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Generating the best ideas for urban development
Widespread use: People walk in the Moscow subway station
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span class="inline inline-center">Widespread use: People walk in the Moscow subway station. The Moscow Metro, which serves the capital and neighboring towns of Krasnogorsk and Reutov, has daily passenger traffic of 7 million people throughout its 317.5-kilometer network and 190 stations. JP/Primastuti Handayani
The third Moscow Urban Forum, held between Dec. 5 and 7, was an effort to generate ideas on what should be done by the local administration of the Russian capital. The Jakarta Post's Primastuti Handayani was one of journalists invited to attend the event. Below is her report.
Little Eric Polsky grabbed half a dozen tiny red-and-blue flags. With a grin, he ran toward the nearest wall, took a second to stare at the framed posters before pinning his flags to different posters.
'This drawing is good,' he said, pointing to one of the posters that he had just voted for. The poster was a sketch of a public bus stop that would be equipped with a solar panel on the roof, Wi-Fi connection and power sockets as additional functions to its main purpose as a shelter for bus passengers.
Polsky was one of many Moscow citizens who voted for their favorite designs being displayed in an exhibition called 'What Moscow Wants' on the sidelines of the Moscow Urban Forum, which took place at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall. 'What Moscow Wants' was a project organized by the Strelka Institute during the summer. Moscow residents, architects and designers were encouraged to submit their ideas for the improvement of public facilities in the city.
The 6-year-old Russian boy and his father, Anton Polsky, represented 10 million Moscow citizens who are directly affected by any policy made by the local government, especially on public transportation. All visitors to the forum could vote for their favorite designs and concepts of numerous public facilities that would be useful in their neighborhood.
The annual forum has been held to find answers and solutions to the existing problems that hamper citizens' mobility and comfort due to severe traffic congestion and a general poor quality of life.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that the main task the authorities had to perform to develop the peripheral areas of the Russian capital was to strike a balance between housing construction and creating new jobs. With Moscow expanding into its surrounding area, the city government needs to carefully plan future development.
'In 2014 there will be a core project, called the 'Reconstruction of ZIL Automobile Plant Territory'. We will maintain the balance between jobs and housing as this territory will provide accommodation for 35,000 families and host 45,000 new jobs,' he said, referring to a 378-hectare site on the outskirts of the capital that produces luxury cars and military vehicles.
'It is essential to increase transportation mobility thus achieving social equality and increasing the attractiveness of peripheral areas; it is also essential to prevent residential enclaves from appearing and, of course, to level-out the quality of education and medical services in all of Moscow's districts,' he added.
The mayor estimated that the population of the Moscow region would reach 22.8 million people by 2035, up from the current 10 million. It is expected that by 2020 passenger traffic generated by the so-called New Moscow will double whereas the capacity of the existing infrastructure is already exhausted.
The Moscow Metro, which serves the capital and neighboring towns of Krasnogorsk and Reutov, has a daily passenger traffic of 7 million people throughout its 317.5-kilometer network and 190 stations.
Indonesian post-graduate student Kurnia Suryani, a regular user of the subway, praised the transportation mode. 'It's much faster and cheaper to take the subway. It is more convenient too,' she said.
By way of comparison, for 150 rubles (US$4.5) one can take five subway trips regardless of the zoning or distance. Meanwhile, the taxi flag-fall in Moscow starts at 300 rubles.
Considering the increasing number of passengers ' which during weekdays can reach up to 9 million people ' the government built 150 kilometers of lines in 2011 and 2012. It plans to expand further by building 400 kilometers more, of which 80 kilometers will be in new territories, from 2013 to 2016. Once the system is completed, it will be the third-largest metro system after Beijing and Shanghai.
Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow and Head of the Department of Transportation and Development of Road and Transport Infrastructure, believes that in the future mobility in Moscow will be improved through perfecting the public transportation system, with primary importance being assigned to its accessibility, reliability and comfort.
'We know how to cope with these problems. This is our working guideline for the next several years. In principle it is not possible to implement all the transportation projects in Moscow due to the expense. This is why we try to attract strategic investors,' he said.
According to the United Nations' data, 100 years ago, 2 out of every 10 people lived in an urban area. By 2030, 6 out of every 10 people will live in a city, and by 2050, this proportion will increase to 7 out of 10 people.
In his book The Geography of Transport Systems, Jean-Paul Rodriguez, a member of New York-based Hoffman University's department of economics & geography, revealed that urban productivity is highly dependent on the efficiency of its transportation system to move labor, consumers and freight between multiple origins and destinations. He highlights transportation problems such as traffic congestion and parking difficulties; longer commuting; public transportation inadequacy; and accidents and safety.
Just like other big cities in the world, parking is a serious issue for Moscow. Car owners park their cars freely on both sides of the streets every day, creating congestion. Therefore, starting in November 2012, the Moscow administration introduced on-street paid parking along 20 of the city's streets, with the parking rate set at 50 rubles per hour.
Although the number of cars keeps increasing in the city center, the Moscow administration has no plans to impose an electronic road pricing system as one of the solutions to reduce the car usage.
'We haven't considered imposing such a system. We are not ready for the limitations on the rights of road users,' said Marat Khusnullin, Moscow Deputy Mayor for Urban Development Policy and Construction.
Instead, he said, the government had decided to decrease the number of parking lots in the city center, increase the number of trains on the underground metro lines and continue with the public transportation projects.
Through the annual forum, Moscow government has learned from other world major cities' experience.
Take London for example.
Richard Burdett, Director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age programmer, London School of Economics and Political Science, shared the UK capital's experience.
'London is a large, wide and round city, just like Moscow. As the city is divided into the West, which is for the well-off, and the East, which is for more deprived people, it needs infrastructure that provides better transportation but no extra use of cars,' he said.
He compared the average commuting time between Hong Kong, which has a population of 10 million, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, with 14 million.
'In Hong Kong, the average commuting time is 11 minutes whereas in Sao Paulo, it's four hours. The question is what do you do with your time? In Bogota, fathers switch from their cars to bicycles so they can spend time with their children sitting in the back,' said Burdett.
Former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who is chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Transportation and Development of New York, emphasized the principle of equality in city development, including in providing public transportation. 'Subways are good but it only solves people's mobility and not traffic jams. Why should we send those people underground? Why are only car owners allowed to use the road, enjoying the sunshine from inside their cars? Why must we build highways for car owners?' he said.
According to Peñalosa, urban highways lower the quality of human life. 'Instead of building highways, why not create avenues with wide sidewalks and traffic lights so that people can integrate with their surroundings,' he said.
Despite all the differences voiced by experts in the forum, the chairwoman Olga Papadina hoped that 'the forum could unite theory and practice, and to achieve a dialogue between the state and business in order to resolve socially significant issues.'
Burdett concluded that there was no need to put into practice 100 percent of the ideas proposed by the expert community.
'The important thing here is not the words but the actions that need to be taken: specific steps that politicians and officials will make tomorrow. Our task is to make people's lives where they live interesting,' he said.
And maybe after thorough discussions, the simple yet useful bus stop chosen by Polsky at the forum could be materialized and the boy can use the bus stop when he goes to school as he grows up.
