Transport modernization Part 2 – What is mobility?

Last month, we took a glimpse at the government’s so-called public transport modernization program, which is really geared towards environmental sustainability in reducing its carbon footprint. Of course, it comes with many frills and trimmings which are good, appealing to safety and comfort, and the bells and whistles people can have. The question is: Is this really the modernization people need and want? Let’s look at Singapore’s Land Transport Master Plan (LTMP) 2040 since there’s this telegraph desire for Cebu City to be like Singapore.

The LTMP has three broad stated goals but let’s zero in on the first one – “20-Minute Towns and a 45-Minute City.” It is described as “By walking, cycling, or riding, you can reach your nearest neighborhood center in 20 min. and spend no more than 45 min. to complete most peak-period journeys between your home and workplace.” Immediately we see where they pinpoint the issues to address --daily peak hours and home-to-work trips. We don’t need to solve the entire problem-- if we can alleviate the peak-hour traffic, we would have solved a good portion of the problem. Same as with the trip purpose, the problem is with home-to-work trips --the ones that have the greatest single contribution to national (and city) economic productivity.

Elsewhere in my previous write-ups, I have often articulated that all transport trips are actually economic losses in terms of time wasted in transit which would have been used for economic productivity (the only entities gaining are the drivers and the transport owners, of course). That’s why the economic viability of all transport projects is measured in “savings” rather than “productivity.” Especially time. Which brings us back to Singapore’s LTMP goals --of all numerous objectives one can have in transport, they singled out travel time as their first goal.

Yet, if we look closer at that first goal, it did not describe what kind of transport, and more importantly what kind of vehicles, or speed that they have. The goal is stated as a description of a city --one where you can go anywhere within your neighborhood in 20 minutes and go to work anywhere in the city in 40 minutes. Note that Singapore is more than twice the area of Cebu City. And it's for any mode --whether you walk, bike, or ride (your own car or public transportation). Since Singapore has excellent roads and highways, the “ride” in their case refers mostly to public transportation.

What Singapore wants is that any citizen should be able to arrive at their workplace within 40 min. from the time they get out of their homes. That does not only include actual travel time on public transport vehicles, be it be on a train, bus, or other modes. This is the totality of travel time of home-to-work trips, which includes, among others, waiting time, transfer time (transfer from one public transportation mode to another for multi-ride trips) and the last “legs” of the trip --called the first-mile-last-mile or FMLM connectivity. Now for reality check, compare with the daily images of hundreds of people waiting for their rides in Metro Manila and even here in Cebu. (To be continued)