For decades, traditional transport planning has focused on improving conditions for private automobiles at the expense of safe sidewalks and bike facilities. Yet, the majority of the world’s people rely on cycling, walking, public transit to commute to work and get around their cities every day. Throughout the world, over 2 billion people travel on buses every day, most of these people are low-income workers. These people pay the heaviest cost when safe and affordable ways to get to work or school are taken away. Throughout the world, underinvestment and outsized attention to impractical and car-based technological “solutions” has detracted from, rather than built on, our cities’ transit systems.
As cities continue to rapidly grow, it’s more critical than ever that they commit to the best antidote to these harmful trends: fast, frequent, and well-funded public transit. Often, the steadfast options are still the best, and public transit remains the only way to move huge amounts of people quickly and sustainably. ITDP strongly believes that safe, modern, and efficient public transport can help answer these problems. Increasing the use of bicycles and the ease of walking is one of the most affordable and practical ways to boost access to economic opportunity for the poor.