual to suggest that, on our roads, a person driving a car is treated differently from a man walking or cycling.

Parenthetically, note that it's always the "man" on the street and never the "woman": our urban experience is startlingly misogynist, a natural byproduct of having anti-public and anti-person urban planning, and also a reason moralists find it so easy to point a finger at something they call our "culture" when defending the segregation of women and their gradual exclusion from public places.

We may claim our elections are proof of our commitment to democracy, but anyone who looks at a city street can testify that our roads are evidence otherwise.

Fourthly, we must understand that our automobile dependent cities are also a massive burden on the economy. Fully 55 percent of the petroleum that's imported into this country (the oil import bill alone is in excess of US$ 6-7 billion) is consumed by the transport sector. At the same time, government is struggling to keep the economy from imploding. That's involved accepting oil "facilities" from the Saudi government which means, essentially, that we haven't the money to go on purchasing oil with dollars we can't come up with. More cycles mean less cars and less money spent on fueling them.

And lastly, we must realize that cycling is a solution to all the problems listed above. Cycle-friendly cities are less polluted, as fewer fossils fuels are burnt when people opt not to use cars. Cycle-friendly cities are often less congested with traffic as more cyclists can translate to fewer cars. Their roads are safer and more enjoyable for pedestrians. They are safer, more democratic and, as a bonus, cycling is also something that almost everyone can do. They provide mobility and allow people to exercise their right to get around. Cycle-friendly cities are also designed smaller and are, therefore, easier to get around. This is true of Lahore, and, as an avid cyclist, I'm witness to the fact that, at the moment, most of Lahore isn't very large or difficult to get around either. Given the city's automobile traffic, getting from A to B on a cycle usually isn't more than 20 minutes longer than the corresponding car ride.

My grandmother and her sisters used to cycle when they were in college in Lahore. My father often rented a cycle along with other friends when they went out at night. As a child, I enjoyed cycling around my neighborhood and beyond. But in a surprisingly short period of time, cycling has become a thing of the past. Enrique Penalose, the former Mayor of Bogota and the man responsible for making Bogota a pedestrian and cycle-friendly city in merely three years, once told me that the reason for such a change in social practice was simple: it was because of the our dependence on the automobile.

Making Lahore a cycle-friendly city is a statement about one's understanding of the environmental and urban planning issues facing the city. It's a statement about one's belief in equality and democracy. And it's statement of one's commitment to making Lahore a better, cleaner, safer place to live. If one wanted to make Lahore a cycling-friendly city, they'd be best advised that they could (i) introduce car-free days once a month; (ii) tax the usage of automobiles; (iii) increase parking fees for cars; (iv) invest in public transport; (iv) re-introduce cycle rentals; (v) officially promote cycling or any number of other initiatives. Or one could simply go out and get a cycle for themselves.

The writer is one of the many environmentally active Lahoris who organise Critical Mass Lahore. Critical Mass events take place in over 250 cities in the world. Lahore is Pakistan's first Critical Mass city. Last week, Islamabad hosted its first Critical Mass event. He can be contacted at ralam@nexlinx.net.pk

Technology, Political Ideology, the Environment and our Cities

Published as Technology, Ideology & Cities in The News on 7 August 2009

In 1947, when the Electronic Number Integrator and Computer, one of the first-ever computers, began its operations as a calculator of artillery firing tables for the US Army’s Ballistics Research Laboratory, few knew the changes it would herald. ENIAC, as it was commonly known, measured roughly 8.5 by 3 by 80 feet, took up 680 square feet and consumed 150kW of power. No one seriously considered that the “computer” would serve any other purpose but as a calculator for the military or the business world.

The "ENIAC"

In little over two generations, advances in technology have changed computers. In today’s world, the computer is thought of as “personal” or as a “communicator.” It has seeped into every facet of human activity and what we can get done today on our phones, let alone laptops, would have been unthinkable sixty years ago. But what accounted for the huge change in perceptions about the role of computers in society? For example, to demonstrate just how pervasive the notion that computers would remain large, clunky metal boxes, Thomas J Watson, the president of IBM, is famously misquoted as having predicted in 1943 that the world market for computers would be less than the fingers of two hands.

Manuel Castells, the “philosopher of the Internet” and professor of sociology and city and regional planning at the University of California, has suggested that the remarkable changes in the shape, form and function of the computer have been driven by politics, as much as by technological breakthrough. He illustrates by saying that a “personal” computer would have been a political and, hence, technical impossibility in Cold War Russia. The state itself would have been forced to oppose technological advances that promoted private property. Western politics, by way of generalised distinction, has focused more on the individual. No wonder, then, that iPods are icons of individualism as well a particular political ideology.

The environmental and development challenges facing the people, economy and ultimately politics of this country are of epic proportion. Our population is underestimated at 160 million and we have a poverty rate, depending on whether you believe the figures approved by the World Bank or put forward by the Planning Commission, of anywhere from 17.2 to 37.5 percent. At the same time, the scandalous failure of every one of our populations stabilisation policies means that, in as little as the next thirty to forty years, our population is set to double. Rural-to-urban population shifts, motivated by a desire to engage in the cash economy of an urban area, will mean that, by such time, over half of the population of Pakistan will be crammed into its cities.

Our politicians are busy investing in infrastructure in their larger cities. It is their belief that it is infrastructure like roads and underpasses that will provide people the mobility they need to exploit their potential, that it is things like road infrastructure, five-star hotels, fast-food chains and airports that convinces foreign investment that Pakistan is a viable home for their money. But our politicians they have not considered any of the environmental and development challenges facing us. For example, last week, the Government of Punjab announced it was going to be “e-governed” by next year. I’m all for the efficiency of e-government and I’m sure e-government initiatives will bring transparency and speed to bureaucratic inefficiency, but clearly no one has given thought to the energy crisis. How is anything going to be e-governed when there’s no electricity?

Our politicians appear to be concentrating on investing in the infrastructure of large urban areas. Smaller urban areas are ignored, and the lack of investment in infrastructure there often adds to the population migration to larger urban areas. The government, meanwhile, in order to find the energy to run the current model, has been forced to turn to rental power. The recent exhortations of the Minister of Water and Power pleading for people to “conserve more energy” and directing government offices not to use air-conditioners are platitudes at best. The energy conservation we need in Pakistan is beyond the scope of individual actions. What is needed is institutional change. But if we really listen to what people like Manuel Castells are saying, we also desperately need a change of the current political ideology that reinforces environmentally-unfriendly and unsustainable urban growth.

Pakistan’s energy infrastructure relies on sources of electricity large enough to cater to the energy demands of its large urban areas. It’s because our cities are so large and so full of people that we need things as large as dams or massive gas- or furnace-oil based IPPs to provide them electricity. It’s because our cities are so large and energy-inefficient that alternatives like solar, wind and run-of-the-water power will never be able to provide for them. For example, both the cost and the amount of land required to accommodate a solar power station large enough to provide a city like Lahore or Faislabad makes the entire project unfeasible. But the cost and amount of land required for a solar or wind or run-of-the-water power station to provide energy to a city of 200,000 to 300,000 people is totally manageable. Also, the sewage and sanitation requirements of a small city are much more manageable than the hundreds of tons of raw sewage and solid waste a city like Lahore produces every day.

Smaller cities? Cities of 200,000 to 300,000 people! Impossible, some will say. Well, that’s exactly what people said to anyone who suggested, only 60 years ago, that computers could have a “personal” use. In little over half a century – in fact, since the time this Islamic Republic was founded – the ENIAC has shrunk to the size of a Blackberry or iPhone.

And according to Castells, this remarkable change in technology has as much to do with innovation as it does with political ideology. In order to have environmentally-friendly and sustainable cities, we need to have a political ideology that recognises that small is good. It’s an ideology that recognises that public good trumps personal interest. It’s one that respects the person and does not treat one only as an economic entity. It’s one that believes that energy conservation is more important than energy generation.

(You can watch the Manuel Castells interview that motivated this column here)

Small, sustainable cities; the key to the future

Pakistan's current installed energy capacity is approximately 20,000MW. By 2030, the Planning Commission thinks we will need somewhere in the region of 162,000MW. Where do you think we are going to find this energy?
As things stand, the single largest source of energy in Pakistan lies in conservation. But, as of yet, none of the energy or electricity policies to come from government have looked towards conservation as a means of providing energy.
At the same time, our large cities are incredibly difficult to supply energy to. They are very large and so need large energy production sources - usually situated hundreds of miles away - to pipe energy to them. An alternative: smaller cities. Smaller cities will require smaller energy production facilities and, it is possible, that such facilities be made to provide energy from renewable sources such as solar, wind or run-of-the-river.

Catherine Tumber writing in the Boston Review makes a compelling case for small cities. But she goes further, much further, in describing the potential benefits of smaller cities. Read here to find out more about the possible future of urban development.