{"id":2360,"date":"2017-02-08T10:21:32","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T09:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.revistaitransporte.com\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2017-02-14T16:50:24","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T15:50:24","slug":"city-lights-and-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revistaitransporte.com\/city-lights-and-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"City lights (and shadows)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is increasingly urbanised, and in just a few decades it will be even more so. Cities only make up a tenth of the world\u2019s land, yet today more than 55% of the total population (7,800 million people) live in them. By 2050 this percentage will have reached 70% of the world\u2019s population, estimated at 10,000 million. These are the figures handled by UN-Habitat, the United Nations programme devoted to housing and sustainable urban development, i.e. to ensuring that human settlements are adequate and decent for people and that they respect the environment.<\/p>\n

The process of urbanisation \u2013with all its social, economic and environmental repercussions\u2013 is happening on a global scale, at an increasingly fast pace and spontaneously, giving rise to urban settlements that lack the minimum infrastructure and services to ensure the quality of life and development of their inhabitants. Adequate planning of both urban growth and transport networks \u2013especially in large metropolitan areas\u2013 is one of the keys to making cities into habitable environments that are sustainable, safe, fair and friendly for their inhabitants.<\/p>\n

We cannot talk of city planning from one sole point of view or one sole model: we have to consider what makes each urban area unique in order to offer effective solutions that respond to specific problems.<\/p>\n

For this, we require political will, commitment from all actors (state, private and civilian), as well as availability of economic and financial resources, which will enable policies and actions to be agreed to achieve a sustainable development model.<\/p>\n

In the current context of rapid urbanisation, planning has new challenges to confront, such as slowing down climate change, backing sustainability and fighting against growing social inequality. For this, it is necessary to ensure universal access to basic services such as transport, water, sanitation, energy, communications and equipment.<\/p>\n

A highly organised urban model with sufficient equipment and public spaces, affordable housing and sustainable mobility offers people more opportunities of employment and training as well as access to essential services like healthcare and education, among others, thus minimising urban imbalances and inequality.<\/p>\n

The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III, held in Quito, Ecuador, from 17\u201320 October 2016, brought together over 35,000 participants and covered all these topics through numerous conferences and events in which the various agents debated and presented their proposals to tackle the urban problems of the future. Among its main conclusions were the pursuit of social inclusion and eradication of poverty, sustainable and inclusive urban prosperity, and the assurance of a sustainable, resilient environmental balance through city planning.<\/p>\n

The result of this meeting, translated into the so-called New Urban Agenda, gathered and took on the conclusions and commitments made by the international community in another two global forums of colossal importance for the planet\u2019s development: the historic Paris Agreement on Climate (COP21) in December 2015, in which 195 countries signed the first binding global agreement to reduce global warming and slow down climate change, and the 17 goals of the UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.<\/p>\n

\"In

In the first row, the Ecuadorian Minister for Urban Development and Housing, Ms \u00c1ngeles Duarte, the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-moon, and the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, former Barcelona mayor Mr Joan Clos.<\/p><\/div>\n

Mobility for urban development: Ineco\u2019s experience<\/h4>\n

Ineco, as part of the Spanish government\u2019s delegation, took part in this global conference, presenting its planning, consultancy and transport engineering experience, a field in which we have decades of experience, as well as in other, more recently developed sectors linked to sustainable development, such as management of water resources and waste or smart cities.<\/p>\n

The company has taken on an extensive range of engineering and consultancy work in these fields, to which it takes a comprehensive approach, marrying the interests of public administrations, businesses and society, and always including the environmental and social aspect to products through environmental assessments and socialisation projects.<\/p>\n

As such, Ineco has successfully completed projects of all kinds in relation to urban and interurban mobility: from technical, economic, financial, legal and environmental impact feasibility studies (such as those performed on the Bi-oceanic Corridor for the governments of Bolivia and Peru) to drawing up projects and supervising infrastructure construction (conventional and high-speed railway lines and stations in Spain, Arabia, Turkey, India, etc.), airports, highways, access to ports and logistics centres, etc.<\/p>\n

Among the studies carried out by Ineco to improve bus transport have been the reordering of buses in Algiers, the Bus Transport Strategic Plan in Oman, and the sustainable technology study for the buses of S\u00e3o Paulo. In metro systems, we have extensive experience in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, etc.) and in Medell\u00edn, S\u00e3o Paulo and Santiago de Chile. In terms of trams and light metros, also in Spain, we have worked on studies and projects in Madrid, Bilbao, Logro\u00f1o, Zaragoza, Le\u00f3n, Tenerife and Alicante, and on new schemes in Belgrade and Kuwait, as well as studies for tram renovation in Tallinn, in Latvia and in Pavlodar in Kazakhstan. Our suburban railway work includes the comprehensive projects between Caracas and the Valles del Tui in Venezuela, the studies for building a railway system in San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica, the Belgrade Light Metro and the Buenavista-Cuautitl\u00e1n line in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Comprehensive strategic, multimodal planning on a national, regional or local scale is another of the company\u2019s specialities; for over four decades we have cooperated with the Spanish government to develop their national plans \u2013PITVI (the Infrastructure, Transport and Housing Plan) is the most recent\u2013 but also with other governments such as those of Ecuador, Costa Rica, Oman and Algeria. Croatia and Malta, which are also planning their national strategies, commissioned a vital part of their plans to Ineco: that of preparing their national transport models (see pages 34-37) which, in Malta\u2019s case, enabled Ineco to take part in the development of the National Transport Strategy, the National Master Plan, and finally the Strategic Environmental Assessment.<\/p>\n

On a local level, it is worth mentioning the drawing up of Urban Mobility Plans, management tools to structure mobility policies towards methods for more sustainable movement in municipalities such as Hospitalet de Llobregat (151,000 inhabitants), Logro\u00f1o (228,000) and A Coru\u00f1a (244,000), where in addition to optimising public transport we also seek to strengthen non-motorised modes of transport, such as travel by foot or by bicycle.<\/p>\n

For example, in Muscat, the capital of Oman, the starting point was one in which there was considerable presence of private vehicles and absence of railway networks, and it was concluded that a new, well-run network of buses would be the basis for the future public transport network. Ineco designed and presented a plan for the city in 2015 (starting with route proposals towards a new management model based on a single transport authority, among many other aspects) and subsequently the Bus Transport Strategic Plan for national public transport operations. The Omani government acquired a modern, state-of-the-art vehicle fleet to equip new urban and long-distance routes, and has put in place, among other means, a new legislative framework which is transforming the public transport system in the Sultanate (see IT57<\/a>).<\/i><\/p>\n