Transportation: The Single Most Important Thing for a City

 Transportation. When you think about how big cities form you rather struggle with the whole Chicken and the Egg concept. What came first? While reading studying Chicago and how it came to be, the general the formation of “the city” (any city) became clear. The Industrial Revolution does seem to be the single most important event in social-economic human history. In my opinion at least, I am by no means an expert in this field, obviously. Besides capital actually funding city development throughout the Industrial Era, transportation is the single most important facet of how cities develop for a planner.

Transportation of goods and people. Transportation of raw materials for manufacturing; transporting goods to market; transporting people to market to buy the goods; transporting people to their jobs; transporting money and credit to fund this cycle of supply and demand. Although transportation now takes many forms: foot, cycle, wagon, bus, car, truck (lorry), plane, train, boat, internet, telephone, wire transfer. It is the single most important factor in sustaining the city and it’s economy.

Then why does transportation seem to be so undervalued as infrastructure? Yes, the car is big commodity now, but what about those who want to use alternative forms? Or have no other option but to use other forms of transport? Sydney has a well connected bus system, but its inner-city train is limited. Inter-city trains are quite efficient… Or so I would think if I didn’t open the Sydney Morning Herald to read about the latest delay during peak-hours that stranded thousands of passengers at train stations. On the other hand, had I not read in a travel book about Australia how during the upgrades to the rail system before the Olympics the monorail “spontaneously burst into flames (Bryson 2001)." I am not making this up.

So let us stop all this drama and invest in mass transit. Cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Edmonton (and many others) had it right at the beginning of the 20^th century when trams shared the roads with vehicles. I know in the Post-war Era Edmonton ripped up all the tram tracks in the city to build bigger roads. Ironically, it is now planning to resurrect the tram concept to connect the suburbs with the inner city… I am shaking my head. That infrastructure existed years ago; it was ripped out and is now being put back in!!! How inefficient is that!?

Now cities like Sydney have a handful of urban issues to deal with such as urban consolidation, the ridiculously out of control housing market (that I am still shocked by), water quality, etc etc. Transportation needs to be a priority. It is key to making the rest of the city function. For example urban consolidation, and housing affordability: how can you bring more people into the CBD or other suburban CBDs to live and work if you can’t even put them on a train/bus that can get them to where they need to go in a timely manner! Of course they want to take their car, but oh wait there’s nowhere to park downtown, so why would one live in the CBD if they have no choice but to keep their car and there is nowhere to park it? On the other hand, one cannot pay for a car AND pay for an outrageously priced one-bedroom apartment downtown! Are you kidding! As a result, people choose to live out in the suburbs where they offset their commuting costs by cheaper house prices (not much though). Are you seeing the point? I am trying to be clear: People put their transportation needs above everything else!

I am quite amazed at this conclusion; I honestly was not sure the direction my rant about transportation was going to take… Wow, what an idea.

Reference used:

Bill Bryson. 2001. In a Sunburned Country. Toronto: Anchor Canada.