World Bank’s Engagement with Transport in Cities : The Early Years
This study looks at the project practice in light of the strategy as declared in the sector paper. The main focus is on the first decade of the urban transport lending program (1972–82). By and large, this batch of projects adhered to the strategy,...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/235751532573412101/World-Bank-s-engagement-With-transport-in-cities-the-early-years http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30415 |
| Summary: | This study looks at the project practice
in light of the strategy as declared in the sector paper.
The main focus is on the first decade of the urban transport
lending program (1972–82). By and large, this batch of
projects adhered to the strategy, except there was little
effort to engage with land use planning. Project investments
included roads in slum areas, improvements of radial
corridors and central area road networks, fleet and
facilities for city- and state-owned public transport
operators, and select investments in major road and urban
rail projects. On the policy side, projects strove to
improve cost recovery of public-owned transport operators,
facilitate the private provision of public transport
services, designate street space for exclusive use of buses,
and introduce congestion charges. In the institutional
dimension, projects assisted in setting up traffic
management units and some form of metropolitan transport
planning entities. Investment outcomes varied. Some projects
were highly successful, notably the two projects in Brazil
that focused on roads in slums and bus priority. Others were
highly disappointing, as in Tehran, where the government
went into major road building rather than pursue traffic
management and public transport improvements championed by
the project. Project policy initiatives produced mixed
results with less than complete achievement of cost recovery
in public transport services and a failure to introduce
congestion charges. Improved regulation of privately
provided public transport had several bright spots (e.g.,
Kuala Lumpur, Calcutta), but also persistent failures (e.g.,
Kingston). Efforts to set up traffic management units in the
city government gave some very good results (e.g., Tunis),
but the creation and nurture of metropolitan transport
planning institutions turned out to be far more difficult.
Overall, these pioneering efforts in both strategy and
practice were well conceived and executed and played a
catalytic role in most client cities. Weak aspects include
overselling traffic management as a substitute (rather than
a complement) to road investments, together with failing to
evolve a constructive approach to urban road network
development in rapidly growing cities. There were no
attempts to tackle urban road funding as a part of the
national road funding setup. Instead, over-optimistically,
several projects attempted to introduce sophisticated price
instruments such as congestion charging, which proved a long
shot in the weak policy and institutional environments found
in many client cities. |
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